Vital Questions Facing Disability Studies in Education

Disability studies in education is a provocative and innovative field of social inquiry that challenges standard ways of thinking about disability in education, practices that serve to exclude disabled people from equal educational opportunity, and policies that support or drive inequality. This book brings together the best disability studies in education scholars to address the pressing questions facing the field. It provides an introduction to the field for the newcomer, a sharp challenge to the status quo in special and general education, and a map to understanding the serious disability issues confronting education today.

« By raising key questions, this collection of essays effectively frames the most important issues that currently affect special and general education practice. The authors cogently address the political nature of disability language and the demeaning representation of the disabled in educational discourses. Using such concepts as 'historical evasions, ' 'educational sites of resistance, ' 'school hierarchy, ' 'disrupting normalcy, ' 'fallacies of misconceptions and misunderstandings, ' 'teaching to trouble, ' 'transgressing noncrossable borders, ' and 'deconstructing difference, ' the authors apply postmodern and poststructual analyses to make sense of complex educational systems. Yet, despite the theoretical sophistication of the essays, the result is a surprisingly accessible and practical book.

« Professors Danforth and Gabel have performed a needed service to education and to disability studies by bringing these fields together in a wonderfully coherent and intellectually energizing volume. The editors skillfully articulate a set of focal questions that frame and inspire the book's chapters while advancing the reader's grasp of key issues. More than twenty authors and co-authors address these questions in clear, variegated, and stimulating essays that represent the perspectives of theorizing scholars, teachers working in schools, professors engaged in teacher preparation, students, people with direct experience of disability, family members, and some-times, all of the above. Danforth and Gabel have succeeded in spanning intellectual and practical domains to present a broad range of ideas that interrogate reigning deficit-models of education. This book reminds us that good questions are often the best mechanisms to provide direction to our thinking and even to spark empowering transformation. In asking critically important questions and presenting an impressive array of responses, this book is a bracing call for professional and social responsibility to rebuild our most foundational beliefs about teaching, students, and humanity.

-By raising key questions, this collection of essays effectively frames the most important issues that currently affect special and general education practice. The authors cogently address the political nature of disability language and the demeaning representation of the disabled in educational discourses. Using such concepts as 'historical evasions, ' 'educational sites of resistance, ' 'school hierarchy, ' 'disrupting normalcy, ' 'fallacies of misconceptions and misunderstandings, ' 'teaching to trouble, ' 'transgressing noncrossable borders, ' and 'deconstructing difference, ' the authors apply postmodern and poststructual analyses to make sense of complex educational systems. Yet, despite the theoretical sophistication of the essays, the result is a surprisingly accessible and practical book.- (Ellen Brantlinger, Professor, Special Education Program Area; Department of Curriculum and Instruction; Indiana University, Bloomington)
-Professors Danforth and Gabel have performed a needed service to education and to disability studies by bringing these fields together in a wonderfully coherent and intellectually energizing volume. The editors skillfully articulate a set of focal questions that frame and inspire the book's chapters while advancing the reader's grasp of key issues. More than twenty authors and co-authors address these questions in clear, variegated, and stimulating essays that represent the perspectives of theorizing scholars, teachers working in schools, professors engaged in teacher preparation, students, people with direct experience of disability, family members, and some-times, all of the above. Danforth and Gabel have succeeded in spanning intellectual and practical domains to present a broad range of ideas that interrogate reigning deficit-models of education. This book reminds us that good questions are often the best mechanisms to provide direction to our thinking and even to spark empowering transformation. In asking critically important questions and presenting an impressive array of responses, this book is a bracing call for professional and social responsibility to rebuild our most foundational beliefs about teaching, students, and humanity.- (Carol J. Gill, Associate Professor, Department of Disability and Human Development; University of Illinois at Chicago)"