Thrice disabling disability: enabling inclusive, socially just teacher education

Abstract

The goal of this inquiry was to create a social justice-oriented inclusive and enabling pedagogy by situating traditional individualised views of disability alongside three alternative understandings: a disability studies in education perspective, a First Nations view of disability and one based upon the autism pride/autism-as-culture movement. Using both these conventional and somewhat unconventional views of disability, a self-reflective case study was conducted in which the author attempted to facilitate an inclusive pedagogy in a university class, ‘Working with Diversity and Difference’. At course conclusion, the author explored teacher candidates’ notions of disablement and inclusive practices/strategies. Data sources included five focus group transcripts, 12 weeks of online discussion board postings and eight student assignments, namely inclusive teacher resource files. Data were triangulated and second-level member checks completed. Some students reported how the pedagogy enabled a reflective practice such that it disrupted their ableistic educational impulses, while others talked more about specific classroom implications to facilitate inclusion. Interestingly, when most students entered into the inclusive conversation beginning from a particular exceptionality, label, or diagnosis (such as intellectual disability), they tended to do so exclusively from an individualised medical model view of disability. Implications for inclusive teacher education pedagogies are discussed.