HERE Center

Critical Race Theory Resources

Disabilities Studies

Sentences that come directly from the article are in quotation marks. CSUN students, faculty, and staff can access most articles through the University Library using CSUN credentials. Please use the library’s interlibrary loan services if an article of interest is not available.

 

Algood, C., & Davis, A. M. (2019). Inequities in family quality of life for African-American families raising children with disabilities. Social Work in Public Health, 34(1), 102–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/19371918.2018.1562399

  • Using CRT, the authors present challenges and inequities that impact quality of life faced by African American families raising children with disabilities (N = 123). They discuss the role for social workers in addressing disparities in healthcare and other areas.

 

Beneke, M. R. (2021). Investigating young children’s conceptualizations of disability and race: An intersectional, multiplane critique. Educational Researcher, 50(2), 97–104. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X21992029

  • Bridging Disability Critical Race Theory and sociocultural perspectives, this essay “proposes the need for intersectional, multiplane qualitative data generation in studying young children’s disability and race conceptualizations to account for the ways intersecting, oppressive ideologies are perpetuated in young children’s worlds.”

 

Campbell, F. A. K. (2008). Exploring internalized ableism using critical race theory. Disability & Society, 23(2), 151–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687590701841190

  • This paper seeks to theorize about the way disabled people live with ableism, in particular internalized ableism. Drawing insights from CRT, the author examine ways in which CRT can contribute to thinking through the processes, formation and consequences of ableism.

 

Carlson, L. (2017). Intelligence, disability, and race: Intersections and critical questions. American Journal of Law & Medicine, 43(2-3), 257–262. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098858817723663

  • Bringing CRT and a critical disability perspective into dialogue, Carlson addresses a series of questions—ontological, epistemological, normative and ethical—that speak to the multiple ways that race and intellectual disability are intertwined.

 

DeMatthews, D. (2020). Addressing racism and ableism in schools: A DisCrit leadership framework for principals. The Clearing House, 93(1), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/00098655.2019.1690419

  • This article considers “how school leadership practice can systematically address racism and ableism. Dis/ability Critical Race Studies is used to critique and expand existing conceptions leadership practice.”

 

Gibson, A. N., & Martin, J. D., III. (2019). Re‐situating information poverty: Information marginalization and parents of individuals with disabilities. Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 70(5), 476–487. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24128

  • Drawing on critical disability theory, CRT, and critical work within information and library science, the authors explore information poverty among a group of mothers (N = 24) of individuals with Down syndrome and/or Autism Spectrum Disorders. This study “has implications for the development and design of systems and service models intended to provide access to information and services for individuals with disability and contributes to a critical literature on information poverty.”

 

Hernández-Saca, D., & Cannon, M. A. (2019). Interrogating disability epistemologies: Towards collective dis/ability intersectional emotional, affective and spiritual autoethnographies for healing. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(3), 243–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2019.1576944

  • Utilizing critical disability studies, CRT, and spiritual paradigm, the authors interrogate construction and expression of differences of Learning Disability and Speech and Language Impairment. They explore ways in which labeling Black and Brown people with a special education disability category impacts their emotional, affective, and spiritual development in and around schools.

 

Iqtadar, S., Hernández-Saca, D. I., & Ellison, S. (2020). "If it wasn't my race, it was other things like being a woman, or my disability": A qualitative research synthesis of disability research. Disability Studies Quarterly, 40(2). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v40i2.6881

  • This study synthesizes 13 qualitative studies from 2006 to 2018 and explore the lived experiences of students of color labeled with disabilities. Findings suggest that “students identified disability labels as an assigned identity, which limited their educational opportunities and left a psychological and emotional impact on their well-being. However, students also used multiple strategies and acts of resistance to negotiate the stereotypical master narratives surrounding their intersectional identities.”

 

Kim, J., & Sellmaier, C. (2020). Making disability visible in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 56(3), 496–507. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2019.1661899

  • This article “discusses frameworks for ways social work education can proactively and intentionally address disability within ableist institutional practices.”

 

Mulderink, C. E. (2020). The emergence, importance of #DisabilityTooWhite hashtag. Disability Studies Quarterly, 40(2). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v40i2.6484

  • Mulderink centers her theoretical commitments within the realm of Disability/Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) to critique the interplay of race (ism) and ability (ableism). She analyzes the content that has been posted by Twitter users under the #DisabilityTooWhite hashtag. She then draws themes from her research that “fall in line with DisCrit's central commitments as a means to deepen the conversations about disability, Whiteness, and social media.”

 

Richardson, S. L. L., & Stoneman, Z. (2019). It takes a sister: Sisterhood and Black womanhood in families of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Disability & Society, 34(4), 607–628. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2018.1555451

  • This study explores the sibling relationships of Black women with sisters who have intellectual and developmental disabilities in the southeast U.S. The authors use Disability/Critical Race Theory “to understand the perceptions and stigmas associated with disability relating to social, cultural, and psychological structures within sibling relationships.”

 

Robinson, G. C., & Norton, P. C. (2019). A decade of disproportionality: A state-level analysis of African American students enrolled in the primary disability category of speech or language impairment. Language, Speech & Hearing Services in Schools, 50(2), 267–282. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_LSHSS-17-0149

  • This study explores whether African American students were disproportionately represented between the years of 2004 and 2014 in the primary disability category of Speech or Language Impairment (S/LI) under the 2004 reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. S/LI enrollment data from the Office of Special Education Programs and general enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics were analyzed. Findings show that “an average of 75% of states disproportionately represented African American students in the S/LI category each year; on average, 62% underrepresented African American students, and 14% overrepresented them.” These findings are discussed in the context of the fragmented harm theory and the disability rights and CRT.

 

Schalk, S., & Kim, J. B. (2020). Integrating race, transforming feminist disability studies. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 46(1), 31–55. https://doi.org/10.1086/709213

  • This article aims to trace an alternate lineage of feminist disability studies that centralizes the scholarship of feminists of color. It does so by “identifying potential sites of analysis and opportunities for cross-pollination as well as providing a substantive foundation for future feminist-of-color disability studies scholarship across a variety of disciplines.”