From the Archives highlights articles from NCTM’s legacy journals, previously discussed during MTLT Teacher Talk.

Disability Studies in Education (DSE) questions deficit-based views of disability, the notion that disability resides within individuals, and technologies of disablement. As teacher educators, Rands and Sheldon used qualitative document analysis to investigate the feasibility of teaching a DSE-based continuing education course using a particular online platform. The theoretical framework for interpreting the findings drew on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concepts of stratoanalysis and double articulation, learning and common sense, lines of flight, as well as Michael Warner’s conceptualization of publics and counterpublics. Overall, rather than taking on a form of expression that aligns with DSE-based views of disablement, the course documents reinforce oppressive dominant views of disability. The documents revealed several constraining aspects of the infrastructure that, in combination, made teaching a DSE-based course unlikely. Although there is considerable potential for using virtual platforms for reaching teachers who do not have access to traditional university-based courses, this study offers a cautionary note to teacher educators considering partnering with third-party companies. However, the study also offers inspiration for those seeking to develop DSE-based courses; by engaging with the problematic nature of an existing platform, it is possible to embark on lines of flight and design courses that better match DSE notions.

Try these suggestions to increase the mathematical participation of each student.

In this article, I explore the potential for people with disabilities to conduct research about disability in education. Drawing upon Rasmussen (2006), I consider whether merely sharing one aspect of identity with participants is enough to gain an emic (insider) perspective when doing research. I argue that not only should we problematize our own identity, but that research should change the researcher's own identity and that the degree to which research promotes this change is an essential aspect of formal validity of the research. Finally, I propose some practical implications and offer some advice for researchers conducting research on disability.

Normative time is disciplined through what Freeman calls chrononormativity, and this disciplining is particularly evident in the experiences of disabled children. Despite the constant regimenting of the present reality for disabled children in time, they are essentially denied a future, the future generally being figured without people with disabilities. Exploring Muñoz’s critiques of Edelman, we emphasize the importance of futurity for children with disabilities, particularly one which they get to construct themselves rather than being constructed for them. We turn to Foucault’s discussion of the Ship of Fools in order to begin to imagine an alternative, queer time that is “steered” by children (and adults) with disabilities towards their own ends and goals.

In this article, I bring feminist theories, queer theories, and disability studies into dialogue with critical pedagogy by exploring the ways in which Freire constructs receptivity on the part of students as undesireable. Using Freire’s schema of objectification, I first look at how disabled people are objectified and then use this as a springboard for exploring Freire’s figuration of the student as a passive receptacle of knowledge. Making an analogy between Freire’s receptacle-students and its roots in Plato’s theory of the receptacle, I draw upon feminist theorists in order to challenge prevailing conceptions of the receptacle and to argue for tactically claiming receptivity as a subject position. Rather than merely taking on an active, masculine role, I suggest that both students and teachers need to be receptive to the Other and to the possibilities of being changed by the knowledge that they receive. Finally, I use these ideas of receptivity to explore the possibility for disabled subject positions within critical pedagogy.

JAMES SHELDON is a Sally Cassanova Predoctoral Scholar conducting research on Complex Instruction and discourse at the University of Arizona, 1430 E. Second Street, Tucson, AZ 85721, email: jsheldon@email.arizona.edu. His research draws upon queer theory and disability studies to explore how students are constructed as low-achieving and how teachers can move from looking at individual deficits to models of curriculum and pedagogy based on Complex Instruction. He is a special education mathematics teacher at the California Virtual Academies, a virtual Title I public charter school. BOOK REVIEW