Contemplating Dis/Ability in Schools and Society

This book chronicles the professional life of a career-long, inclusive educator in New York City through eight different stages in special and general education. Developing a new approach to research as part of qualitative methodology, David J. Connor merges the academic genre of autoethnography with memoir to create a narrative that engages the reader through stories of personal experiences within the professional world that politicized him as an educator. After each chapter's narrative, a systematic analytic commentary follows that focuses on: teaching and learning in schools and universities; the influence of educational laws; specific models of disability and how influence educators and educational researchers; and educational structures and systems-including their impact on social, political, and cultural experiences of people with disabilities.
This autoethnographic memoir documents, over three decades, the relationship between special and general education, the growth of the inclusion movement, and the challenge of special education as a discrete academic field. As part of a national group of critical special educators, Connor describes the growth of counter-theory through the inception and subsequent growth of DSE as a viable academic field, and the importance of rethinking human differences in new ways.

David J. Connor is professor of special education/learning disabilities at Hunter College

A Note from the Editor
Note to the Reader
Preface: From World's End to World's Center
Introduction
Chapter 1: Classroom Teacher
Chapter 2: Staff Developer
Chapter 3: Doctoral Student
Chapter 4: Teacher Coach
Chapter 5: College Professor
Chapter 6: Scholar
Chapter 7: Doctoral Faculty
Chapter 8: Department Chairperson
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Appendix
References
About the Author