Re-imagining Learning Disabilities

35. “Michael’s Story: ‘I Get Into So Much Trouble Just by Walking’: Narrative Knowing and Life at the Intersections of Learning Disability, Race, and Class,” David J. Connor

Connor analyzes the intersections of learning disabilities with race and class through the narrative of Michael, a young, Black working class man with dyslexia. Using Michael’s own personal narrative, Connor applies Collins’ domains of power—structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal—to examine the discourses of disability, race, and class that organize domination and oppression in Michael’s everyday life.

In the structural realm, the interconnected forces of segregated housing patterns, limited schooling options, and restricted opportunities for employment serve to limit and constrain Michael’s experiences.

In the disciplinary realm, the ultra-bureaucratic realm of special education, pervasive criminalization, and labor management practices form a sprawling apparatus that separates, sorts, and manages oppression.

In the hegemonic domain, the dominant achievement ideology justifies a binary classification system that limits Michael’s aspirations.

Finally, the interpersonal domain continually influences and shapes Michael’s consciousness through everyday interactions. Because of the interlocking nature of Michael’s positioning in systems organized around ability, race, and class, the interpersonal domain is one in which he is often unable to determine which aspect of his identity drive the discrimination he experiences.

Connor reminds us that the interconnected domains of power are responsive to human agency, and that the importance of Michael telling his own narrative is that it reveals his situated knowledge of his own positionality, as well as his agency, ingenuity, and resilience in the face of adversity on many fronts.

Here is another important personal narrative below that we might watch in class. If you are looking for augemented participation points, please post a comment that connects the speaker's story to Collins' domains of power.

Comments

What do stereotypes of immigrant criminalization and mass incarceration communicate about race/gender/class?

42. “The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation,” Rubén G. Rumbaut and Walter Ewing Although some of you may not have access to the book, the information in that short reading is available from the American Immigration Council . In a post-9/11 climate of fear and ignorance, assumptions have flourished that immigration and criminality are associated. However, systematic evidence shows that crime is not caused or even aggravated by immigrants to the United States, regardless of their legal status. Crime rates in the nation have declined even at the same time that immigration rates have increased. Among all ethnic groups in the United States, immigrants have lower incarceration rates than those who are native-born. For all ethnic groups, incarceration rates are highest among high school dropouts, yet immigrants who are high school dropouts have lower incarceration rates than other high school dropouts. Although immigrants’ risk of incarceration increases the l...

Controlling Images of Asian and Asian American Women

For today's reading on the "controlling images" and racialized femininities of Asian American Women, you watched a video (included below) to get a historical understanding of early media images. In class we watched the following video for a more modern perspective. To bring the conversation into a current context, an article about "the Asian mean girl" might be productive.

Controlling Images of Latinos and Native Americans

The two readings assigned for Wednesday's discussion extended earlier conversations about controlling images and media representations. Read the summaries and click on the links to read/skim and/or view the supplemental materials for your comments. Please note, this is not optional. All students are required to post a comment or a question for each post. From Ch. 46: In life history interviews with Latino men, Vasquez-Tokos and Norton-Smith found two recurrent themes: gangs and sports. Most respondents had not been involved in either gangs or sports, but they felt forcibly constrained by these controlling images , which had limited their educational opportunities, access to jobs, and sense of self-expression. Whereas prejudice involves negative emotions and stereotypes, controlling images are systemic and cultural instruments of power. They are not individual ideas, but rather ideological collective representations that offer “strategies of action” that bri...

Communicating Gender, Race, and Class: 2020

Search This Blog