The challenge of transforming our educational thinking and practices to achieve genuine rather than token inclusion asks that we examine select ideas from the natural and social sciences that have served to colonize the childhood disability field through hegemonic educational discourses. This article examines the colonizing discourses that have limited the possibilities for education available for students with disabilities, particularly those with learning disabilities, through placing them as disadvantaged through a process of being “othered.” We then present three alternative, decolonizing discourses, which open greater possibilities for persons with disabilities through the adoption of an emancipatory rather than a compensatory orientation to learning.
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