Abstract
The fields of learning disabilities (LD) and special education within the United States have historically ignored how culture, power, and emotionality impact theory, research, practice, and praxis, particularly concerning the academic, social, and emotional lives of historically and multiply marginalized youth labeled with LD. This paper theorizes a Liberation Disability Studies (DS) and Community Psychology (CP) through a Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), emotion narrative inquiry and sociocultural and affective historical developmental approach to fill this gap. Such an approach positions theorists, researchers, and practitioners to grapple with the human rights of students with LD at their intersections for their liberation, freedom, and human dignity. This chapter pays particular attention to the role of emotion, feelings, and affect on the meaning and idea of LD for one 14-year-old female Mexican-American student with LD who was bilingual in Spanish and English, and in the seventh grade—Sophia Cruz. Historically, the sociocultural contexts of students with LD, like Sophia, have not been utilized as a part of interrogating the meaning of LD. This chapter also addresses this gap by placing those sociocultural influences, such as family members and home life such as Sophia’s mother—Luciana Cruz—into conversation with how those living with the label and other forms of difference have experienced the meanings of LD within educational contexts situated in transnational settings such as the U.S. and Mexico. Sophia and Luciana’s transnational dis/ability experiences are critically analyzed at the nexus of global dis/ability hegemony and emotionality.
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Hernández-Saca, D.I. (2021). Sophia Cruz’s Emotional Construction of Learning Dis/Abilities: A Liberation DisCrit Emotion Narrative and Community Psychology Approach. In: Figueroa, C., Hernández-Saca, D.I. (eds) Dis/ability in the Americas. Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56942-6_10
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