Including Conscientiously: How Charter School Educators Experience Inclusion Education Implementation
type: CreativeWork
description: This narrative inquiry examined how charter school educators experience inclusive education implementation while confronting ableist systems that maintain exclusion through seemingly neutral practices. This research emerged from my lived experience of how educational structures systematically marginalize disabled students while appearing progressive. The study investigated two research questions: how support structures and leadership practices either perpetuate or dismantle ableist assumptions embedded in educational practice, and how educators negotiate tensions between implementing evidence-based inclusive strategies and addressing environmental factors that create the need for those strategies. Data collection employed semistructured interviews with eight credentialed educators across two Southern California charter school sites, supplemented by classroom observations. Analysis utilized Disability Studies in Education framework through Capper's seven tenets, employing thematic analysis to identify patterns illuminating how educational systems perpetuate exclusion or create transformative change. Findings revealed sophisticated exclusion practices that maintain segregation while appearing inclusive. Both school sites demonstrated persistent ableism through institutional structures prioritizing adult comfort while systematically marginalizing disabled students despite stated commitments to inclusion. Professional development emerged as a critical battleground where competing ideologies about disability played out, with traditional approaches reproducing medical model assumptions while transformative approaches centered disabled voices and critiqued power structures. Participants described navigating contradictions between implementing interventions and addressing systemic barriers that necessitated those interventions, revealing how environmental obstacles are treated as natural rather than socially constructed impediments. Results demonstrate that individual attit…
abstract: This narrative inquiry examined how charter school educators experience inclusive education implementation while confronting ableist systems that maintain exclusion through seemingly neutral practices. This research emerged from my lived experience of how educational structures systematically marginalize disabled students while appearing progressive. The study investigated two research questions: how support structures and leadership practices either perpetuate or dismantle ableist assumptions embedded in educational practice, and how educators negotiate tensions between implementing evidence-based inclusive strategies and addressing environmental factors that create the need for those strategies. Data collection employed semistructured interviews with eight credentialed educators across two Southern California charter school sites, supplemented by classroom observations. Analysis utilized Disability Studies in Education framework through Capper's seven tenets, employing thematic analysis to identify patterns illuminating how educational systems perpetuate exclusion or create transformative change. Findings revealed sophisticated exclusion practices that maintain segregation while appearing inclusive. Both school sites demonstrated persistent ableism through institutional structures prioritizing adult comfort while systematically marginalizing disabled students despite stated commitments to inclusion. Professional development emerged as a critical battleground where competing ideologies about disability played out, with traditional approaches reproducing medical model assumptions while transformative approaches centered disabled voices and critiqued power structures. Participants described navigating contradictions between implementing interventions and addressing systemic barriers that necessitated those interventions, revealing how environmental obstacles are treated as natural rather than socially constructed impediments. Results demonstrate that individual attit…
author: Petty, Joe A.
keywords: Inclusion, Special Education, Education Leadership, Teacher Professional Development, Accessibility, Disability and Equity in Education, Educational Leadership, Educational Methods, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education, Special Education Administration, Special Education and Teaching, Teacher Education and Professional Development, Urban Education
date published: 2025-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:41:55Z
provider: University of San Diego
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of San Diego