
David I. Hernández-SacaUniversity of Northern Iowa | UNI · Department of Special and Inclusive Education
David I. Hernández-Saca
Doctor of Philosophy
About
68
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Introduction
David I. Hernández-Saca, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Disability Studies in Education at the Department of Special Education at the University of Northern Iowa and the core of his research agenda is problematizing the common sense assumptions of what learning disabilities are.
Please check out my website: https://sites.google.com/uni.edu/davidhernandez-sacaphd/home
Publications
Publications (68)
This article consists of critical autoethnographic counter-narrative vignettes that account for how the boundary work within the traditional Special Education and Disability Studies in Education fields can further explain the sub-field of learning disabilities and the related field of Speech and Language Impairment from an Interdisciplinary and Int...
We center the voice of Dwyan Moore, a Black 12-year-old boy, during his transition of being diagnosed with a learning dis/Ability. We do so to grapple with the problem of disproportionate representation in special education along race and dis/Ability, with particular attention to educational leadership. Disproportionate representation is a reminder...
This paper explores how global South informed DisCrit (GSI-DisCrit) can serve as an analytic tool and praxis within teacher preparation programs in higher education. Using methods of self-study, the co-authors exemplify how teacher preparation institutions may create inclusive education access through interdisciplinary boundaries-crossing and objec...
We center the voice of Dwyan Moore, a Black 12-year-old boy, during his transition of being diagnosed with a learning dis/ability. We do so to grapple with the problem of disproportionate representation in special education along race and dis/Ability, with particular attention to educational leadership. Disproportionate representation is a reminder...
Within this paper, we present a conceptual framework about the big D and little d D/discourse of neurodivergence. We do this in part through the use of critical autoethnographic texts given our positionalities and relationalities as dis/Abled scholars as an intersectional coalition, community building and critical resistance intervention. We ask: 1...
Dear readers, Before we dive into this book, we want to ask you to take a moment to check in with yourself. How am I doing? Where am I feeling the tension in my bodymind? What brings me here to this moment? This is not about a moment of judging as we often do this too quickly and too often. This is about taking a moment to recognize and acknowledge...
We need a critical emotion revolutionary praxis for liberation (Allman, 2007;
Calderón-Almendros, & Ruiz-Román, 2015), the essential coupling of thinking,
feeling, reflection, writing, and action (Artiles & Kozleski, 2007) that
transcends internal and external boundaries at the nexus of Disability Studies
in Education (DSE; Danforth & Gabel, 2006;...
This chapter interrogates the traditional hegemonic structures of special
education from a Critical Disability Studies (CDS) lens (Connor, 2009)
within higher education (Cosier & Pearson, 2016). CDS is an “emancipatory
and developing discourse” as well as a critical reevaluation of traditional
hegemonic special education. Traditional special educat...
Dear readers, While this chapter is located at the back of the book, this is not the end. If you think you will find a list of goodies for the next steps, you are sorely mistaken and have not fully understood the purpose of the book! Please return to the beginning of the book and start over. Just kidding. But, yes, there are no "IKEA" instructions...
We employ theoretical pluralism and engage in a multi-level analysis
to understand how the racialized segregation of students with
dis/Abilities persists despite a commitment to inclusion via the
Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) provision embedded within
one of the most significant civil rights inspired legislation impacting
students with dis/Ab...
We conducted a critical systematic literature review on global inclusive education and law. The critical review questions were: (1) how have scholars theorized, conceptualized, and studied global inclusive education? (2) How do scholars define global inclusive education? (3) And what do scholars cite as prominent international inclusive education l...
The provision of disability services in higher education is a complex
process. For those who rely on disability services professionals to
safeguard their rights and advocate for equitable access, both the role of
the disability services office, and the actions of those who represent it, can
mean the difference between successful completion of educa...
Despite extensive transition provisions in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the post-school outcomes for students with disabilities continue to be disappointing. The IDEA designated those transition provisions as priority targets for federal and state compliance monitoring to assure that schools are attaining the goal of succ...
This paper problematizes, in the spirit of loving critique, the paucity of global intersectional dis/ability politics in the fields of Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory. In this paper, we attempt to account for a more global and humane, liberatory theoretical positioning of Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) by analyzing the human...
In this re-review, we discuss a global-wide paradox of disability
rights that claims adherence to human and civil rights
frameworks while cultural, linguistic, racial, and ethnic disparities
in special education outcomes remain unaddressed. We propose
a multi-dimensional framework for understanding how the
described inequalities persist, despite le...
n Understanding the Boundary between Disability Studies and Special Education through Consilience, Self-Study, and Radical Love, the authors explore what it means to engage in boundary work at the intersection of traditional special education systems and critical disability studies in education. The book consists of fifteen groundbreaking accounts...
In this paper we discuss the connection between the lack of special education specific preparation for leaders and decades of evidence of racial inequities in special education. In doing so, we have a four-fold purpose. First, we outline the basic IDEA legal requirements that educational leadership preparation programs should provide prospective le...
The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate, through our critical analysis of the debate surrounding the overrepresentation of BIPOC students in special education, that researching dis/Ability at the nexus of race and other markers of difference is inevitably a moral, spiritual and therefore political act.
This Equity Tool is meant to help teachers to critically think about their own beliefs, thoughts, feelings, language, and ideas regarding Latinx students with Learning Dis/abilities (LDs), and their students’ social and emotional well-being and sense of self.
What do we all have in common, yet at the same time experience qualitatively differently? We all experience a range of positive, negative and in-between emotions as we live our daily lives as human beings with multiple and intersectional identities (Crenshaw, 1991). Having multiple and intersectional identities with a range of emotionality, are two...
I remember the first day I arrived at Manzanita School in the Bay Area. What immediately stood out to me was the small “one-room schoolhouse” feel that made me feel like I was stepping into an early 20th century schoolhouse rather than a present day alternative school in a bustling area. I entered the school greeted by the starkness of a classroom...
Since the early months of 2020, each sector of society responded accordingly to meet the demands created by the COVID-19 crisis. However, the pandemic, and its associated effects, have put a spotlight on historical oppressions that Black, Indigenous and People and communities of Color (BIPOC) have had to and continue to deal with, due to the legaci...
This blog identifies rumors in the discourse used in educational research and spaces that have been accepted as truths and explanations for the conditions under which many students’ lives are determined, counted, or explained. Our use of rumors was influenced by our reading of McDermott, Goldman and Varenne’s (2006) proposal that as researchers, we...
In public discourses, migration is widely treated as a controversial issue generating
emotional and affective arguments hinging on perceived “illegalities” and outrage:
transgressing political borders, “stealing jobs,” and subverting legal systems. Such
hegemonic emotion discourses (Zembylas, 2002) are tied to affective racist and ableist ideas, co...
Conversations of educational equity in mathematics necessitate a more deliberate, nuanced
look at the mathematical processes of learning for students of color from historically marginalized communities. This paper describes the theoretical work of a research collaborative that seeks to develop understanding of the experiences around mathematical id...
Our individual and collective consciousness is not isolated from human forces, or nature’s forces. These forces include: time, space, life-force, soul-force, the full range of human and animal emotions—from fear, anger and indignation, to joy, hope, and love. These all contribute to our spiritual experience as humans on planet Earth, and within the...
In the spirit of interdisciplinarity, we offer an analysis of how theoretical tools from Disability Studies can reframe problems that have been troubling to sociocultural theory in mathematics education. In particular, we offer the theory of complex embodiment (Siebers, 2008) to help theorize embodiment as we work to understand the role of disabili...
The purpose of this chapter is to connect critical literacy studies (CLS) and critical dis/Ability studies in education (CDSE) in order to promote a productive cross-fertilization between these important areas of study. This cross-fertilization is vital, given that these two bodies of work have not been systematically connected before. Although eac...
This paper problematizes, in the spirit of loving critique, the paucity of global intersectional dis/ability politics in the fields of Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory. In this paper, we attempt to account for a more global and humane, liberatory theoretical positioning of Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) by analyzing the human...
This is a story of self-healing. My first-grade special education teacher, Ms. Hong,1 was a very strict person. To this day, I can recall her following me as I walked around my self-contained classroom. In retrospect, I was just being me. Just being inside my body, just being a happy child. However, when I would go into her self-contained classroom...
The coming together of two scholars from distinctive philosophical frames provided dual perspectives utilizing constructivism and critical theory at the intersection of dis/Ability and its construct in teacher education. Each scholar holds a Disability Studies in Education (DSE) perspective in the analysis and in their view of dis/Ability. Each aut...
Within this dual critical autoethnography, we ground a spiritual paradigm in the qualitative critical social sciences to produce a culturally minded reflexive epis- temological stance on power. This paradigm frames collective knowledge and critical analysis through dual critical autoethnography. Our conceptual frame- work is transformative and it f...
The geopolitical landscape of the Americas, as well as the category of disability, is built on a Western paradigm that centers individualism, meritocracy, productivity, and rationality as the core standards of human development and able-bodiedness. The coloniality of power that encompasses this worldview (Quijano, 2000) is reproduced in schools, wh...
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...
Since 2016, I have been an assistant professor at the University of Northern Iowa in the Department of Special Education. My Ph.D. is in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Critical Special Education. I am a Disability Studies in Education assistant professor, scholar, advocate, and activist. Throughout my entire life and professional ca...
This Qualitative Research Synthesis (QRS) explored how K-16 students of color make meaning of their disability labels and negotiate the prevailing dominant ideologies surrounding dis/ability labels, race, gender, and other forms of identity. Scholars in Disability Studies in Education (DSE) have explored critical connections between Disability Stud...
This chapter concerns dis/ability, emotion, affect, and feelings and how persons with a single or multiple dis/abilities are dis/enfranchised through multiple, intersectional categories in which they are located and provided services in schools. In other words, the author highlights how dis/ability can function together with emotion and affect to e...
In this collaborative self-study, we examined our experiences of oppression and exclusion as tenure-track assistant professors possessing intersecting outsider statuses. We found that oppression is the elephant in the academy. We used self-study methodology, along with narrative inquiry, and textual and discursive analysis, to analyze our respectiv...
Students of Color with dis/abilities are often among the most marginalized in public schools. The Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center recognizes the importance of attending to students’ intersecting identities, and the layers of assets that exist and oppressions they experience at those intersections. In this brief, I summarize a journal ar...
This chapter grapples with the relationship between dis/ability and narrative inquiry through the authors' personal stories that push back at the cultural-historical, policy, and professional master narratives of dis/ability in order to contribute to efforts that theorize critical emotion praxis. We ask: what is the relationship between dis/ability...
Five Learning Disability poems about my Learning Disability shame at my intersections of power and identity in educational contexts as critical autoethnographic texts.
Learning disabilities (LD) researchers have produced a knowledge base about the academic side of LD. A gap exists concerning the experiences of individuals with LD, particularly their feeling‐meaning‐making about having LDs. Based on a three‐year qualitative study using critical ethnographic methods, I center Sophia Cruz’s experiences with LD and t...
My family and I immigrated to the U.S. in 1985, given a civil war in El Salvador. While we crossed the Rio Grande of the Mexico and Arizona border, my brother, Jose, carried me. It was during this time that I developed a fever of 105 degrees. This fever and sociocultural contexts shaped how I experienced childhood: my “dis/ability,” country of orig...
This study brings together 2 case studies to interrogate the intersectional experiences of historically marginalized youth at the intersections of power and identity from a decolonizing mental health disability studies in education (DSE) cripstemology approach. Specifically, we analyzed how US schools create normalized meanings of mental health. Da...
In this article, we engaged in a multi-layered collective autoethnography about dis/ability, ableism, and identity within the context of schools and society by exploring the relationship between Curriculum Studies and Disability Studies in Education. While excerpts of our individual narratives are embedded in the article, our final piece weaves tog...
Special education labeling ignores historical, emotional, spiritual, sociocultural effects of labeling Black and Brown students with disabilities. Utilizing critical disability studies, critical race theory and spiritual paradigm, we interrogate construction and expression of differences of Learning Disability and Speech and Language Impairment. We...
In this study we trouble the notion of “grit” and “high-stakes” testing by focusing on the experiences and perspectives of Black and Latinx students labeled with dis/abilities with the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Through interviews, focus groups, and classroom observations with 15 Black and Latinx students labeled with dis/abilities,...
In this study we trouble the notion of “grit” and “high-stakes” testing by focusing on the experiences and perspectives of Black and Latinx students labeled with dis/abilities with the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Through interviews, focus groups, and classroom observations with 15 Black and Latinx students labeled with dis/abilities,...
We created our chapter for the part Exploring the Reflexivity of Pain and Privilege to foreground dis/ability experiences at our intersections from a Disability Studies in Education and Interdisciplinary approach. Our centering of dis/ability, that is, the attention to the social construction of our experiences of disability and ability and the pai...
This chapter is my collection of my third and fourth LD at my intersections poems. I began writing poetry to help me process the pain of my Learning Disability and Special Education trauma I experienced at my intersections from my K-16 years in school within the US.
The purpose of this chapter is to systematically review the research within the field of education that explicitly examined how various social constructions of identity intersect with dis/ability to qualitatively affect young adults’ experiences by asking the following question: What are the key findings in education research focusing on youth and...
This article outlines a call for a renewed research agenda on the social and emotional dimensions of Learning Disabilities (LD). This research agenda reframes LD by interrogating the academic, social and emotional master narratives of LD through the talk of Latina/o students with LD using an interdisciplinary and socio-cultural historical developme...
This article advocates for the intersectional rights of teachers and students of computer science (CS) and special education (SPE) in urban education. Using an intersectional nepantla lens, we propose that CS education be accessible to all SPE teachers and students with dis/abilities. We argue for a focus on social-emotional intersectional rights a...
Student voice research is a promising field of study that disrupts traditional student roles by reorganizing learning spaces that center youth voices. This review synthesizes student voice research by answering the following questions: (a) To what extent has student voice been studied at the K-12 levels in the US? (b) What are the conceptual charac...
This study re-frames learning disabilities (LD) through the emotion-laden talk of
four Latina/o students with LD. The research questions included: 1) What are the emotion-laden talk of Latina/o students about being labeled with LD? 2) What are Latina/o students' emotion-laden talk of the idea of LD? I identified master narratives, the "pre-existent...
Since the inception of special education, scholars and practitioners have been concerned about the disproportionate representation of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds among students identified with disabilities. Professional efforts to address this disproportionality have encompassed a range of targets, but scholars i...
The placement of students of color in special education programs and services is a complex and of assumptions and issues that permeate students of color in special education, and the equity issues that emerge for this group. Throughout the entry, terms are used purposely. The term students of color is increasingly used to describe students traditio...
The construct of culture has been largely invisible in the research and long-standing debates in the learning disabilities (LD) field, such as those pertaining to the definition of LD and how research knowledge is used in local settings. When used, the idea of culture tends to be defined as unrelated to LD and studied as restricted to individual/gr...
Public education has a vital role in ensuring that this and subsequent generations are successful in a global, multilingual economy. In this What Matters brief, we examine how teachers, students, parents, and communities in our nation's schools can create rich opportunities for students to learn. Language (Policy) Matters! includes information and...