Negotiating Identity

Abstract

The reality of children with disability is one that is often ignored, viewed with prejudice, analysed and commented upon externally — usually by those who are safely distanced from this reality by virtue of being neither disabled, nor children. How do these non-inclusive, non-participatory attitudes and assumptions impact on the schooling that the children receive, even if the school setting is an integrated one? More importantly, how do they impact on the children themselves, on their self-image and their relationships with each other and with the adults around them? Through conversations with children and the drawings made by them, this paper examines how a marginalised group (children with disabilities in the 5 to 13 age group) within a ‘mainstream culture’ perceives itself to be, in contrast to how others construct them to be. During the course of the research, children‘s conceptions of self as being different, as belonging to a group, awareness of prejudice and resistance to being categorised were apparent. What was also apparent were the limitations in the way we view children with disability and the need for us to re-view these existing images.