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Understanding ableism: A teaching and learning tool for early childhood education practitioners

Silky Sharma and Carol Hamilton
Abstract: 

Despite implementation of significant legislation and policy initiatives related to human rights and inclusive practices, children with disabilities can still experience discrimination and exclusion in multiple areas of their lives, including in early childhood education (ECE). Evidence of a gap between policies about inclusion and the reality of exclusionary practices in this educational field has been found. To investigate this issue, researchers have explored how negative attitudes and beliefs can shape the actions of personnel working in New Zealand ECE settings. This article offers a definition of ableism as a concept and a teaching/learning tool. How might ECE educators’ understanding of this term and knowledge of the effects ableism has on practice help them to get past the exclusionary processes research has found? Initial findings from a current doctoral study are included to examine this question. Finally, the authors briefly discuss how wider understandings of ableism within ECE might help transcend the policy–practice divide in ways that are productive in respect of the inclusion of all disabled children in ECE settings.

Understanding ableism

A teaching and learning tool for early childhood education practitioners

Silky Sharma and Carol Hamilton

Despite implementation of significant legislation and policy initiatives related to human rights and inclusive practices, children with disabilities can still experience discrimination and exclusion in multiple areas of their lives, including in early childhood education (ECE). Evidence of a gap between policies about inclusion and the reality of exclusionary practices in this educational field has been found. To investigate this issue, researchers have explored how negative attitudes and beliefs can shape the actions of personnel working in New Zealand ECE settings. This article offers a definition of ableism as a concept and a teaching/learning tool. How might ECE educators’ understanding of this term and knowledge of the effects ableism has on practice help them to get past the exclusionary processes research has found? Initial findings from a current doctoral study are included to examine this question. Finally, the authors briefly discuss how wider understandings of ableism within ECE might help transcend the policy–practice divide in ways that are productive in respect of the inclusion of all disabled children in ECE settings.

Introduction

In the past three decades, the rights of disabled children to equal participation and achievement in all areas of their lives, including education, have been underpinned by legislation and policy in Aotearoa New Zealand (Education Act, 1989; Human Rights Act, 1993; New Zealand Government, 2010; Office for Disability Issues, 2016; United Nations, 2006). Yet research reveals that at least some disabled children can experience significant degrees of marginalisation, if not outright exclusion from opportunities available to their non-disabled peers. In early childhood education (ECE) in New Zealand, researchers have found that disabled children can be subject to significant forms of differential treatment (Lyons, 2013; Macartney, 2011; Purdue, 2004). At these times, stereotypical views of disability held in society can influence ECE personnel’s attitudes and practices (Kearney, 2009). As Young and Quibell (2000) suggest, using rights-based policy initiatives to rectify the problem does not always address the underlying social tensions that have created the necessity for drawing on a rights-based solution to solve the issue. Close scrutiny of the power of underlying social norms and customs implicated in these circumstances are needed, otherwise the influence of them within exclusionary practices will continue unimpeded (Hamilton, 2017). The purpose of this article is to investigate whether the concept of ableism could be used as a tool to promote understandings that will counter the operation of these norms/customs, at the point where attitudes and beliefs can be seen to impact on ECE practitioners’ willingness to provide quality ECE for children with disabilities. It has been written in response to the first author’s doctoral study literature review which revealed a lack of studies investigating how working with ableism might assist ECE teachers and others to (re)examine their attitudes and change their practices in ways that are generative over time. The study—Understanding How Ableism Affects Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Early Childhood Education Settings in New Zealand—was designed to examine how the effects of ableism impact on the practices of teachers and others involved in ECE settings who are working with children with ASD in respect of the following questions:

What knowledge and understanding do teachers, education support workers, and supervisors/head teachers in ECE centres have about ableism and its impact on the inclusion of children with ASD?

How do these knowledges/beliefs influence the attitudes and practices of teachers, education support workers, and supervisors/head teachers in ECE centres towards children with ASD?

What strategies might teachers adopt to counter the effects of ableism/ableist practices in their ECE centre?

The article begins with a brief description of Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) as a policy/curriculum guide to inclusive practice in ECE settings. Secondly, the concept of ableism as a thoughtless/unconscious series of social norm-related power/knowledge effects that influence possibilities for teacher practices is introduced and explained. A New Zealand-based research study is used to provide examples of how using ableism might be helpful in examining the socially constructed nature of exclusionary processes. The article then briefly discusses three excerpts from data collected from initial fieldwork. The article concludes with some questions about the value of using ableism as a conceptual tool to promote change.

Te Whariki—an inclusive curriculum

Te Whāriki, the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, is underpinned by a vision of children becoming “competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society” (Ministry of Education, 2017, pp. 5–6). This idea is promoted through the notion of an “inclusion for all” approach in the document that brings together key social practices related to “gender and ethnicity, diversity of ability and learning needs, family structure and values, socioeconomic status and religion” (Ministry of Education, 2017, p. 13). How this will happen is envisaged through implementation of Te Whāriki with the additional expectation “that each ECE service will use Te Whāriki as a basis for weaving with children, parents and whānau its own local curriculum of valued learning” (p. 8). As a guide to implementation within this expectation, Te Whāriki includes information about the “broad characteristics of infants, toddlers and young children and the implications of these for curriculum” (p. 12). While the term disability is not specifically mentioned in the social practices referred to in the “inclusion for all” idea noted above, it is acknowledged that fitting children into these “typical characteristics” may, for some, “require further assessment, planning, intervention and support” (p. 13). Identifying and eliminating any barriers to inclusion are also mentioned as an important aspect of the weaving-together process. Here Te Whāriki suggests that centres take an holistic approach, as “barriers may be physical (for example, the design of the physical environment), social (for example, practices that constrain participation) or conceptual (beliefs that limit what is considered appropriate for certain children)” (p. 13).

The inclusion of the necessity to eliminate barriers related to the limitations contained in inappropriate conceptual beliefs is an important aspect of this document. Currently, New Zealand ECE centres are not obligated to admit disabled children, unlike primary and secondary school systems which remain subject to the 1989 Education Act. Recent research has found that deficit views of disability and incomplete knowledge and understanding about the developmental and learning needs of children with disabilities continues to create barriers for the inclusion of at least some children in this group in ECE centres (Lyons, 2013; Macartney, 2011). This can include centres following the practice of not admitting children with certain impairments, or admitting on a part-time basis (Hamilton & Vermeren, 2016). At these times, disability is seen as an individual issue/problem, a view that orientates ECE personnel towards focusing on within-child limitations rather than considering whether, how, and to what degree surrounding physical, social, or cognitive forces might be involved.

Ableism—an invisible/unconscious social force

The term ableism has been chosen in preference to the term disablism for this article and for the doctoral research study. As Goodley (2012) suggests, disablism describes a set of assumptions and practices, often internalised, that trigger inequality and othering of disabled people. This, in turn, undermines disabled people’s physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing. This definition is echoed by Nishida (2013) who, using a critical psychoanalytic theory lens, describes disablism as a set of “social ideologies that affect non-disabled people’s attitude toward disabled people (particularly to their differences), as well as how the attitudes are processed, and at times internalized, by disabled people” (p. 6). Within educational contexts, disablism manifests as lower expectations, stereotypical labeling, and assumptions about the competencies of children with disabilities (Hehir, 2002). Like ableism, disablism definitions prioritise the process and impact of othering on the disabled person(s) concerned. Ableism also links to assumptions about disability that assign an inferior value to disabled people (Campbell, 2008; Hehir, 2007; Neely-Barnes, Graff, Roberts, Hall, & Hankins, 2010). However, ableism equally prioritises the (often hidden from view) presence of the characteristics against which people with disabilities are judged as different/deficit/inferior (Campbell, 2008; Hehir, 2002).

In this location, ableism describes the operation of the “belief that it is better or superior not to have a disability than to have one and that it is better to do things in the way that non-disabled people do” (Storey, 2007, p. 56). This view of ableism within an education context opens up room for the development of a greater understanding of how the idea of what a “normal” child can do is central to exclusionary approaches. Further, all children are compared to this mythical “normal” child. However, it is recognised that children with disabilities in particular are then “found (or pathologized as) lacking” (Cologan, 2013, p. 13). Efforts to remediate the appearance and behaviour of children with disabilities so that “they may learn or behave in the same ways as non-disabled children” (Hehir, 2002, p. 1) are examples of ableism’s marginalising and discriminatory processes. Actions are motivated against the idea of a “normal” child, who learns and behaves in ways that conform to norm-inspired “typical characteristics”. As Hehir (2002) remarks, it is just as efficient to roll as it is to walk and just as efficient to use sign language as it is to use oral language. However, ableism orientates professionals towards the design of supports so that children can be assisted to walk and talk “in the same way as non-disabled children” (Hehir, 2002, p. 1).

Recent ideas about ableism’s operation within physical and social environments have opened up the possibility of developing a wider understanding about the strength and purposes these processes can hold. This idea is signalled in a recent New Zealand study which examined the tensions surrounding inclusion in long-day early childhood care and education centres (Lyons, 2013). Lyons uses the concept of “enlightened ableism” to explain how teachers’ misuse of inclusive language can lead to stereotyped assumptions that impact on the inclusion of children with disabilities. Enlightened ableism describes how non-disabled people employ a rhetoric of inclusion and equality related to people with disability, but continue with practices that marginalise and discriminate. Further, this author found a gap between what educators had to say about inclusion and what they did with regard to fully including children with disabilities in the life of their centres. Other studies have also uncovered a disparity between what should be happening and what is happening in respect of ECE centre practices related to marginalisation and exclusion. However, Lyons (2013) argues the operation of enlightened ableism makes it difficult for teachers to see the impact their practices have. Further she suggests that “it is neither accurate nor useful to suggest that ECE teachers, owners and managers in Aotearoa New Zealand are deliberately electing to exclude children with disabilities” (p. 240)—an important point that opens up possibilities of moving beyond the tendency for researchers to blame ECE professionals for either showing bias or not believing in the concept of full inclusion, in order to begin a change process.

Using the concept of ableism makes it possible to concentrate on how the effects of social forces operating on the abled side of the dis/ability binary affect inclusive practices. Scuro (2017) suggests that ableism, as a social force, is not recognised by non-disabled people because of the lack of knowledge about the concept and the impact on them that it contains. For Scuro, the pervasive and all encompassing “thoughtlessness of ableism” can produce the conditions for the marginalisation of disabled people but, critically, without any identified intention on the part of non-disabled people. This idea can also be found in Goodley’s (2011, 2016, as cited in Goodley, 2014) notion of the psychopathology of the normal. This idea considers the ways in which living as a non-disabled (or able-bodied) person will inevitably plunge individuals into emotional turmoil. Without the possibility of naming what the emotional difficulties might be, the “easy route out of any psychic trouble is projection or finding failings in others rather than in self” (Goodley, 2014, p. 118). These insights make it possible to understand how ableism can remain an unrecognised social force that plays a centrally influential, yet often overlooked, role in why children with disabilities can experience difficulty being included in educational settings (Storey, 2007). Critically, ableism also provides a workable account of why a number of ECE teachers behave in the way they do. This idea is consistent with Lyons’ (2013) findings. However, having pinpointed the problem, Lyons does not suggest how ECE professionals might become “enlightened ableists”, a difficulty in need of further consideration, and this issue is important. If Scuro (2017) and Goodley (2014) have a point—that ableism deploys as a thoughtless psychic and social force and is in operation at unconscious levels—then all who are working/researching/visiting in an ECE centre will be affected in ways that they may know very little about. Thus, without surfacing and challenging ableism, exclusionary practices of children with disabilities will continue. Meanwhile, ableism and the practices this concept drives will remain institutionalised in the beliefs, language, and practices of the teachers and others involved (see also Campbell, 2008).

Ableism and research in the New Zealand early childhood eduction context

In a recent study, Macartney (2011) comments on the early educational experiences of two families with children with disabilities in an ECE centre. In this study, the ableist practice of prioritising the typical characteristics of the “normal” child results in pedagogical outcomes that hinder the participation and belongingness in the ECE setting of Maggie and Claire,1 the two disabled children involved. This point comes through clearly in the assessment made of Maggie by the Ministry of Education’s early intervention service (EIS) team:

They would come to the centre with checklists about what a ‘normal’ child should be doing at Maggie’s age and compare her to those expectations—often she compared unfavourably. They saw it as their role to identify the gaps and help her catch up to her peers. (Macartney, 2011, p. 214)

This example reveals the presence of the “non-disabled as normal child” standard that has entered the ECE centre along with the EIS team, which then (re)invigorates the space between Maggie, judged as different/deficient, and other children in the centre. Maggie, with help, has to “catch up”. It is no surprise that ableist views—seen in the contour of the normal-as-able child intrinsic in this assessment process—will shape the basis of the developmental framework the EIS team uses. Drawing on the insight afforded by enlightened ableism, it can be suggested that the EIS team is not deliberately intending to exclude. Yet these assumptions reinforce Maggie’s marginalisation, while they also stifle possibilities for ECE teachers to come to a different view of either Maggie, Claire, or her (non-disabled) peers. This situation is the cause of great frustration for Macartney as Maggie’s parent:

Our focus was on valuing who Maggie was as a person and a learner, how and what she could learn, do and contribute—not what she couldn’t do. (Macartney, 2011, p. 214)

Taking Scuro’s (2017) point that ableism produces the conditions for the active marginalisation of disabled people without any identified intention on the part of non-disabled people raises a further issue around how the re-valuing Macartney refers to can begin, in practice. Macartney’s (2011) suggestion, that educationalists critically analyse their assumptions, beliefs, and practices so as to understand the operation of the deficit discourses surrounding the notion of disability is a valid one. However, what assumptions will this critical analysis draw on? How might the engagement of Goodley’s (2014) “easy route out of psychic trouble” by the (non-disabled) ECE educators involved be avoided? Will adopting the strategy of “valuing who Maggie was as a person” (that is, focusing on attributes rather than deficits as a way to overcome the power effects of ableism) be enough to overcome the effects of normative assumptions in operation in this encounter? Or will they just reinforce them? Macartney’s (2011) study proposes that educationalists build upon the current policies and pedagogies to remove exclusionary power relations and support inclusive practices. This, too, is a valid point. However, how can this desired outcome be achieved if the workings of ableism, largely thoughtless and manifestly unconscious, are not surfaced and consciously explored?

Preliminary analysis—ableism at work

The doctoral study this article draws on is now in fieldwork stages. The method used is case study and includes observation, interviews, and focus-group work related to ECE practitioner and parent knowledge and understanding of ableism. In the following excerpt, an ECE teacher talks about her experience of working with a child with ASD in a Best Start centre:

There is an autistic child in Y centre. He is 5 years old and ready for transition into primary school. He’s got such wired behaviours, like he keeps on digging into the sand pit and messes with other kids. Sometimes it becomes very difficult to manage him. Now his mother is trying for his transition into primary school as he is already 5 years old. The mother wants to send him to mainstream primary school. I really don’t know how he will cope in the mainstream school with such weird behaviours.

In this excerpt, the social forces of ableism inhere in the different-to-normal “difficult to manage”, “wired”, “weird” “behaviours” descriptors used to explain the difficulties this parent is having enrolling their child in a primary school. These lie hidden in the unspoken, yet clearly influential “broad characteristics of infants, toddlers and young children” that makes this participant’s statement about this child being “difficult to manage” possible and reasonable. These overt and covert contours of ableism (Campbell, 2008) are further reinforced by the “I don’t know how he will cope” statement, echoing the “finding fault with others” response (Goodley, 2014) ableism can (unconsciously) generate in non-disabled individuals.

In the second excerpt, a parent talks about the process of working towards the diagnosis of the parent’s step-child:

I also have an older son who is not my biological son. He is 9 years old [and] has been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome and global developmental delay. We [are] soon going to have his diagnosis for autism. It is kind of difficult to manage with autistic kids. Specially when parents are not aware of the label their child has got. I have seen parents struggling with understanding their child’s label. Autism is [a] relatively new diagnosis. Medical professionals are not providing any important information to parents except diagnosis of their child. It is important for parents to have information about their child’s diagnosis so that they can work effectively. There are no mandatory workshops for parents that inform them about their child’s diagnosis. What do you think causes autism? I think parents of children who take substance abuse are more likely to get diagnosed with autism, isn’t [that so]?

In this statement, knowledge of the etiology of ASD and diagnostic information are considered important factors to assist in parental understanding, so as to “work effectively” with the child concerned. This knowledge is “mandatory” because “parents are not aware”. Here the process of “diagnosis of their child” again reveals the ableist notion of “the normal child” against which this boy is found to be different/inadequate and, for this parent, mystifying. Other forms of individual difficulty/deficiency—“fetal alcohol syndrome” and “substance abuse”—uphold these effects as an unconscious force that creates and reinforces the difficulties and struggles this excerpt reveals. It is an open question whether knowledge of ableism might be of use to this parent’s quest for understanding and assistance. However, the possible benefit of becoming familiar with the term and how it works can be seen in this excerpt from an interview with an ECE head teacher:

I really liked the idea of ableism. I’ve gone through your information sheet and read more on ableism and found how unknowingly we have been ableist in our practices. We humans are diverse. Thinking that being normal we are more powerful than others is an idea that we have been unknowingly practising. After knowing about ableism, I reflected back on my attitudes and practices and realised how I have been ableist. For example, last year, we were planning a cultural tour. I sort of ignored X’s participation thinking that we won’t be able to manage him with other kids. But when I saw him participating in dance and singing practices, then I realised how my attitude was ableist toward X by thinking that he won’t be able to participate as other kids. I found the idea of ableism as very important for teachers to understand and realise how unknowing we have been ableist.

This statement correlates well with Lyons’ (2013) ideas about enlightened ableism. This participant has been able to surface the feelings of ambivalence that were enough to “sort of ignore[d] X’s participation” as their go-to position. From there it is likely not possible to eliminate the physical, social, or conceptual barrier to X’s participation, suggested as the solution by Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017). Luckily, things turned out well. Having an idea of how ableism upholds the idea of “being normal” assisted this head teacher to “reflect back”, in a non-judgemental way, on the response. But how might this realisation influence the actions this person might take in a similar situation in the future?

Discussion

We have suggested that ableism not only affects the lives of disabled people but equally reflects the discomfort of non-disabled people with the reality of (embodied) difference, and their (unrecognised) comfort with supporting the normalising aspirations held within the environment. We show that, in ECE settings, forces of ableism come into play when children with disabilities meet the normative requirements that are already held in ECE centres and their guiding documents. At these times, marginalisation/exclusion can take place. However, counterintuitively, these forces can also be seen to remain strong when additional “assessment, planning, intervention and support” (Ministry of Education, 2017, p. 13) elements to assist children to fit better into ECE centre life are enacted. So where to from here for ECE professionals who, stuck in this hard place, wish to become fully inclusive practitioners? We suggest that knowledge about ableism moves considerations of what is going on within practices of exclusion beyond discussions about how to change either wilfully-minded or skills-deficient teaching practitioners. Might this be helpful? If ECE teachers have the opportunity to use this tool to examine their practice, would they then be able to break the cycles of marginalisation or exclusion, or both, which can prevent the realisation of the full inclusion of all children with disabilities? We hope that the current doctoral study will answer key aspects of these questions.

Note

1Maggie (real name) is the daughter of Bernadette Macartney (2011) and Claire is the pseudonym given in Macartney’s (2011) study.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Professor Linda Mitchell and the reviewers who commented on an earlier draft of this article for their input.

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Silky Sharma is currently a PhD candidate in Te Kura Toi Tangata, Faculty of Education at the University of Waikato, examining how ableism might impact the practices of teachers and other practitioners for children with autism spectrum disorder in early childhood education.

Email: Ss610@students.waikato.ac.nz

Dr Carol Hamilton is programme leader for the Masters in Disability and Inclusion postgraduate programme (MDInS) in the Division of Education, University of Waikato. At undergraduate level she teaches in the area of inclusive practices, working with third year students who are beginning teachers and students studying psychology and other areas of social science.

Email: carol.hamilton@waikato.ac.nz