Please consider and/or spread the word about this exciting CFP on Life in Inclusive Classrooms: Storytelling with Disability Studies in Education (https://www.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/36/call-papers/). Scot Danforth and Joseph Valente will be co-editing this special issue at Bank Street OP.

There is an urgent need for renewed dialogue about inclusion and the implementation of inclusive classroom practices in schools. Despite progressive changes brought about by the work of educators, disability rights advocates, and scholars focused on educational inequities, a recent US Department of Education report describes young children and minority students as experiencing unparalleled rates of abuse, seclusion, and suspensions.

Life in Inclusive Classrooms seeks to draw attention to the use of storytelling as a critical strategy for creating a new, expanded conversation about inclusive classrooms and school communities. We are seeking essays that explore how disability, inclusion, and exclusion feel to those who are inside “inclusive” classrooms. The goal is to bring to the fore the innovative ideas that are reframing and prompting new understandings of the experiences of students and educators in inclusive classrooms.

Life in Inclusive Classrooms special editors Joseph Michael Valente and Scot Danforth bring a strong commitment to a Disability Studies in Education (DSE) perspective. DSE is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that includes scholars in special education, bi/multilingual education, and early childhood education.

The DSE tradition of storytelling emerged from criticisms that traditional research in the broader fields of education and special education was de-emotionalized and disconnected from the realities of children, parents, and teachers. The combination of the storytelling tradition and the interdisciplinary lens offers a unique perspective on contemporary schooling for children with disabilities.

We invite submissions from anyone — teachers, teacher educators, family members, and people with disabilities — who wants to contribute to the construction of counter-narratives that disrupt mainstream, ableist accounts of what disability means.

We seek submissions that:

• privilege the self-understandings and experiential knowledge of children with disabilities and their families
• describe the multiple ways teachers and teacher-educators are implementing effective and progressive inclusive pedagogies
• illuminate oppressive systems, arrangements, and circumstances that deny opportunities for access, participation, and equality to young children with disabilities

Possible topics include:

• friendships between disabled and non-disabled children
• inclusive practice as an ongoing process of professional and personal growth
• perspectives of parents and families
• collaborations between and among professionals, families, students, and advocates
• strengthening connections between the classroom and the community
• young children learning about social justice and/or inclusivity

Manuscripts Due: March 15, 2016

Manuscripts may be 3000-5000 words.

Manuscripts should be double-spaced and formatted in APA Style; papers lacking APA formatting will not be reviewed.

Authors are encouraged to use a reader-friendly, accessible style.

Only unpublished manuscripts that are not under review by other publications are eligible for consideration.

Send all manuscripts as a Word document to Joe Valente at jvalente@psu.