FNED 502 Social Issues in education

June 14, 2018

 

Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability
Written by Subini Ancy Annamma, David Connor, and Beth Ferri

 

In the article, Connor and Ferri used the term "dis/ability," as a way "to counter the emphasis on having a whole person be represented by what he or she cannot do, rather than what he or she can.  The article also discusses how disrupt notions of the fixity and permanency of the concept of disability analyzes the entire context in which a person functions" DisCrit focuses on ways that the forces of racism and ableism circulate interdependently, often in neutralized and invisible ways, to uphold notions of normality.  Regarding minority children and education, the article explains how in the United Kingdom, Racism negatively affects education of many minority students.

 

Black Middle Class student’s educational and social experiences in the United Kingdom. Families of whose children receive should/need special education services and supports are denied such services and support simply because of their race. Families of the participant children are denied access to services typically granted to Whites. The authors of this study findings powerfully demonstrate that dis/ability continues to operate as a racialized barrier to equity in English schools.  

 

Race, poverty, and interpreting overrepresentation in special education. In the United States data firmly establish that Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately under-represented. Many students are being labeled as disabled students. When identifying students as in need of specialized services, the family’s socioeconomic status is added to the equation. There has been a significant increase in the rate of childhood disability over the past fourteen years. The impact of the home, school, and family factors (e.g., income, parent education, language background, and cultural diversity) are found in many educational systems across the country.  In many cases children are identifies as a child with a disability simply because these children are affected by poor nutrition, stress, elevated blood lead level, exposure to environmental toxins. Poor families are more likely to live near hazardous waste sites and that exposure influences overly affects poor these children and children of color.

Speaking of how unadjusted disproportionality reflects more than educational practices I would say this: Even if schools treated all students the same, special education identification rates would likely differ across racial and ethnic groups. The disproportionality fact(s) consistently records that children’s outcomes are causally affected by out-of-school factors.  Unfortunately, the exposure to all the above factors are a true prevalence of disability; which may be higher for these students. The impact of poverty on these student’s quality of life is alarming as low levels of achievement are clearly linked to poverty. One in four high school dropouts is unemployed. Today’s youth in poverty, who need skills to match the rapidly changing directions of our society, are failing academically.

 

What can we do as a nation to help the disadvantage children succeed?  We need more comprehensive social policy in order to help our disadvantage children succeed in school. We need to work towards better identification practices in special education. We also need to help states and districts collect and report race- and ethnicity-specific rates. I also know that forcing states to establish uniform standards is dangerously inconsistent with the IDEA mandate of a free and appropriate public education for all.  When identifying another student pushes a district over a risk ratio threshold, the district faces a clear incentive to under identify—that is, to withhold services from—children who already face a broad array of systemic disadvantages. So, instead, we should focus on building a better safety net and reducing child poverty.

We must make sure policymakers work diligently on getting the following policies in order to include and benefit all students.  Expand income support for families, they must reduce food insecurity while improving maternal health and birth outcomes through a robust SNAP program. They have to work hard on maintaining secure children’s access to Medicaid. They must continue to work towards improving the equity and quality of general education in the United States. We all have to work together to encourage school schools and districts to avoid “disproportionality”. We also have to be aware of the fact that schools cannot do this alone. We must not ignore the harsh realities of racial disparities outside of school is likely to hurt those very children advocates seek to protect.