The heterodoxy of student voice: challenges to identity in the sociology of disability and education

Abstract

This article explores the contributions of students’ voices in order to highlight some issues that have been central to disability studies – issues of identities, and their correlations to power, temporality, inclusivity, and place among the most salient to contemporary theories in the sociology of disability and education. Building on previous work that recognizes students’ insights through the metaphors of street‐wise philosophers, image‐makers, and jazz improvisationists, I then chart a course for assessing theoretical frameworks in sociology and their applications to education, as well as to disability studies. Essentially, student voices offer opportunities for critical self‐reflection as a disability studies scholar, as well as for reflection on the contributions of disability studies and sociology as a whole, leading to a transformative vision of the central tenets and tasks before us. The approach taken throughout this analysis is informed by Len Barton’s call for a politics of hope.