The construction, expression, and consequences of difference in education practice, policy, and research

Abstract

In this essay, I discuss three key ideas related to the construction and treatment of “difference” in and around schools and schooling. First, just as difference is most commonly located within marginalized populations at the intersections and along the lines of race, disability, social class, national origin, sexuality, sex, language, and religion, such “locating” is done by those socialized and reinforced to view themselves as normal and the norm against which they compare those different from them. Therefore, normalcy operates to maintain positions of superiority for some and inferiority for others. Next, the situation of disability at the intersection of non-dominant identities can be a powerful tool for disrupting normative spaces, practices, and beliefs. Finally, I call for critical action that exposes the negative construction of and consequences of difference in the academy, noting how epistemologies, methodologies, publication outlets and formats, and sentence structures that fall outside what we associate with normalcy, and those who employ them, are also sorted along lines of competence and incompetence, leading to the dismissal or exclusion of disabled scholars, scholars of color, and those scholars engaging in more public praxis outside the academy walls.

Keywords:

• Disability; difference; racism; ableism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathleen King Thorius

Kathleen King Thorius is an associate professor of special education, critical special education researcher, and executive director of a USDOE-funded educational Equity Assistance Center. I facilitate teacher learning to disrupt Youth oppression at disability/race intersections. Critical whiteness, disability studies, and sociocultural identity theories inform my cultural historical approaches for developing and facilitating teacher learning with white/non-disabled educators toward the goal of inclusive education: a radical social, racial, and disability justice movement. I develop critical/practical approaches for showing and remediating how special education's foundations, practices, and policies function as a cloak of benevolence allowing white/non-disabled educators and spaces to sort youth by race/disability to/while maintain(ing) “good” identities. I have a strong record of facilitating partnerships with state departments of education and school districts to create inclusive education systems and have been awarded over 14 million in external funding. My work has been published in the International Journal of Inclusive Education, Harvard Educational Review, Exceptional Children, Remedial and Special Education, and Theory into Practice, as well as other dis/ability-related and interdisciplinary journals. I am coeditor (with Elizabeth Kozleski) of Ability, Equity, and Culture: Sustaining Inclusive Urban Education Reform (Teachers College Press, 2013). The author acknowledges funding support from the US Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education under Grant S004D110021. However, the ideas expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.