Who is Responsible for the Racialized Practices Evident within (Special) Education and What Can Be Done to Change Them?

Abstract

I pose a straightforward rhetorical question about disproportionality and endeavor to answer it with view to suggesting what can be done in terms of linking theory to practice. First, I frame disproportionality by asking where does it come from? Second, I describe multiple, interconnected historical phenomena to be considered when educators contemplate the complex topic of overrepresentation, ranging from the genesis of historical understandings of human difference becoming categorized into hierarchies of race, to the perceptions of race and dis/ability held by contemporary educators. Third, I argue that connections among these phenomena reified deficit-based understandings of vulnerable children and youth, creating a disabled population that, in turn, continues the status quo of disproportionality within schools. Fourth, invoking the concept of the personal is the professional, I discuss possible actions within an educator’s control to help counter overrepresentation, while listing areas outside of school that simultaneously need to be focused upon.

Additional Resources

1. Danforth, S., & Smith, T. J. (2005) Engaging troubling students: A constructivist approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

   This book shares ways to build and strengthen relationships with students by getting to know them as part of helping their engagement in classroom learning. Authentic teacher–student relationships have a profound impact on students’ learning and wellbeing, and their cultivation is preferable to viewing teaching as primarily a technical endeavor. The authors share particular ways in which to work with and support students who have been labeled as behavior disordered or emotionally disturbed.

2. Culturally Responsive Teaching Matters! http://www.equityallianceatasu.org/sites/default/files/Website_files/CulturallyResponsiveTeaching-Matters.pdf

   Written by Elizabeth Kozleski and subtitled, Equity matters: In Learning, For Life, this short booklet explains why culturally responsive teaching should be the norm. It also demonstrates ways in which culturally responsive teaching is compatible with behavior management systems. Kozleski illustrates key features of culturally responsive teaching, as well as examples and non-examples.

3. Gould, S. J. (1996). The mismeasure of man. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

   This classic text traces the history of how people have come to understand human differences through various disciplines ranging from science to sociology, and the implications of their understandings throughout the past and into the present. The author focuses on taken-for-granted cultural practices such as labeling, categorizing, and organizing human differences. Educators are able to see the impact these ways of thinking has shaped current school systems of tracking, segregation, and overrepresentation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David J. Connor

David J. Connor is at the Department of Special Education, Hunter College.