“Why Did Devon Just Leave the Classroom?”: Disability Studies in Education-Informed Related Service Provision

Abstract

Public schools often schedule related services by using a mix of pull-out and push-in instruction, referred to as service delivery models. This poses challenges because the transitions to and from services are obvious to other students and can influence student identities and result in a loss of academic instructional time. This article shares inclusive approaches for novice teachers to learn how to organize related service provision in ways that strengthen student identities as individuals with disabilities. By focusing on how our previous teaching and research experiences inform our pedagogical design in our teacher education courses, we seek to open the door for future research on how related services are constructed and enacted in public schools that are working towards more inclusive pedagogy and practice. In this article we share how both authors are rethinking teacher education curriculum as a potential site for helping beginning educators understand the array of service delivery models and to address ways to conceptualize how related services are offered to students in PreK-12 schools across all classroom settings.