Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-24T11:01:21.828Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Moral Conversation on Disability: Risking the Personal in Educational Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

The author explores disability in K-12 schools where attitudes, beliefs, and practices shape the school culture and influence enduring perceptions about disability among school professionals, students, and their families. Drawing on recent conversations among moral philosophers who view disability as a central feature of human life that has yet to enrich understanding of ourselves and others, the author encourages the practice of reform grounded in a process that begins with a “suspicion of the self” and a willingness to risk the personal.

Type
Feminism and Disability II
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albrecht, Gary L., Seelman, Katherine D., and Bury, Michael, eds. 2001. Handbook of disability studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Julie, Allan. 1999. Actively seeking inclusion. London: Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Gary L. 1998. Toward authentic participation: Deconstructing the discourses of participatory reforms in education. American Educational Research Journal 35(4): 571603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Gary L., Herr, Kathryn, and Nihlen, Ann. 1994. Studying your own school: An educator's guide to qualitative practitioner research. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Gary L., and Grinberg, Jaime. 1998. Educational administration as a disciplinary practice: Appropriating Foucault's view of power, discourse, and method. Educational Administration Quarterly 34(3): 329–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keith, Ballard ed. 1999. Inclusive education: International voices on disability and justice. London: Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Len, Barton ed. 1987. The politics of special educational needs. Lewes, UK: Falmer.Google Scholar
Len, Barton. 1997. Inclusive education: Romantic, subversive or realistic? International Journal of Inclusive Education 1(3): 231–42.Google Scholar
Len, Barton, and Armstrong, Felicity. 2001. Disability, education, and inclusion: Cross‐cultural issues and dilemmas. In The Handbook of Disability Studies, ed. Gary, L. Albrecht, Seelman, Katherine D., and Bury, Michael. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Michael, Bérubé. 2000. On the cultural representation of people with disabilities. Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 November.Google Scholar
Doug, Biklen. 2000. Constructing inclusion: Lessons from critical disability narratives. International Journal of Inclusive Education 4(4): 337–53.Google Scholar
Burton, Blatt, and Kaplan, Fred. 1966. Christmas in Purgatory: A photographic essay on mental retardation. Boston, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Ellen, Brantlinger. 1997. Using Ideology: Cases of non‐recognition of the politics of research and practice in special education. Review of Educational Research 67(4): 425–59.Google Scholar
Brown‐Clark, Stephanie. 2000. Seeing invisible disabilities: Reading the romantic body in medical practice. Paper presented at the Disability Studies Lecture Series, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, 7 December.Google Scholar
Leonard, Cassuto. 1999. Whose field is it anyway? Disability studies in the academy. Chronicle of Higher Education 45(28): A60.Google Scholar
Eli, Clare. 1999. Exile and pride: Disability, queerness and liberation. Cambridge: South End Press.Google Scholar
Lorraine, Code. 1988. Experience, Knowledge and Responsibility. In Feminist perspectives in philosophy, ed. Griffiths, Morwenna and Whitford, Margaret. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Jenny, Corbett. 1996. Bad‐mouthing: The language of special needs. London: The Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Jenny, Corbett, and Slee, Roger. 2000. An international conversation on inclusive education. In Inclusive education: Policy, contexts and comparative perspectives, ed. Armstrong, Felicity and Armstrong, Derrick, London: David Fulton Publishers.Google Scholar
Corker, Mairian, and French, Sally, eds. 1999. Disability discourse. Buckingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Couser. 1997. Recovering bodies: Illness, disability, life writing. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Lennard J. 1995. Enforcing normalcy: Disability, deafness and the body. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Davis, Lennard J. 1997. The disability studies reader. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Davis, Lennard J. 2001. The withering away of the disability state: A possible future for disability studies. Paper presented at the Disability Studies Lecture Series, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York. 3 April.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Hubert L., and Rabinow, Paul. 1982. Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Education for All Handicapped Children Act. 1975. U.S. Public Law 94–142. U.S. Code. Vol. 20, sec. 1400 et seq.Google Scholar
Anthony, Enns, and Smit, Christopher R. 2001. Screening disability: Essays on cinema and disability. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Michel, Foucault. 1980. Two lectures. In M. Foucault, power/knowledge. Selected interviews and other writings, 1971–1977, ed. Gordon, ColinMarshall, LeoMepham, John, and Soper, Kate. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Michel, Foucault 1982. The subject and power. In Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics, ed. Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Rabinow, Paul. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Francis, Leslie Pickering, and Silvers, Anita, eds. 2000. Americans with disabilities: Exploring implications of the law for individuals and institutions. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Deborah, Gallagher. 1998. The scientific knowledge base of special education: Do we know what we think we know? Exceptional Children 64(4): 493502.Google Scholar
Deborah, Gallagher 2001. Neutrality as a moral standpoint: Conceptual confusion and the full inclusion debate. Disability & Society 16(5): 637–54.Google Scholar
Deborah, Gallagher Forthcoming. Listening to alternative voices: On [special] education, education and disability studies (working title). Denver: Love Publishing.Google Scholar
Garland‐Thompson, Rosemarie. 2000. Seeing the disabled: Visual rhetorics in popular photography. Paper presented at the Disability Studies Lecture Series, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York . 5 October.Google Scholar
Giangreco, MichaelEdelman, Susan, Cloninger, Chigee J., and Dennis, Ruth. 1993. My child has a classmate with severe disabilities: What parents of nondisabled children think about full inclusion. Developmental Disabilities Bulletin 21 (1): 7791.Google Scholar
Billy, Golfus, and Simpson, David E. 1994. When Billy broke his head and other tales of wonder. Boston, Mass.: Fanlight Productions.Google Scholar
Halvorsen, AnnNeary, ThomasHunt, Paul, and Piuma, C. 1996. A model for evaluating the cost‐effectiveness of inclusive and special classes. PEERS project, California State University, Hayward .Google Scholar
Sandra, Harding. 1991. Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women's lives. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Andy, Hargreaves. 1994. Changing teachers, changing times: Teachers’ work and culture in the postmodern age. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Lous, Heshusius. 2000. Breaking the silence: Disability, education, and critical methods. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of American Education Association, 26 April, in New Orleans, Louisiana.Google Scholar
Lous, HeshusiusForthcoming. From creative discontent toward epistemological freedom in special education: Reflections on a 25‐year journey. In Listening to alternative voices: On [special] education, education and disability studies (working title), ed. Gallagher, Deborah. Denver: Love Publishing.Google Scholar
John, Hockenberry. 1995. Moving violations. New York: Hyperion.Google Scholar
House, Ernest R. 1979. Technology versus craft: A ten‐year perspective on innovation. Journal of Curriculum Studies 11(1): 115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 1990. U.S. Public Law 101–476. U.S. Code. Vol. 20, sec. 1400 et seq.Google Scholar
Phillip, Jackson. 1968. Life in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Keefe, ElizabethWare, LindaHowarth, Sam, and Blalock, Ginger, 1999. A pilot study of inclusive education models in New Mexico (1996–1999): A three‐year field‐initiated research project prepared for the New Mexico State Department of Education (ED 96–132 and ED 98–138).Google Scholar
Kennedy, Craig H., Shukla, Smita, and Fryxell, Dale. 1997. Comparing the effects of educational placement on the social relationships of intermediate school students with severe disabilities. Exceptional Children 64(1): 3148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder. 1997. Taking dependency seriously: The family and medical leave act considered in light of the social organization of dependency work and gender equality. In Feminist Ethics and Social Policy, ed. Quinzio, Patrice Di, and Young, Iris Marion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder 1999a. Love's labor: Essays on women, equality, and dependency. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder 1999b. “Not my way, Sesha, your way, slowly”: “Maternal thinking” in the raising of a child with profound intellectual disabilities. In Mother troubles: Rethinking contemporary maternal dilemmas, ed. Hanigsberg, Julia E. and Ruddick, Sara. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder 2001a. Caring, justice and disability. Paper presented at the Disability Studies Lecture Series, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York . 1 March.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder 2001b. When caring is just and justice is caring: Justice and mental retardation. Public Culture 13(3): 557–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simi, Linton. 1998. Claiming disability. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Longmore, Paul K. 1987. Screening stereotypes: Images of disabled people in television and motion pictures. In Images of the disabled, disabling images, ed. Gartner, Allan and Joe, Tom. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Longmore, Paul K., and Garland‐Thomson, Rosemarie. 1999. National endowment for the humanities institute on disability studies proposal. July‐August 2000. San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California .Google Scholar
Longmore, Paul K., and Umansky, Lauri. 2001. Disability history, from the margins to the mainstream. In The new disability history: American perspectives, ed. Longmore, Paul K. and Umansky, Lauri. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Dan, Lortie. 1975. Schoolteacher. Chicago: University Press.Google Scholar
Alasdair, MacIntyre. 1984. After Virtue: A study in moral theory. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Alasdair, MacIntyre 1999. Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need virtue. Chicago: Open Court Press.Google Scholar
Alasdair, MacIntyre 2000. The need for a standard of care. In Americans with disabilities: Exploring implications of the law for individuals and institutions, ed. Pickering, Leslie Francis and Silvers, Anita. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nancy, Mairs. 1986. Plaintext: Essays. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Nancy, Mairs 1996. Waist‐high in the world: A life among the disabled. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Gail, McGregor, and Vogelsberg, R. Timm. 1998. Inclusive schooling practices: Pedagogical and research foundations. Baltimore: Brookes Publishing Co.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, Margaret J., and Warren, Sandra H. 1994. The costs of inclusion: Reallocating financial and human resources to include students with disabilities. The School Administrator 51: 818.Google Scholar
Mehan, HughHertweck, Alma, and Meihls, J. Lee. 1986. Handicapping the handicapped: Decision making in students’ educational careers. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., and Rowan, Brian. 1983. The structure of educational organizations. In Organizational environments: Ritual and rationality, ed. Meyer, John W. and Scott, W. Richard. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Martha, Minow. 1990. Making all the difference: Inclusion, exclusion and American law. New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, David T., and Snyder, Sharon L., eds. 1997. The body and physical difference: Discourse of disability. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, David T., and Snyder, Sharon L., eds 2000. Narrative prosthesis: Disability and the dependencies of discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, David T., and Snyder, Sharon L., eds 2001. Representation and its discontents. Paper presented at the Disability Studies Lecture Series, 2 November, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York .Google Scholar
National Council on Disability (NCD). 2000. Back to school on civil rights. 25 January.Google Scholar
Norden, Martin F. 1994. The cinema of isolation: A history of physical difference in the movies. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Ann, Pointon, and Davies, Chris. 1997. Framed: Interrogating disability in the media. London: British Film Institute.Google Scholar
Mary, Poplin 1987. Self imposed blindness: The scientific method in education. Remedial and Special Education 8(6): 3137.Google Scholar
Mary, Poplin 1988a. Holistic/constructivist principles of the teaching/learning process: Implications for the field of learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities 21(7): 401–16.Google Scholar
Mary, Poplin 1988b. The reductionist fallacy in learning disabilities: Replicating the past by reducing the present. Journal of Learning Disabilities 21(7): 389400.Google Scholar
Powell, Timothy B. ed. 1999. Beyond the binary: Reconstructing cultural identity in a multicultural context. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenholtz, Susan J. 1985. Political myths about education reform: Lessons from research on teaching. Phi Delta Kappn 66(5): 349–55.Google Scholar
Sarason, Seymour B., and Doris, John 1982. Public policy and the handicapped: The case of mainstreaming. In Eighty‐first yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, ed. Lieberman, Ann and McLaughlin, Milbury. Chicago: NSSE.Google Scholar
Seymour, Sarason. 1990. The predictable failure of education reform: San Francisco, California: Josey Bass.Google Scholar
Seymour, Sarason 1996. Revisiting “The culture of the school and the problem of change.” New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Joseph P. 1993. No pity. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Silvers, AnitaWasserman, David, and Mahowald, Mary B., eds. 1998. Disability, difference, discrimination: Perspectives on justice in bioethics and public policy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Skrtic, Thomas M. 1991. Behind special education: A critical analysis of professional culture and school organisation. Denver: Love Publishing.Google Scholar
Skrtic, Thomas M. ed. 1995. Disability and democracy: Reconstructing [Special] Education for Post‐modernity. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Skrtic, Thomas M., and Ware, Linda P. 1992. Reflective teaching and the problem of school organization. In Teacher personal theorizing: Connecting curriculum practice, theory, and research, ed. Ross, E. Wayne, Cornett, Jeffrey W., and McCutcheon, Gail. New York: State University Press.Google Scholar
Roger, Slee. 1997. Imported or important theory? Sociological interrogations of disablement and special education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 18(3): 407–19.Google Scholar
Roger, Slee 2001. Social justice and the changing directions in educational research: The case of inclusive education. International Journal of Inclusive Education 5(2/3): 167–77.Google Scholar
Snyder, Sharon L., and Mitchell, David T. 1996. Vital signs: Crip culture talks back. Fanlight Distributors: Boston, Mass .Google Scholar
Staub, DeborahSpaulding, Megan, Peck, Charles A., Gallucci, Chrysan, and Schwartz, Ilene S. 1996. Using nondisabled peers to support the inclusion of students with disabilities at the junior high school level. The Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps 21 (4): 194205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiker, Henri‐Jacques. 1999. A history of disability. Trans. Sayers, William. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sally, Tomlinson. 1982. A sociology of special education. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul.Google Scholar
Sally, Tomlinson 1996. Conflicts and dilemmas for professionals in special education In Disability and the dilemmas of education and justice, ed. Christensen, Carol and Rizvi, Fazal. Buckingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
U. S. Department of Education. 1999. Twentieth annual report to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Wade, Cheryl Marie. 2000. Disability culture rap. Advocating change together St. Paul: Advocating Change Together, Inc.Google Scholar
Ware, Linda P. 1994a. Contextual barriers to collaboration. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation 5(4): 339–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ware, Linda P. 1994b. Innovative instructional practices: A naturalistic study of the structural and cultural conditions of change. Ph. D. diss. University of Kansas, Lawrence .Google Scholar
Ware, Linda P. 1999. My kid and kids kinda like him. In Inclusive education: International voices on disability and justice, ed. Ballard, Keith. London: Falmer Press.Google Scholar
Ware, Linda P. 2000a. A collaborative inquiry on understanding disability in secondary and post‐secondary settings. Research proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities, 15 April.Google Scholar
Ware, Linda P. 2000b. Inclusive education. In Knowledge and power in the global economy: Politics and the rhetoric of school reform, ed. Gabbard, David A.Mahwah, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.Google Scholar
Ware, Linda P. 2000c. Sunflowers, enchantment and empires: Reflections on inclusive education in the United States. In Inclusive education: Policy, contexts and comparative perspectives, ed. Armstrong, FelicityArmstrong, Derrick, and Barton, Len. London: David Fulton Press.Google Scholar
Ware, Linda P. 2000d. Understanding disability and transforming schools. Proposal to the Greece Central School Board of Education special study session on inclusion, 10 February. Greece, New York.Google Scholar
Ware, Linda P. 2001. Writing, identity, and the other: Dare we do disability studies? Journal of Teacher Education 52(2): 107–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ware, Linda P. Forthcoming. A collaborative inquiry in secondary and post secondary settings: A final report to the National Endowment for the Humanities August 2002.Google Scholar
Ware, Linda P. Forthcoming. Beyond special education: The fight to be in the world.Google Scholar
Karl, Weick. 1976. Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly 21(1): 119.Google Scholar
Karl, Weick 1982. Administering education in loosely coupled schools. Phi Delta Kappan 63(10): 673–76.Google Scholar
Susan, Wendell. 1996. The rejected body: Feminist philosophical reflections on disability. Routledge: New York.Google Scholar
Dan, Wilkins. 1999. Conversation with author. 18 July.Google Scholar