Rubberbanding in a liminal space: teachers contemplate intersections of dis/ability and race in inclusive classrooms

ABSTRACT

Public education in the United States has consistently and persistently failed significant numbers of students of color labeled with dis/abilities in terms of providing a quality education that leads to graduation. DisCrit theory provides a lens for understanding the impact of students’ intersectional, marginalized identities of race and dis/ability on outcomes. We employed a grounded theory approach to explore how racist deficit perspectives and the ableist medical model of dis/ability simultaneously inform and limit what teachers imagine for their students and themselves. Key findings revealed teachers struggled to align their espoused values with their classroom experiences. Faced with challenges, teachers did not demonstrate intersectional thinking related to race and dis/ability; instead they snapped back to deficit perspectives, stretched into questioning, and rarely took action. To counter this, we identified entry points and generated recommendations to support teachers building an intersectional approach to understanding multiply marginalized students.

KEYWORDS:

• Dis/ability critical race theory
• culturally sustaining pedagogy
• intersectionality
• teacher perceptions
• teacher development
• integrated co-teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).