In this article, Federico R. Waitoller and Kathleen A. King Thorius extend recent discussions on culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) in order to explicitly account for student dis/ability. The authors engage in this work as part of an inclusive education agenda. Toward this aim, they discuss how CSP and universal design for learning will benefit from cross-pollination and then conclude by suggesting interdisciplinary dialogue as a means to building emancipatory pedagogies that attend to intersecting markers of difference (e.g., dis/ability, class, gender, race, language, and ethnicity).

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Since 1997, revisions to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have shown promise for addressing special education equity concerns: For example, states have the option to use response to intervention (RTI) for determining and thus reducing inappropriate disability determination, and states and districts are required to assess and address disproportionality in special education eligibility and placement. Yet, despite policy revisions, equity concerns endure. Apparent policy inadequacies necessitate that special education research explores policy as a process whereby it is appropriated by local actors. Accordingly, we draw from critical policy scholarship to propose a framework for study of special education policy appropriation. The approach centers equity and attention to actors' agency and structural forces. We discuss relevance of this framework and its theoretical tools for special education research concerned with how local actors enact federal special education policy. Finally, we provide suggestions for RTI policy research as a case-in-point.

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