Description
In 3-4 pages, double-spaced formal essay, students will draw on weekly questions to analyze a topic of their choice covered in class. This paper should focus on the ways in which disability and gender are entangled in the history, framing and ideologies operating in the construction of the body. The operations of race, gender, class, colonialism, sexuality, and embodiment as represented in the topic you chose. Students will need to draw on at least three external academic sources and one text from the course readings.
A) No title page (save a tree!)
B) Formatting your paper:
1. Name, Instructor, Class, and Date [upper left side]
2. Title [centered]
3. Number your pages [bottom right]
4. 12-point font; Times New Roman; double-spaced;
5. 1” margins all around [double-sided printing is encouraged]
6. Separate Reference page
7. APA,MLA, or Chicago are acceptable formats; pick one and be consistent using that
format throughout your paper
8. Paper must be 3-4 pages in length including references.
C) Grading rubric:
1. Citation of 3 external sources; one text from the course readings
2. Clearly state your thesis/argument
3. This paper should focus on the ways in which disability and gender are entangled in the
history, framing and ideologies operating in the construction of the body. The
operations of race, gender, class, colonialism, and sexuality, and embodiment as
represented in the topic you chose.
4. Focus on disability and/or gender and the entangled history, framing, and ideologies
operating in the construction of the body
5. References are from a peer reviewed journal or monograph; cite where you got
these sources according to the format you are using
6. Must meet the page number requirements
7. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are part of your grade
8. Read your paper out loud!
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Urban Rev (2015) 47:293–316
DOI 10.1007/s11256-014-0293-6
Whiteness as Property: Innocence and Ability
in Teacher Education
Subini Ancy Annamma
Published online: 10 July 2014
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract In this article, I empirically examined the dispositions of teachers in
juvenile justice surrounding young women of color with disabilities to inform what
improvements can be made in teacher education. I utilized Critical Race Theory
(CRT) and focused on the tenet of whiteness as property as a lens to provide a robust
racial analysis of the dispositions of teachers. Findings indicated that instead of a
status that elicited support, ability became another thing to surveil, perpetuating a
commitment to whiteness as property. An implication that arose directly from these
findings was that teachers need training in understanding theories of race, racism,
and inequities that recognize the historical legacy of whiteness as property. This
training could lead to a change in teacher dispositions and practices that may disrupt
the School to Prison Pipeline.
Keywords School to Prison Pipeline Critical Race Theory Disability Critical
Race Theory
The School to Prison Pipeline, or the Pipeline, has historically steered children out
of school and into prisons (Advancement Project 2010). Through methods such as
ticketing students for minor offenses, implementing disciplinary removal, and
‘‘securing the environment’’ through means such as metal detectors and fencing,
schools funneled children of color into prisons (ACLU 2008; Kim et al. 2010). This
criminalization of children of color illustrated what Fredrick Douglas (1883) called
the American habit to ‘‘impute crime to color’’.
Pipeline literature made explicit connections between race, criminalization, and
education (Bahena et al. 2012). However, other social identity markers and their
intersections with race marked children as more susceptible to the Pipeline.
S. A. Annamma (&)
Interdisciplinary Research Incubator for the Study of (In)Equality (IRISE), University of Denver,
2000 E. Asbury Avenue, Denver, CO 80208, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
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Disability has a distinct role in the Pipeline (Wald and Losen 2003). An average of
33–40 % of students in juvenile incarceration have been identified with a disability
(Houchins and Shippen 2012; Quinn et al. 2005). In contrast, 12–14 % of students
in public schools are labeled with disabilities1 (National Education Association
2007; Young et al. 2010). Therefore, special education assignment must be
considered a contributing factor to the Pipeline (Meiners 2007).
Intersectional analysis, one that recognized oppressions are mutually constituted,
illuminated how race, gender, and disability position particular bodies in the
Pipeline. This is in contrast to uni-dimensional analysis (i.e., examining only race or
only gender), which ignored ways multi-dimensional identities make some
populations more vulnerable to the Pipeline. Though girls overall were underrepresented in the Pipeline, young women of color were overrepresented when
compared to their white female peers in disciplinary actions, special education
assignment, arrests, and incarceration (Losen and Skiba 2010; National Council on
Crime and Delinquency 2008; Oswald et al. 2002). Pipeline literature established
that disproportionate representation exists; however, statistics told little about
processes that contributed to this phenomenon (Ferguson 2000). ‘‘Although men
constitute the vast majority of prisoners in the world, important aspects of the
operation of state punishment are missed if it is assumed that women are marginal
and thus undeserving of attention’’ (Davis 2003, p. 65). The focus on inequities that
boys of color and white females face has detracted from the fact that we have a
dearth of information about how young women of color, especially those labeled
with disabilities, are educated in the Pipeline (Brown 2009; Winn 2011).
Teacher Education, Race, Ability, and the Pipeline
Since 2000, teacher education—in both general and special education—continued
to suffer from a lack of theoretical grounding and needed a more substantive
examination of race (Cochran-Smith and Zeichner 2005; Fasching-Varner and
Mitchell 2013; Gay 2002; Johnston-Parsons 2007). Educators continued to be
educated in ways that ignore systemic racial inequities and their own role in
perpetuating those inequities (Ladson-Billings 2005). A-theoretical approaches to
issues of race in teacher education positioned the field to subscribe to unspoken
norms of whiteness (Ladson-Billings 1998). Furthermore, concepts of disability
were largely under-theorized in teacher education (Brantlinger 1997). A focus on
the medical model of disability in teacher education ignored the very subjective and
racialized nature of special education assignment (Connor et al. 2008; Ware 2001).
This absence of explicit theory and subscription to unspoken norms drove
pedagogical practices that rooted in teacher dispositions, instead of data driven
decision-making (Harry et al. 2002). When unexamined teacher dispositions often
1
Due to overrepresentation of students from non-dominant communities in high-incidence disability
categories, also known as judgment categories, in special education, I say ‘‘have been identified’’ or
‘‘labeled with a disability’’ since being identified does not guarantee the student actually has a disability.
As Harry and Klingner (2006) note, ‘‘many have questioned the accuracy of the professional judgments
made in diagnosing‘‘ these disabilities.
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relied on deficit-oriented myths about students, perpetuating the Pipeline (Hollins
and Torres Guzman 2005). Therefore, examining the meaning making and
dispositions of teachers provided a substantive view of what can be improved in
teacher education (Villegas 2007). Furthermore, high quality teacher education
programs have been put forth as one way to disrupt the Pipeline (Darling-Hammond
2006).
In this article, I empirically examined the dispositions of teachers in juvenile
justice surrounding young women of color with disabilities. Dispositions refer to the
‘‘tendencies for individuals to act in a particular manner under particular
circumstances, based on their beliefs’’ (Villegas 2007, p. 373). Critical Race
Theory (CRT) and its branch, Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), framed the
study and the tenet of whiteness as property was a lens to provide a robust racial
analysis of the dispositions of teachers. CRT in teacher education can be used to
‘‘theorize and examine the ways in which race and racism impact on the structures,
processes and discourses within a teacher education context’’ (Solórzano and Yosso
2001a, p. 3). Furthermore, CRT and DisCrit examined the intersections of race with
other subordinated statuses, recognizing that oppression does not occur in isolation
(Crenshaw 1993). This qualitative study described the meaning making and
dispositions of teachers in juvenile justice working with girls of color with
disabilities by exploring: What are the dispositions of teachers in juvenile justice
regarding the education of young women of color with disabilities?
Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework that linked the theoretical framing, literature review,
research questions, methods, and analysis is a CRT framing (Ravitch and Riggan
2012). Below I summarized the evolution of CRT and its branch, DisCrit. I then
shared the affordances of this framing. Finally, I explored the concept of whiteness
as property that provides the main tenet used in the analysis.
Critical Race Theory
Anna Julia Cooper, Carter G. Woodson, and W.E.B. DuBois laid the groundwork
for CRT: learning from those who had been historically oppressed, centering race,
and analyzing inequities with an intersectional lens (Lynn 1999; Rabaka 2007;
Solórzano and Yosso 2001b). Following the path of their intellectual ancestors,
scholars in the law founded CRT when the Critical Legal Studies movement was
critiquing the legal system based on class, but simultaneously ignoring racialized
aspects of the law (Crenshaw et al. 1995). Bell (1980) questioned strategies of
integration and converging interests as incomplete liberal solutions to racial
inequities while Matsuda (1987) fought to center voices of non-dominant
communities. Other CRT legal scholars such as Harris, Gotanda, and Crenshaw
pushed o include race analyses of legal inequities. Later, scholars in education took
up CRT to challenge the racialization of schooling (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995).
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Eventually, CRT scholars examined the multiple ways whiteness and white
supremacy impact society (Gillborn 2005; Leonardo 2004).
Harris (1990) called for the ‘‘abandonment of the quest for the unitary self’’ (p.
610). This abandonment was a central tenet of feminist and postcolonial scholars
across disciplines grounded in critical and poststructuralist theories and applied in
legal studies. For example, feminists of color theorized that feminist writings often
privileged white women’s experiences (Johnson 1998; Minh-Ha 1989; Mohanty
1988). Crenshaw (1993) built on these foundations and developed the tenet of
intersectionality; identity is made up of many salient parts, and the intersections of
those parts must be viewed in their totality. Additionally, belonging to more than
one subordinate group located an individual at the intersection of conflicting
agendas and singular dimension approaches to oppression missed the ways
oppressions interact. Scholars from across disciplines responded to this call by
expanding CRT to encompass how racialized experiences were complicated by
gender (FemCrit), immigration status, and language (LatCrit) (Wing 2003;
Solórzano and Bernal 2001). Several other branches have developed stretching
the boundaries of Critical Race Theory further (Aoki 1997; Brayboy 2006). DisCrit
further pushed these boundaries.
DisCrit
DisCrit grew from the need to address the mutually constitutive nature of race and
ability (Annamma et al. 2013b). Drawing from Disability Studies, it renounced the
systems of education that often view individuals without context; that is, failure to
achieve academically or behaviorally was often constructed as the responsibility of
the student alone (Artiles 1998; Collins 2003; Gutiérrez and Stone 1997).
Furthermore, DisCrit rejected the medical model of disability wherein the focus
of education was about searching for, diagnosing, and remediating learners who are
different without considering culture, and history (Annamma et al. 2013a).
However, Disability Studies often employed whiteness as a tool to ignore or
superficially address ways that perceptions of race and ability were intertwined (Bell
2006; Blanchett et al. 2009; Connor 2008). Building on CRT, DisCrit recognized
the way most special education and juvenile justice literature is often a-historical
and a-theoretical, relying on deficit views of children of color, which contributed to
their disproportionate representation in the Pipeline (Asch 2001; Lynn 2004; Patton
1998). However, CRT traditionally did not substantially address issues of
perceptions of ability and special education (Erevelles and Minear 2010; Ferri
2010). DisCrit bridged these chasms by exploring the socially constructed,
interdependent nature of both race and ability, and how perceptions of both are
based on unmarked norms of white and able bodied (Annamma et al. 2013b).
There is a vast overrepresentation of children of color in the disability categories
of learning disabilities (LD), intellectual disabilities (ID, formerly known as Mental
Retardation), and emotional disabilities (ED) (Donovan and Cross 2002). These are
considered high incidence disabilities because the majority of children in special
education are given these labels (Losen and Orfield 2002). These designations also
rely on the judgment of school personnel, many who do not share the racial, ethnic,
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and cultural background of their students (Artiles et al. 2010). Importantly, this
pattern of overrepresentation does not occur in medically defined disability
categories2 (e.g., blind, deaf) (Harry and Klingner 2006). Therefore concern is
significant when children of color are overrepresented in disability categories that
rely on the judgment of adults, who may conflate differences with internal deficits
(Arzubiaga et al. 2008).
This conceptual framework of CRT and DisCrit provided several affordances. By
beginning with the supposition that racism, sexism, and ableism are normal
practices, this conceptual framework exposed how ‘‘neutral’’ policies and pedagogy
reinforced normative standards of white, male, and able-bodied (Delgado and
Stefancic 2001; Goodwin 2003). These ordinary processes of racism, sexism, and
ableism led to seeing differences from the unmarked norm as biological deficits
(Ferri and Connor 2009; Watts and Erevelles 2004). Social constructions of race,
gender, and ability are ignored and those that differ from the norm are pathologized
and segregated because of their perceived deficiencies (Annamma et al. 2013a).
Schools are the ultimate sorting mechanism and the Pipeline is an effective way to
criminalize and segregate children starting from a young age (Bahena et al. 2012).
This conceptual framework troubled singular notions of identity. Intersectionality as
a analytical tool is important but can also be used to de-center race and limit the
focus on whiteness (Delgado 2010). An intersectional analysis that utilizes
whiteness as property centers race while recognizing that these intersections do
impact the way people experience oppression. Finally, this framework demanded a
focus on counter-narratives contrasted by the master narrative (Matsuda 1987;
Solórzano and Bernal 2001).
The master narrative of overrepresentation of children of color in high incidence
special education categories gives a simple explanation-poverty. The argument
denies the salience of race and argues that children of color are more often born in
poverty, and that causes more health problems leading to higher diagnoses of
special education status (Parrish 2002). However if poverty were the cause of
disproportionate representation, it would follow that that trend would be not only in
the high incidence disability categories but also the low incidence categories as well
(Oswald et al. 2002). Instead, DisCrit recognized the racialized outcomes of these
seemingly race-neutral policies and practices and searches for other explanations.
Whiteness as Property
Harris (1993) theorized that whiteness is property protected by US law because
property referred to not only physical objects but, anything to which a person
attached value. Historically, whiteness was legitimized as property when being
white was equated with permission to pursue genocide over and violent conquest of
indigenous peoples of what are currently US and Mexico, who had no access to
legal relief when faced with the theft of land or murder of kin (Ladson-Billings and
Tate 1995). Whiteness became further ensconced as property when it defined the
2
I recognize that subjective judgments are involved in medically defined disability categories, as well.
However, due to page limits, I focus my argument here to the ‘‘high incidence’’ special education labels.
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legal status of a person as free, while blackness defined slavery (Harris 1993). Over
time, property has been socially constructed to encompass a host of abstract
concepts associated with labor including time, creativity, and benefits of education
(Harris 1993). Whiteness became a racialized system supported by ideology of
property and conferring material benefits to those holders of property (Haney-Lopez
1996).
In public education, whiteness as property has become a signifier of who reaped
the benefits of education through the value of property owned. Subsequently,
communities with more valuable property funded schools at higher rates affording
more resources, provided access to intellectual property in the form of high quality
curriculum delivering more academic benefits, and wielded power over public
education impacting policy and law (Buras 2011; Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995).
One of the greatest assets of whiteness as property was the ability to exclude others
from the benefits of whiteness, maintaining inequitable distribution of resources
(Donnor 2013). Whites simply do not have to, consider equitable distribution of
property and the privileges associated with that property (Bell 1980). Whiteness as
property has historically and continues to function as a tool to confer social benefits,
from the intangible to the material, on those who possess it and to punish those who
do not.
DuBois (1897) recognized that innocence was an intangible benefit of whiteness,
‘‘Students must not forget this double standard of justice’’-‘‘one for whites
(especially wealthy whites), and one for blacks and other nonwhites (without regard
to rank or social class)’’ (as cited in Rabaka 2010, p. 299). Building on Douglas and
DuBois, CRT scholars argued that the legal system has never been race neutral (Bell
1980; Crenshaw et al. 1995). Moreover, the racial criminalization of children of
color, when children are simultaneously raced and criminalized, in the Pipeline
reinforced innocence as an intangible benefit of whiteness as property, even for
youth (Vaught 2012). Innocence as an intangible benefit of whiteness as property is
further magnified when considering the intersections of gender and race. Considered
promiscuous by nature, rape was not historically prosecuted because young females
of color have no access to femininity or innocence (Harris 1990). Young women of
color were often viewed as aggressive, unnaturally strong, in direct contrast to white
femininity (Collins 1990; Jones 2009). It is clear that whiteness as property provided
the protection of the intangible benefit of innocence. Those that are without the
protection of innocence are subject suspicion, surveillance, and incarceration.
Methodological Pluralism
This research was part of a larger empirical study in which I collaborated with ten
young women of color labeled with emotional disabilities in order to map their
trajectories through the Pipeline. This qualitative investigation allowed me to bring
to bear different theories and methods to research the issue of the Pipeline
intersectionally. I utilized methodological pluralism, ‘‘to document how change and
discontinuity, braided with a desire for narrative coherence and consistency, shape
the stories young people tell about themselves, over time and space’’ in the Pipeline
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(Katsiaficas et al. 2011, p. 120). To access the rich trajectories of the girls,
methodological pluralism in the larger study combined collecting and analyzing
textual (interviews) and visual (identity mapping) narratives (Katsiaficas et al.
2011).
Critical Phenomenology as Strategy of Inquiry
Critical phenomenology is one that required focus on both the structural inequities
that position people differently and the impact of this positioning (Willen 2007).
The fundamental generator of meaning is the act of experiencing the world and
others through our bodies and positioning (Merleau-Ponty 1962). I was and am
interested in the ways bodies are raced, gendered, and abled intersectionally;
therefore this study was racially gendered, and abled phenomenological work.
The Sites and Participants
The two sites in this study, MLK and Hull, were residential facilities in a Western
state in the US (details are purposefully vague, and all names are pseudonyms, to
protect the participants of the larger study, a doubly sensitive population). MLK was
an open door community placement. Hull was a maximum-security facility, one that
has as locked doors, guards, and correctional fencing. Though the sites varied, all
children at both sites were adjudicated, meaning they could not leave until either
their mandatory sentence is served or they received probation or parole.
Participants in this smaller study included 16 teachers, who were interviewed,
observed, or both. Teachers possessed licenses that varied from emergency teaching
license to professional, and have certifications in content areas or special education
(except those on emergency teaching). Fourteen of the teachers were white and two were
African American; teaching experience ranged from 1 year to more than 20. Teachers
were chosen if they taught the focal students in the larger study and if they consented.
Data Collection
I conducted interviews with school and security staff (19) and students (34),
classroom observations (105), document analysis (40), and participant data analysis
after an extensive IRB process. For this smaller study, I focused on the teacher
interviews and observations to get a better understanding of teacher dispositions and
meaning making surrounding young women of color with disabilities.
In-Depth Phenomenological Interviewing
In-depth phenomenological interviewing was used to re-construct and bring
meaning to bear on participants’ lived experiences (Seidman 2006). Teachers were
interviewed whenever possible but availability varied. Teachers at small schools
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like MLK and Hull were often asked to cover other classes for colleagues, and
supervise students during planning periods or lunch. Therefore, I conducted onethree interviews per teacher. Using a thematic interview guide, interviews focused
on teaching history, philosophy, practices and goals for participants, which allowed
me to situate instructional and disciplinary practices within larger social and
institutional contexts. This interview guide was not a set protocol, but a guide with
topics to address the phenomena under study (Seidman 2006).
Ethnographic Observations
105 observations were recorded through field notes and audio or video. Numbers of
observations varied due to similar reasons as stated in above section. During
observations, I documented materials, patterns of participation, and classroom
discourse. Observing provided me an opportunity to contextualize what I heard in
interviews and what I experienced in the larger school environment.
Data Analysis
Analysis is the process of finding qualitative data and codes in the corpus of
information, which the researcher must mine deeply (Erickson 1996). Below are the
steps I took throughout data collection and analysis.
Iterative Data Analysis
Interviews and observations were recorded and then transcribed. I had commitments
to completing coding cycles from emic and etic perspectives. The etic coding cycle
included examination of analytical constructs such as incarceration discourse
(Meiners 2007; Winn 2011), hypersurveillance (Rios 2011), and re-mediation
(Gutiérrez and Stone 1997). The emic coding cycle emphasized pattern coding, and
included, sorting out the Pipeline including different steps identified by the girls and
teachers, the factors that impacted interaction, and the mediational tools available to
staff and students to make sense of incarceration. I looked for patterns and
disconfirming evidence. These patterns generated conceptual categories, a code
thesaurus, and frequency counts (Erickson 1998).
I used Dedoose, a qualitative research program, to build and refine codes by
continually returning to the data, and used a final set of codes to systematically
explore the data for typicality and atypicality (Glaser and Straus 1967). The ongoing
and iterative nature of qualitative research required me to consistently collect and
analyze data, consider a range of possibilities, collect more data, and discuss the
data with participants.
Findings
Results from this study shed light on the dispositions and meaning making
teachers do in order to understand their students in the context of incarceration.
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Findings are broken down by disability, gender, and race. This is not to imply that
identities are uni-dimensional and should be stacked on top of one another.
Instead, this organization intends to identify issues where teacher education can
grow in helping teachers understand differences among students. An intersectional
analysis follows.
Disability in Juvenile Justice
Teachers who worked in juvenile justice settings had mixed feelings regarding
meeting the needs of girls of color with disabilities. One challenge for some teachers
was minimal experience and training in special education. Mr. Enders described this
lack of training.
SAA:
Mr. Enders:
SAA:
Mr. Enders:
SAA:
Mr. Enders:
Do you have training in (supporting students with disabilities)?
Just in the (alternative licensure program)
Did they touch on it?
Yeah. A little bit. Most of my (emotional disability) training comes
from meetings at the school
Can you expand on that?
Weekly meetings with (special education director) where we just
discuss what we are doing, what the purpose is, what we are trying to
teach in there. That and from asking other teachers what works. I
didn’t have much formal training in my program. So I just have to
learn as I go through trial and error. And sometimes MLK gives us
more training, though it’s usually around mental health issues. It’s
something I struggle with
This lack of training to support children with disabilities that Mr. Enders reports
was common among teacher participants. When I inquired how many felt properly
prepared to support students in special education, only two felt prepared. Other
teachers described more substantial preparation to support students with
disabilities.
Mrs. Rastin:
I am a certified special education teacher. And I taught for about
five years before coming to MLK as a special education teacher in
the (Western City) public schools. So I have an understanding of
how to support students’ learning and emotional needs, especially
the ones with disabilities. I try to provide that knowledge to our
newer teachers and those with less education
Mrs. Rastin was an outlier; she believed she had adequate special education
training to support students with disabilities. Of the teachers interviewed regarding
their formal training, three had one special education class or fewer, and five had
two classes, respectively. Some teachers felt the lack of special education training
was problematic, while others like Ms. Roberts did not.
SAA:
Do you have direct training in working with kids with disabilities?
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Ms. Roberts:
Urban Rev (2015) 47:293–316
I don’t know if I have anything special as far as this particular
group. I mean…for part of my degree, I did have to do some
special ed stuff; I just don’t have an endorsement in it. So I
definitely took classes in special ed and all that, it was required for
my degree. So I have that part of it but I don’t know if people get
training on how to work with particular populations…I don’t
know…I don’t know if it’s really that different…The instruction is
instruction and no matter who you’re teaching towards, you
always have to adjust. It’s one of those things, reflection is part of
teaching. And reflection’s part of life…anything you do, you’re
going to look at it and go, ‘how well did I do that?’
Ms. Roberts’ attitude overgeneralized what good teaching means (LadsonBillings 1995). Ms. Hand felt that support for girls with emotional disabilities
looked similar to support for all students in juvenile justice,
I think that every time a kid starts to act out and we de-escalate them, we’re
helping them deal with (a)…disability…And I guess, there again there is some
misunderstanding about what it means to work with special ed kids and what
that label means. And what services are provided as a result of that…deescalation techniques, the time outs, all of that is part of dealing with their
emotional disability.
Ms. Hand’s views were similar to Ms. Roberts; the children’s needs were less
about disabilities and more about what many of the girls in Hull need, de-escalation
and support.
At Hull, content teachers had some training in special education, but most special
education services were delivered via the special education teacher, Ms. Bryson.
Ms. Bryson described the multiple duties she had,
When I got here, in October, it took us probably 2 months to catch up on all
the IEPs, the transfers, the…overdue things. At first I wasn’t even in the
classroom…until that…got taken care of, after I took care of all the paper
work and stuff…And I subbed in health for probably a month…so I wasn’t
giving them the service…they needed.
Ms. Bryson illustrated some of the difficulties working in settings where
substitutes, especially long term ones, were hard to find. This meant that students
with disabilities, who had limited access to services partially due to Ms. Bryson’s
part time work hours, were further restricted from content due to the ways her time
was used. Ms. Bryson stated,
They don’t like it when I pull kids out here, because they think since I’m part
time, my time is better in the whole class so that I can…write that I saw them.
That I was in the classroom with them rather than 30 min by themselves…they don’t feel that’s a good use of my time.
Because of the way her time was reported, Ms. Bryson was able to sign off on
IEPs even though her services were not always individualized. Additionally, Ms.
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Bryson believed that children with emotional disabilities received services outside
of the classroom.
SAA:
Ms.
Bryson:
How are their emotional disabilities accommodated in class?
Well, just my being there, just as support…their emotional, they do see
the therapist every day or whatever. So as far as my service goes as far
as emotional support, it’s pretty much just being in the classroom with
them and if they have questions. And helping them, to stay calm
Ms. Bryson felt that because students saw a therapist daily, she has less to do to
support them. However, students, teachers, and therapists reported opportunities to
see therapists occur much less than once per day, often less than once per week.
Confusion about who provided particular services made access to those services
difficult according to observations and student interviews.
I witnessed Ms. Cradler and Ms. Bryson disagreeing over the legitimacy of
special education services. Ms. Cradler discussed her concerns.
Of course these kids need extra help and I will give it to them but they are also
manipulative and will do anything to get out of work. So they run to (Ms.
Bryson) and she coddles them. And you know what, there’s no special
education in real life. You aren’t getting any accommodations or modifications. You just have to try harder.
Ms. Cradler expressed a view of girls of color with disabilities as lazy and
manipulative. Later, Ms. Bryson shared her view.
This morning, I took [a student] and read this thing with her because she didn’t
understand any of it…But it was…frustrating for her because she couldn’t read the
words…looking at the paper, I couldn’t read it either because (the copy) was so
dark. She just said, I can’t do this; I’m not going to read. She couldn’t read the
words, she couldn’t see it. So then she got frustrated…Well then I go and talk to the
teacher about it and they feel like she’s manipulating.
Ms. Bryson captured another common tension in special education in juvenile
justice: the monitoring and surveillance of the girls for manipulative behavior meant
that their needs were not always being met. Ms. Cradler articulated this tension of
needing to monitor children and still meet their needs.
Ms. Cradler:
SAA:
Ms. Cradler:
These girls are very criminal…Don’t ever forget that
When you say they’re very criminal, why do you say that?
Why do I say that their behavior is very criminal? I mean they’re
looking for exciting ways. I mean it’s not always about the
relationship or the person; it’s about the excitement that they feel
doing something wrong…When I say it’s criminal, it’s all about
how to get around the system to get what they want. And that feeds
right back into their criminal mentality. Not that kids aren’t master
manipulators. I was a teenager. I manipulated my parents, that’s
our job as teenagers, you know? The difference being when you
get to the power and control piece, that’s where it’s a little
different than what it is on the outs
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Urban Rev (2015) 47:293–316
Ms. Cradler illustrated the complex negotiations some teachers go through in
order to understand children in
