Understanding Belongingness in Schools for Disabled Students Who Require a High Level of Support

Abstract

The principles and practices of belonging are at the heart of inclusion (Slee, 2019, p. 917). The concept of belonging allows for a broadening of the debates around the inclusion/exclusion binary (Mee & Wright, 2009, p. 774). The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how processes of belongingness do and do not occur in schools for disabled students. A critical disability studies orientation guided the project, specifically, Meekosha and Shuttleworth’s (2017) four principles of CDS. The research questions were: (1) How do the students I work with (autistic students with IDD) develop a sense of belongingness in classrooms and school spaces? (2) What are the conditions in schools that allow belongingness to flourish? (3) What are the conditions in schools that prevent processes of belongingness from occurring? The study was influenced by Jean Clandinin and Micheal Connolly’s conceptual framework for narrative inquiry. G. Thomas Couser’s six guidelines for disability life writing and representation were used as a standard for the construction of the participant narratives. I examined the experiences of two interview participants—an autistic young adult, and a school principal with two disabled daughters. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interviews and construct themes. Based on the themes, I composed narratives in which I quoted the participants verbatim. Each interview resulted in its own themes, along with one similarity and two differences between the interviews, in relation to the research questions. I further reflected on these findings and their implications for my teaching practice as a special education teacher. The final discussion section answers the research questions through my findings from the participants, which are contextualized in relevant literature and CDS concepts.