An education and negotiation of differences: the ‘schooling’ experiences of English-speaking Canadian children growing up with polio during the 1940s and 1950s

Abstract

In this paper we present oral narratives focusing on schooling experiences of Canadians who lived with polio as children between 1940 and 1959. We argue that disabled students with polio received an education about the differences ascribed to them by individuals in authority (teachers, principals), by other young people, and through the dominant negative discourses of polio and normalizing, ableist practices of schooling. Using narrative accounts from participants’ interviews, we analyze their school experiences of difference: inaccessible physical and temporal spaces, bullying at school, exclusion from classes, and negotiating youth culture related to shoes, clothes and friendships. However, participants were not passive and they discussed how, along with families, they negotiated and occasionally defied normalizing processes. This research gives voice to a generation of disabled English-speaking Canadians, whose stories about school have not been heard before.

Keywords:

• disability
• polio
• children
• school
• bullying
• exclusion

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (410–2009-2272), awarded to Karen K. Yoshida as Principal Investigator.

Notes

1. The Evening Telegram, The Globe, The Calgary Herald, and The Winnipeg Tribune.

2. Oxfords were hard-soled uppers, often brown and known for their sturdiness.