Labor of Last Resort: Mothers Navigating Special Education in a Context of Resource Scarcity

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorHollander, Jocelyn
dc.contributor.authorRiley, Mirranda
dc.date.accessioned2021-09-13T18:39:43Z
dc.date.available2021-09-13T18:39:43Z
dc.date.issued2021-09-13
dc.description.abstractPrioritizing mothers' observations of their disabled children's lived experiences in special education offers us a crucial point of contact to check the pulse of a system upon which vulnerable children rely. Through my interviews with twenty-four mothers with children involved in special education across seven Oregon school districts, I sought to take that pulse and found it faltering. In my analysis, I put mothers' perceptions of special education and resource scarcity in conversation with student exclusion and institutional harm. My findings suggest that mothers confront and hold up an underfunded and poorly implemented special education system that does not meet their children's needs. Despite the rhetoric of inclusion, the current implementation of special education in these districts leads to student exclusion and other institutional harms, putting disabled children’s personhood at risk. These mothers are laboring in schools alongside staff to minimize harm and ensure inclusion and educational access for their children. Their stories reveal how special education relies on the invisible, unpaid, and devalued labor that they invest. The absence of other options combines with the fact that their children’s wellbeing is at stake, making maternal labor in special education compulsory. Compulsory labor is a reliably extractable resource that can offset resource scarcity in special education—propping up the system just enough to keep it going. Mothers are the tourniquet on a system that is bleeding out. It is common knowledge that a tourniquet is not a long-term solution; nevertheless, these mothers’ stories show how special education relies upon one as it struggles to serve and support students in the context of resource scarcity. Furthermore, this systemic reliance on unpaid maternal labor as their last resort reproduces the inequity, inadequacy, and inhumanity of a special education system where ableism is the starting point, and discrimination is rendered acceptable by the letter of the law.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/26653
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregon
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.
dc.subjectInstitutional Betrayalen_US
dc.subjectInstitutional Harmsen_US
dc.subjectMaternal Laboren_US
dc.subjectMotherhooden_US
dc.subjectPersonhooden_US
dc.subjectSpecial Educationen_US
dc.titleLabor of Last Resort: Mothers Navigating Special Education in a Context of Resource Scarcity
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
thesis.degree.disciplineDepartment of Sociology
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Oregon
thesis.degree.leveldoctoral
thesis.degree.namePh.D.

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Riley_oregon_0171A_13014.pdf
Size:
1.53 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Theses and Dissertations
Sociology Theses and Dissertations