Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Heather Howard and doctoral student Livy Drexler have been awarded a grant from the Spencer Foundation to carry out research for the project, “Special Education in Indian Country: Challenges and Insights from Applying Indigenous Models of Disability in Schools.” Indigenous children are overrepresented in special education programs and are 15% more likely than other groups to be tracked into special education programs. Yet, there has been little examination of the experiences of Indigenous students in special education nor of the intersection of Indigenous and disability identities. The research will explore this intersectionality by examining if there are culturally specific and appropriate Indigenous disability models which shape Indigenous students’ experiences of special education and provide insights for improving how models of disability are applied in Indigenous education settings. This study will uniquely engage disability critical race theory and critical Indigenous theory to understand the intersecting identities of disability and Indigeneity to provide a fuller understanding of Indigenous disability frameworks, and how these frameworks map with and against Western conceptions and understandings of disability.
The Spencer Foundation’s goals include investing in “research that is transformative, methodologically rigorous, and helps create a better society” while supporting “high-quality education research training… the diversity of scholars and scholarship in education research (to) strengthen the impact of education research for improving educational practice.” The $47,000 investment from the Spencer Foundation will support ethnographic fieldwork which will be conducted by Livy Drexler. Livy Drexler is an anthropology PhD candidate at MSU, a former special education student, and an older sibling to two autistic brothers. As a result of their background, Drexler will be able to contribute a unique and important perspective to this project. They will be guided by Indigenous methodological principles of knowledge production and the project will provide the participant communities with an informational resource for improving the education experience of Indigenous children in special education. Howard and Drexler are also delighted to collaborate with Dr. Troy Mariage who is serving as a consultant for this project. Mariage is an associate professor of special education in MSU’s counseling, educational psychology, and special education department.