Brent Elder

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Rowan University

Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that members of the First Nations Deaf community experience more barriers when engaging with the criminal justice system than those who are not deaf. Therefore, our purpose for writing this article is to highlight legal and policy issues related to First Nations Deaf people, including perspectives of professiona...

Purpose In this article, we highlight ways in which disability critical race theory (DisCrit) (Annamma et al. , 2013), inclusive education and community-based participatory research (CBPR) can be used within professional development schools (PDS) to provide students with disabilities with more access to inclusive classrooms. At a grade 4–6 elementa...

Through this chapter, Brent explores how CDS, DisCrit, and CBPR intersect in Kenya, and describes the contexts of inclusive education in both Kenya and globally. Subsequently, Brent connects the promising inclusive practices in Kenya and how they inform and are linked to his domestic work in public schools in the United States. In this chapter, Bre...

In this chapter, we present DisCrit-informed person-centered strategies to reframe inclusive education tools used in Italian public schools. It draws on findings from a qualitative case study we previously carried out in Rome, Italy, to advance practices that inform the design and implementation of Individualised Education Programs (IEPs) and Perso...

In this final chapter, we reflect on the general assumptions behind existing epistemologies of inclusive education, and their implementation within international policies and practices. Here, we review the content of the book, and what each chapter focuses on. We identify the implications of this work, and the content of the book into the future, a...

Utilizing Deaf Studies, Disability Studies, and DisCrit frameworks, Brent centers the stories of Deaf New American refugees’ experiences accessing United States education systems. Through these personal narratives, Brent highlights the tensions multiply marginalized refugees’ experience when they attempt to educate themselves in order to find digni...

In this chapter, we present the scope and aims of the manuscript. We offer an overview of our positionality and our personal and professional journey toward more critical and intersectional understandings of inclusive education. We start by tracing the origins of inclusive education, through an archeological analysis of the 1994 Salamanca Statement...

Paraprofessionals serve a critically significant role on educational teams, yet often receive the least amount of training among educational professionals. This article details an online paraprofessional learning series created by a team of special education faculty. The professional development series draws on a disability studies in education (DS...

The educational content contains an overview of Disability Employment Awareness Month as recognized by the United States Department of Labor (DOL); diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) terms; and additional resource articles on race, disability, and social determinants of health (SDOH); disability rights and historical figures; and support and re...

Purpose The field of Professional Development Schools (PDS) continues to evolve with promising implications. As part of advancing practice, the National Association for Professional Development Schools has updated its nine essential guiding principles, which now includes an explicit expectation for all PDS partners to advance equity, anti-racism an...

Co-teaching allows educators to take on specific roles and responsibilities in the classroom leading to more effective instruction. With increased expectations to embrace technologies provided during virtual and hybrid instruction, co-teachers are taking on more technology-based responsibilities in face-to-face instruction. In this article, the aut...

Following decades of social and government upheavals, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated challenges for the education system in Afghanistan, particularly the education of students with disabilities living in under-resourced conditions. In this article, we explore the narratives of three members of a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Afghanistan...

The recent events of the COVID-19 pandemic, the revision of the National Association for Professional Development Schools’ Nine Essentials to be more explicit in their anti-racism/social justice efforts, and the continued racially motivated attacks on Black and Indigenous People of Color, led to questioning and challenging Professional Development...

This practitioner-oriented article uses the vignette of “David,” a disabled Student of Color, to discuss practical steps to desegregate special education systems in the United States. California students seeking inclusion through the courts have had little success under the least restrictive environment test articulated in Rachel H. v. Sacramento C...

The purpose of this article is to clarify the academic writing process and stages of publication for novice scholars. With doctoral student mentorship being highly dependent on relationships with faculty mentors, the quality and type of mentorship received varies widely. We designed this article to provide a shared starting point for new scholars t...

Members of the Deaf New American community reported they arrived in the United States with no formal education, unable to read or write in their native language, and had zero fluency in English. Efforts to educate them have floundered, and the study aims to find out why and how to fix the problem. Interviews of eight Deaf New Americans yielded rich...

The purpose of this article is to trace the academic lineage of models of inclusive education in Kenya, as some large international development organisations look to the region as a guide for disability inclusive education programs and projects. With the current focus on developing sustainable inclusive education systems in low-resourced countries...

In this methodology article, the authors illustrate how they conducted multilingual qualitative research in an exploration of the barriers that Deaf people in Northern Ireland face when attempting to access the system of justice. The authors’ research practices are informed, to the extent possible, by the principles of community-based participatory...

Using a qualitative interview design and the conceptual framework of an engaged campus (Furco, 2010), this article examines the engaged scholarship of contingent academics in a university-community partnership with several professional development schools in the United States. This article highlights some facets that make their engaged scholarship...

This article provides findings of a qualitative study exploring the interactions of eight Deaf participants and one hearing ally with the justice system in Northern Ireland, where the Disability Discrimination Act requires solicitors to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ in order to provide effective access to Deaf clients. Three thematic categories eme...

This article reports on findings from a qualitative study that explored the experiences of eight deaf participants in interacting with the justice system in Northern Ireland. The study was spurred by anecdotal evidence of challenges facing members of the Deaf community in obtaining access to solicitors. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons wi...

This paper is an extension of a prior research project where Kenyan primary school teachers began using inclusive education strategies that proved beneficial for meeting the needs of diverse primary school students. Specifically, this paper highlights a project where these inclusive practices were expanded to a second region of western Kenya. This...

In this project, we examined the development of a sustainable inclusive education system in western Kenya by combining community-based participatory research (CBPR) and decolonizing methodologies. Through three cycles of qualitative interviews with stakeholders in inclusive education, participants explained what they saw as foundational components...

Throughout this practitioner-oriented paper, we provide a rationale, framework, and supporting materials to promote the development and implementation of personalized, contextualized, and holistic individualized education plans (IEPs) with a strength-based orientation. We believe that adopting strength-based IEP writing practices is vital to recons...

This paper provides one example of forming an inclusion committee in Kenya toward the vision of creating inclusive primary school campuses. We suggest the development of inclusion committees as a potential innovative strategy and a critical element of community reform toward disability awareness, and to increase access to primary school education f...

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of Kenyan primary school teachers using inclusive teaching strategies in a rural setting with many known barriers to the development of a sustainable inclusive education system. This qualitative study examines teachers’ uses of inclusive teaching strategies in primary schools following a series of te...

This article explores the current inclusive education system in Kenya, and how those practices relate to Article 24 of the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Local laws and international instruments are presented to shed light on the extent to which students with disabilities have a right to inclusive educ...

This paper explores emerging and evolving critical approaches to inclusive education development work in the postcolonial, global South context of Kenya. Taking an ontoformative (Connell, 2011) perspective of disability, we view disability as a dynamic process inherently tied to social contexts and their fluid effects on disabled bodies. Thus, not...

This piece of creative non-fiction documents the author’s experiences collaborating with the Ministry of Education in Kenya in 2011. The aim of the project was to develop sustainable inclusive primary school programs where children with and without disabilities access education in a shared space. Specifically, the purpose of the project was to esta...