Though treated as neutral and apolitical by schools, teachers, scholars, and administrators, special education is fraught with inequality and loaded language, and can function to segregate and disempower students. The debate over who is worthy of education-and what kind of education-is intimately tied to conceptions of dis/ability. Special education, despite all this, has potential as a site for social justice. The implementation of special education is political, considering the policies that teachers, schools, and parents must follow, skirt, and reproduce in order for dis/abled children to receive services. In this article, we discuss the history of special education, the social model of dis/ability and ableism in schools and beyond, and how these constructs permeate schools and the systems students operate within. We call for an intersectional approach, where the field of special education and its stakeholders reckon with the reality that special education is not neutral. We offer examples and recommendations for how educators can commit to transforming schools-and special education services-into sites of justice for all learners.

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This article explores what culturally sustaining education means for Latinx students. Drawing on the concept of Latinidades, the authors suggest that culturally sustaining education for Latinx students necessitates problematizing the boundaries of this term altogether and making visible the tensions and multiple axes of oppression around what it means to be Latinx. They take inspiration from Latinx students—including one of the authors of this article—who are challenging bounded notions of culture (such as "affinity groups") and instead foregrounding questions about equitable practices in the day-to-day context of schools.

Special educators are tasked with teaching students with disabilities to understand and adhere to social norms for their own safety and acceptance in society. This chapter explores ways special educators can teach critical thinking alongside these social and cultural norms in order to support student agency. One special educator shares her experiences working with students with disabilities in urban public schools as she grapples with teaching her students what they need to know to be safe, while also teaching to challenge oppressive social and behavioral expectations.

Este artículo explora lo que significa “educación culturalmente sostenible” para las y los estudiantes latinxs. Basándose en el concepto de “latinidades”, las autoras sugieren que la educación culturalmente sostenible para las y los estudiantes latinxs requiere problematizar los límites de este término, y hacer visibles las tensiones y los múltiples ejes de opresión que existen en torno a lo que significa ser latinx. Esta investigación se inspira en estudiantes latinxs, incluida una de las autoras de este artículo, que desafían las nociones limitadas de cultura (como los “grupos de afinidad”) y, en cambio, levantan preguntas sobre prácticas equitativas en el contexto cotidiano de las escuelas.