Diverse disability identities: The accomplishment of ‘Child with a disability’ in everyday interaction between parents and teachers

Abstract

In this paper we analyse how specific ‘disability identities’ were accomplished for students in special education facilities by their teachers and parents as they communicated about the ordinary events of daily schooling. We employ membership categorisation analysis (MCA), an analytic within the theoretical frame of ethnomethodology, to investigate in fine detail the communication between the parents and teachers of two primary-school aged children, Roger and Becky. Our analysis highlights the complexity and subtlety of how diverse disability identities are actually achieved in everyday schooling contexts, and demonstrates possibilities for reconstituting the ‘Child with a disability’ as more agentic and self-aware.