Teachers with LD: Ongoing negotiations with discourses of disability.

The purpose of this study is to examine how 4 teachers with learning disabilities (LD) negotiate multiple, complex, and sometimes contradictory discourses of disabilities in constructing their own understandings of LD. We chose to study teachers with LD because of their unique access to at least 3 different sources of knowledge about LD: (a) professional discourses on disability, (b) mainstream cultural messages about LD, and (c) insights gained from their own life experience. We drew on aspects of critical discourse analysis and narrative inquiry for this investigation.

The discursive practice of learning disability: Implications for instruction and parent-school relations.

This article serves as an invitation to rethink and to broaden the scope of learning disabilities (LD) research and practice. We begin with 3 assumptions: Education in a representative democracy is inevitably a political enterprise; social justice is everyone's responsibility, but educators have a special role to play; and segregated schooling is neither equal nor equitable. After an analysis of the primary extant discourses, we argue for a more comprehensive and more openly political vision of the LD field, which we think is supported by Disability Studies in Education.

IDEA and collaboration: a Bakhtinian perspective on parent and professional discourse.

In accordance with the Bakhtinian framework of this article, the text represents a dialogue between practices documented in the literature; the first author's perspective as a teacher, evaluator, and consultant; Bakhtin's theories of language; and the lived experiences of the second author, a parent whose child has been labeled as having a language learning disability. Although the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) grants parents the right to be involved in educational decisions about their children, we argue that the routine disqualification of parents' voices by school professionals is a major obstacle to authentic collaboration. Bakhtin's theories of language serve to illuminate the discourse between parents and professionals in special education committee meetings.