Research on racial and linguistic disparities in disability identification must be grounded on the dual nature of disability as an object of protection and a tool of stratification. This dual nature requires a situated research approach to understand the stratifying power of disability—Who is targeted? Where? How? By whom and to what consequences? I contrast this perspective with the traditional research approach that privileges a deficit and colorblind framing of racial disparities. The application of a colorblind ideology enables researchers to envision students of color as innately damaged and in need of remediation; thus, forming ideology–ontology circuits. I offer three strategies to disrupt these circuits in future learning disabilities research, namely the elimination of colorblind research strategies, the adoption of a historical imagination, and the discontinuation of Black and Brown abstractions.
ArtilesA. J. (2011). The Wallace Foundation distinguished lecture: Toward an interdisciplinary understanding of educational equity and difference: The case of the racialization of ability. Educational Researcher, 40(9), 431–445. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X11429391
2.
ArtilesA. J. (2015). Beyond responsiveness to identity badges: Future research on culture in disability and implications for RTI. Educational Review, 67(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2014.934322
3.
ArtilesA. J. (2019). The 14th annual brown lecture in education research: Re-envisioning equity research: Disability identification disparities as a case in point. Educational Researcher, 48(6), 325–335. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19871949
4.
ArtilesA. J.DornS.BalA. (2016). Objects of protection, enduring nodes of difference: Disability intersections with “other” differences, 1916–2016. Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 777–820. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X16680606
5.
ArtilesA. J.KozleskiE. B. (2010). What counts as response and intervention in RTI? A sociocultural analysis. Psicothema, 22, 949–954. https://www.psicothema.com/pdf/3825.pdf.
6.
ArtilesA. J.RoseD.GonzalezT.BalA. (2020). Biology and culture in learning disabilities research: Legacies and possible futures. In NasirN. S.LeeC.PeaR.De RoystonM. M. (Eds.), Handbook of the cultural foundations of learning (pp. 160–177). Routledge.
7.
ArtilesA. J.RuedaR.SalazarJ.HigaredaI. (2005). Within-group diversity in minority disproportionate representation: English language learners in urban school districts. Exceptional Children, 71(3), 283–300. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290507100305
8.
ArtilesA. J.TrentS. C.KuanL. A. (1997). Learning disabilities research on ethnic minority students: An analysis of 22 years of studies published in selected refereed journals. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 12(2), 82–91.
9.
BayntonD. C. (1996). Forbidden signs: American culture and the campaign against sign language. University of Chicago Press.
10.
BayntonD. C. (2001). Disability and the justification of inequality in American history. In DavisL. J. (Ed.), The disability studies reader (4th ed., pp. 17–33). Routledge.
11.
BayntonD. C. (2005). Slaves, immigrants, and suffragists: The uses of disability in citizenship debates. PMLA, 120(2), 562–568. https://doi.org/10.1632/S0030812900167902
12.
BenjaminR. (2014). Conjuring difference, concealing inequality: A brief tour of Racecraft. Theory and Society, 43(6), 683–688. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-014-9238-z
13.
BenjaminR. (2017). Cultura obscura: Race, power, and “culture talk” in the health sciences. American Journal of Law & Medicine, 43(2–3), 225–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098858817723661
14.
BoboL. D. (2011). Somewhere between Jim Crow & post-racialism: Reflections on the racial divide in America today. Daedalus, 140(2), 11–36. https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_00091
15.
Bonilla-SilvaE. (2006). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield.
16.
CollinsK. M.ConnorD.FerriB.GallagherD.SamsonJ. F. (2016). Dangerous assumptions and unspoken limitations: A disability studies in education response to Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, Mattison, Maczuga, Li, and Cook (2015). Multiple Voices, 16(1), 4–16. https://doi.org/10.5555/2158-396X.16.1.4
17.
CroomM.Wynter-HoyteK.WatsonV. W. M.GadsdenV. L.HucksD. C.LeeC. D.BauerE. B. (2021). Black Lives Matter panel: A generous invitation to the archive. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 70(1), 62–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/23813377211030169
18.
CruzR. A.RodlJ. E. (2018). An integrated synthesis of literature on disproportionality in special education. The Journal of Special Education, 52(1), 50–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022466918758707
FieldsK. E.FieldsB. (2012). Racecraft: The soul of inequality in American life. Verso.
27.
FineM.RuglisJ. (2009). Circuits and consequences of dispossession: The racialized realignment of the public sphere. Transforming Anthropology, 17(1), 20–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-7466.2009.01037.x
28.
FletcherJ. M.StuebingK. K.MorrisR. D.LyonG. R. (2014). Classification and definition of learning disabilities: A hybrid model. In SwansonH. L.HarrisK. R.GrahamS. (Eds.), Handbook of learning disabilities (pp. 33–50). Guilford.
29.
GonzálezT.ArtilesA. J. (2015). Reframing venerable standpoints about language and learning differences: The need for research on the literate lives of Latina/o language minority students. The Journal of Multilingual Educational Research, 6(1), 9–34. https://research.library.fordham.edu/jmer/vol6/iss1/3
30.
GotandaN. (2010). The “common sense” of race. Southern California Law Review, 83(3), 441–451.
31.
GrahamS. (1992). “Most of the subjects were white and middle class”: Trends in published research on African Americans in selected APA journals. American Psychologist, 47(5), 629–639. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.47.5.629
32.
GresalfiM.MartinT.HandV.GreenoJ. (2009). Constructing competence: An analysis of student participation in the activity systems of mathematics classrooms. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 70(1), 49–70. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-008-9141-5
33.
GutiérrezK. D. (2008). Developing a sociocritical literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly, 43(2), 148–164. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.43.2.3
34.
HallL. A. (2010). The negative consequences of becoming a good reader: Identity theory as a lens for understanding struggling readers, teachers, and reading instruction. Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 112(7), 1792–1829. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811011200708
35.
HammonsE. M.HerzigR. M. (2009). The nature of difference: Sciences of race in the United States from Jefferson to genomics. MIT Press.
36.
HandV. M. (2010). The co-construction of opposition in a low-track mathematics classroom. American Educational Research Journal, 47(1), 97–132. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831209344216
37.
HarrisC. (2006). Whitewashing race: Scapegoating culture. California Law Review, 94(3), 907–943. https://doi.org/10.2307/20439052
38.
HellerK. A.HoltzmanW.MessickS. (Eds.) (1982). Placing children in special education: A strategy of equity. National Academy Press.
39.
Hernández-SacaD.CannonM. (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
40.
Hill CollinsP. (2009). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.
41.
Immordino-YangM. H. (2013). Studying the effects of culture by integrating neuroscientific with ethnographic approaches. Psychological Inquiry, 24(1), 42–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2013.770278
42.
ItoM.GutiérrezK.LivingstoneS.PenuelW.RhodesJ.SalenK.SchorJ.Sefton-GreenJ.WatkinsS. C. (2013). Connected learning: An agenda for research and design. Digital Media and Learning Research Hub.
43.
JiménezR. T.DavidS.FaganK.RiskoV. J.PachecoM.PrayL.GonzalesM. (2015). Using translation to drive conceptual development for students becoming literate in English as an additional language. Research in the Teaching of English, 49(3), 248–271.
44.
Kramarczuk VoulgaridesC.AylwardA.TeferaA.ArtilesA. J.AlvaradoS. L.NogueraP. (2021). Unpacking the logic of compliance in special education: Contextual influences on discipline racial disparities in suburban schools. Sociology of Education, 94(3), 208–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380407211013322
45.
KriegerN. (2011). Epidemiology and the people’s health: Theory and context. Oxford University Press.
46.
KriegerN.BoydR. W.De MaioF.MaybankA. (2021, April 20). Medicine’s privileged gatekeepers: Producing harmful ignorance about racism and health. Health Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1377/forefront.20210415.305480
47.
LambertR. (2015). Constructing and resisting disability in mathematics classrooms: A case study exploring the impact of different pedagogies. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 89(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-014-9587-6
48.
LambertR. (2019). Political, relational, and complexly embodied; experiencing disability in the mathematics classroom. ZDM, 51(2), 279–289. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-019-01031-1
49.
LeeC. D. (2002). Interrogating race and ethnicity as constructs in the examination of cultural processes in developmental research. Human Development, 45(4), 282–290. https://doi.org/10.1159/000064990
50.
LindoE. J. (2006). The African American presence in reading intervention experiments. Remedial and Special Education, 27(3), 148–153. https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325060270030301
51.
MacSwanJ.RolstadK.GlassG. (2002). Do some school-age children have no language? Some problems of construct validity in the pre-LAS Español. Bilingual Research Journal, 26(2), 395–420. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2002.10668718
MedinaC. L. (2021). Barruntos: Youth improvisational work as anticolonial literacy actionings in Puerto Rico. Research in the Teaching of English, 56(2), 132–154.
54.
MehanH. (1993). Beneath the skin and between the ears. In ChaiklinS.LaveJ. (Eds.), Understanding practice (pp. 241–269). Cambridge University Press.
55.
MirraN.GarciaA. (2020). In search of the meaning and purpose of 21st-century literacy learning: A critical review of research and practice. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(3), 463–496. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.313
56.
MooreB. A.KlingnerJ. K. (2012). Considering the needs of English language learner populations: An examination of the population of reading intervention research. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 47(5), 391–408. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219412466702
57.
MorganP. L.FarkasG.CookM.StrassfeldN. M.HillemeierM. M.PunW. H.WangY.SchusslerD. L. (2018). Are Hispanic, Asian, Native American, or language-minority children overrepresented in special education?Exceptional Children, 84(3), 261–279. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014402917748303
58.
MorganP. L.FarkasG.HillemeierM. M.MattisonR.MaczugaS.LiH.CookM. (2015). Minorities are disproportionately underrepresented in special education: Longitudinal evidence across five disability conditions. Educational Researcher, 44(5), 278–292. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X15591157
59.
NasirN.SnyderC. R.ShahN.RossK. M. (2012). Racial storylines and implications for learning. Human Development, 55(5–6), 285–301. https://doi.org/10.1159/000345318
60.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2022). The future of education research at the institute of education sciences: Advancing an equity-oriented science. The National Academies Press.
OkonofuaJ. A.EberhardtJ. L. (2015). Two strikes: Race and the disciplining of young students. Psychological Science, 26(5), 617–624. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615570365
63.
PachecoM. B.DanielS.PrayL. C.JiménezR. T. (2019). Translingual practice, strategic participation, and meaning-making. Journal of Literacy Research, 51(1), 75–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X18820642
64.
PhilipT. P.BangM.JacksonK. (2018). Articulating the “how,” the “for what,” the “for whom,” and the “with whom” in concert: A call to broaden the benchmarks of our scholarship. Cognition and Instruction, 36(2), 83–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2018.1413530
65.
QuereshiA.OkonofuaJ. (2017). Locked out of the classroom: How implicit bias contributes to disparities in school discipline. NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund.
66.
RosaJ. (2016). Standardization, racialization, languagelessness: Raciolinguistic ideologies across communicative contexts. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 26(2), 162–183. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12116
67.
RossT. (1996). Just stories: How the law embodies racism and bias. Beacon Press.
68.
SabatiS. (2019). Upholding “colonial unknowing” through the IRB: Reframing institutional research ethics. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(9–10), 1056–1064. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800418787214
69.
Santos de BaronaM. (1993). The availability of ethnic materials in psychology journals: A review of 20 years of journal publication. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 18(4), 391–400. https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1993.1029
70.
SchweikS. M. (2009). The ugly laws: Disability in public. New York University Press.
71.
SkibaR.ArtilesA. J.KozleskiE. B.LosenD.HarryB. (2016). Risks and consequences of oversimplifying educational inequities: A response to Morgan et al. (2015). Educational Researcher, 45, 221–225. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X16644606
72.
SkibaR. J.SimmonsA. B.RitterS.GibbA. C.RauschM. K.CuadradoJ.ChungC.-G. (2008). Achieving equity in special education: History, status, and current challenges. Exceptional Children, 74(3), 264–288. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290807400301
73.
SterponiL. (2007). Clandestine interactional reading: Intertextuality and double-voicing under the desk. Linguistics and Education, 18(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2007.04.001
74.
StewartM. A. (2014). Social networking, workplace, and entertainment literacies: The out- of-school literate lives of newcomer Latina/o adolescents. Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4), 365–369. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.80
75.
SwansonH. L.HarrisK. R.GrahamS. (2014). Overview of foundations, causes, instruction, and methodology in the field of learning disabilities. In SwansonH. L.HarrisK. R.GrahamS. (Eds.), Handbook of learning disabilities (pp. 3–14). Guilford.
76.
SyedM.SantosC.YooH. C. B.JuangL. P. (2018). Invisibility of racial/ethnic minorities in developmental science: Implications for research and institutional practices. American Psychologist, 73(6), 812–826. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000294
77.
TeferaA.ArtilesA. J. (in press). Learning disabilities’ unsettling intersections: Betwixt learning, cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental deficiencies. In TierneyR.RizviF.ErcikanK.SmithG. (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (4th ed.). Elsevier.
78.
TeferaA.ArtilesA. J.Kramarczuk VoulgaridesC.AylwardA.AlvaradoS. (2022). The aftermath of disproportionality citations: Situating disability-race intersections in historical, spatial, and sociocultural contexts. [Unpublished manuscript under review].
79.
TrentS. C.DriverM. K.RodriguezD.OhK.StewartS.KeaC.ArtilesA. J. (2014). Beyond Brown: Empirical research on diverse learners with or at-risk for specific learning disabilities from 1994–2012. Multiple Voices, 14(2), 12–29. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1091752
VasquezE.IIILopezA.StraubC.PowellS.McKinneyT.WalkerZ.GonzalezT.SlocumT. A.MasonL.OkeeffeB. V.BedesemP. L. (2011). Empirical research on ethnic minority students: 1995–2009. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 26(2), 84–93. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5826.2011.00328.x
82.
WaitollerF.ArtilesA. J.CheneyD. (2010). The miner’s canary: A review of overrepresentation research and explanations. The Journal of Special Education, 44(1), 29–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022466908329226
