Addressing Racism and Ableism in Schools: A DisCrit Leadership Framework for Principals

DeMatthews, David E.

doi:10.1080/00098655.2019.1690419

Cited by 35 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…These experiences allowed and provoked us to engage in critical and spirited discussions as we reviewed our data, memos, reflections, and analyses (Parker & Lynn, 2002). Last, with a desire to shift from self to system (Milner, 2007), we used this study’s findings to write practitioner-oriented manuscripts to share our results with current and aspiring school leaders (e.g., DeMatthews, 2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leading Inclusive Schools: Principal Perceptions, Practices, and Challenges to Meaningful Change

DeMatthews

Serafini

Watson

2020

Educational Administration Quarterly

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Background: For over 50 years, special education has been used as a tool to maintain racial segregation, particularly in schools located in low-income communities of color. This study utilized tenets found in disability critical race theory (DisCrit) and inclusive school leadership literature to examine the perceptions, practices, and challenges associated with meaningful change in inclusive schools. Purpose: The purpose of this article was to understand how six elementary school principals, identified as effective inclusive leaders, perceived students with disabilities within a low-income Mexican American immigrant community along the U.S.–Mexico border. Findings: Our study highlights the important role principals play in creating inclusive schools and the ways in which race, disability, family background, language, and immigration status effect principals in their efforts to promote inclusion. While each principal recognized the noted factors above and confronted a multitude of challenges, they differed in their beliefs and approaches to creating inclusive schools. Some leadership practices were aligned to research focused on effective school leadership while others more closely resembled social justice leadership practices. Conclusion: Findings suggest that principals must take into consideration a variety of factors to create inclusive schools and must draw upon a broad range of practices amid resistance and challenges to meaningful change.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leading Inclusive Schools: Principal Perceptions, Practices, and Challenges to Meaningful Change

DeMatthews

Serafini

Watson

2020

Educational Administration Quarterly

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“…To counter these forces, DeMathews (2019) notes that principals can use specific stances to resist and reframe school culture and practice from standardization to personalization. Personalization seems to be everywhere, from making individual purchases online to choosing the ways of traveling from point A to point B.…”

Section: Accessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each policy comes with a particular mix of fiscal resources, political gain, organizational merit, opportunity for improved outcomes for students and community satisfaction. Transparency is a key to realizing sustaining practice (DeMathews, 2019). The degree to which a policy satisfies the individuals involved on all these dimensions contributes to its impact upon launching, the consequential nature of that impact, and the degree to which the policy creates lasting shifts in the work and experiences of the affected people and organizations.…”

Section: The Exercise Of Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, in 2019, students who identify as Black, Latinx and/or English learners are more likely to be referred for special education, identified in high incidence dis/ability categories (e.g. learning dis/abilities, emotional disturbance, speech/language and intellectual dis/abilities) that require subjective judgment and are placed in restrictive special education settings (Artiles and Kozleski, 2016; DeMatthews, 2019; Skiba et al , 2016). Without leadership intent on transforming general education ecologies including the pipeline into special education and its implementation, little will change these outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leading through a critical lens: The application of DisCrit in framing, implementing and improving equity driven, educational systems for all students

Kozleski

Stepaniuk

Proffitt

2020

JEA

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PurposeThis article focuses on the strategic importance of framing cultural changes in special education through a critical lens. The article explores why cultural responsivity must be understood from a critical perspective that accounts for the historical sedimentation of racism that exists within special education organizational policies and practices. This sedimentation affects current and future organizational features that sustain historical, persistent and pernicious racial and ableist structures, relationships and outcomes.Design/methodology/approachBy examining the role of power within organizational systems, the authors trace its contribution to reproduction of these systems through special education leadership. Special education leaders along with their peers in general education can frame transformative change through a systemic lens designed to address structural, regulatory and cultural practices that perpetuate raced and ableist outcomes. The pernicious and sustaining structures and practices that have created unequal outcomes in our educational systems need strategic intervention, prevention and re-creation to create equitable supports and services programs.FindingsBy examining the role of power within organizational systems, the authors trace its contribution to reproduction of these systems through special education leadership. Special education leaders along with their peers in general education can frame transformative change through a systemic lens designed to address structural, regulatory and cultural practices that perpetuate raced and ableist outcomes.Practical implicationsWith clear outcomes that are responsive to all students, including those identified with dis/abilities, education leaders can make consequential shifts in access, opportunity and the distribution of social and intellectual capital throughout education.Social implicationsThe pernicious and sustaining structures and practices that have created unequal outcomes in our educational systems need strategic intervention, prevention and re-creation to create equitable supports and services programs.Originality/valueThe application of DisCrit to educational leadership practices offers an opportunity to frame leadership through a powerful equity lens.

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“…In a recent critical literature review, we discovered, for example, DisCrit has increasingly been used in doctoral dissertations and interdisciplinary journals that cross disciplinary boundaries and geographic borders (Migliarini 2017); critically analyze Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS) in classrooms (Adams 2015); integrate simultaneous issues of race and ability into teacher education for White teachers (Beneke 2017) and teachers of color (Kulkarni 2015), and; that center the voices of disabled scholars of Color (Cannon 2019;Hernández-Saca 2017). Moreover, it has been used as a tool to better understand, and address concurrent issues of racism and ableism in early childhood education (Love and Beneke 2021) and k-12 schools (Friedman, Hallaran, and Locke 2020;DeMatthews 2020). In tracing this growth, we are struck by the ways DisCrit has been taken up, expanded upon, and used as a starting point for further creative articulations and investigations in ways race and ethnicity impact education.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From the Personal to the Global: Engaging with and Enacting DisCrit Theory Across Multiple Spaces

Connor

Ferri

Annamma

2021

Race Ethnicity and Education

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This article serves as the introduction to a special edition of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Education (REE) dedicated to Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit). We begin by sharing the seven tenets of in DisCrit, acknowledging our indebtedness to scholars of color who originally developed theories of intersectionality. Next, we discuss ways in which, from its original publication in REE (2013), DisCrit has gained traction as a theoretical tool that is increasingly used in research and practice. Then, we briefly summarize and comment upon the eight featured articles in this special edition. Each article has been purposefully selected to reflect a broad scope of interestsfrom empirical research to theoretical papers seeking changes within schools, communities, teacher education programs, research practices, and global connections. All contributions are from the USA as a way to consider ways in which DisCrit is being utilized in one country, while encouraging further intra-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and global conversations.

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Addressing Racism and Ableism in Schools: A DisCrit Leadership Framework for Principals

Cited by 35 publications

References 28 publications

Leading Inclusive Schools: Principal Perceptions, Practices, and Challenges to Meaningful Change

Leading Inclusive Schools: Principal Perceptions, Practices, and Challenges to Meaningful Change

Leading through a critical lens: The application of DisCrit in framing, implementing and improving equity driven, educational systems for all students

From the Personal to the Global: Engaging with and Enacting DisCrit Theory Across Multiple Spaces

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