From Detractive to Democratic: The Duty of Teacher Education to Disrupt Structural Ableism and Reimagine Disability

Background: There is scant research on whether or how special education teacher preparation plays a role in shaping, maintaining, or perpetuating ableism and oppression for disabled students, which the author proposes is “structural ableism.” This conceptual article argues that special education teacher preparation programs’ systems and structures should be examined for ways they inadvertently contribute to ableist perceptions of disability to ensure that such structures do not influence the lenses and practice of the teachers they produce. Purpose: This article proposes that special education teacher preparation programs’ systems and structures should be examined for ways they inadvertently contribute to oppressive educational conditions and negative or ableist perceptions of disability to ensure that such structures do not influence the lenses and practice of the teachers they produce. In this article, the author theorizes “structural ableism,” which she defines as “a complex system of hierarchical and discriminatory processes, policies, and institutions that privilege and prefer able-bodied people, fail to represent or meaningfully include disabled persons’ voices, and are grounded in a network of ableist beliefs and practices that maintain and reproduce unequal outcomes for disabled people and benefit able-bodied people.” Conclusion: The author concludes that teacher preparation has a duty to embrace inclusivity through the lens of democratic education to help “shift disability toward a more inclusive ideology, and identify and dismantle oppressive structures that perpetuate ableism in teacher candidates.”