Peer Relations and School Engagement for Disabled Youth in Self-Contained Classrooms

Background and Purpose: In the United States, almost one million disabled students are educated in self-contained special education classrooms. Structural isolation within schools and society-wide biases against disability limit these students’ peer networks and pose barriers to their engagement in the school community. This isolation compounds over the life course, contributing to social isolation and unequal opportunities, key concerns identified in the Grand Challenges. Drawn from a larger study examining personhood and social relations among disabled students, this paper illuminates the understudied topic of peer relations and school engagement for disabled youth with implications for social work research and practice.

Method: The study design was an ethnography spanning a full academic year. The author spent two-three days per week participating and observing in a public middle school located in a diverse, working-class suburb of a large Midwestern city. Twelve focal participants (youth aged 12-14) were drawn from a convenience sample of students enrolled in three self-contained classrooms. Secondary participants included 10 staff members (teachers, paraprofessionals, and administrators). In addition to participant-observation, data collection strategies included focus groups and interviews. Analysis was inductive and phenomenological, using open coding procedures on author-written fieldnotes and ethnographic memos as well as transcripts of focus group discussions and interviews.

Results: The data show multiple forms of structural isolation that prevented school engagement for disabled students into the school community. Some aspects of this isolation were intentional aspects of school patterns and processes (e.g., eating lunch in classrooms instead of the cafeteria), while others were unintended consequences (e.g., exiting the school from the classroom instead of the front door of the school). Three patterns emerged from participants’ engagement with peers and the school community. Some agitated to enroll in general education classes. Others created protective friendships with other disabled peers, relying on them in the cafeteria and hallways. Still others completely avoided engagement with the school community, finding it to be a source of anxiety and intimidation. Results therefore indicate that in the context of structural isolation, peer relations are a key factor for school engagement.

Conclusions and Implications: This study provides an in-depth conceptualization of how disability influences peer relations, drawing attention to how educational placement influences the strategies that individual students use to cope with structural isolation. It further reveals the structural and interpersonal barriers to school engagement faced by students in self-contained classrooms. Finally, it shows the current practice of isolating certain disabled students into self-contained classrooms to be incompatible with disability justice and inclusion. This research suggests that schools are an important site to address social work’s Grand Challenges of eliminating social isolation and achieving equal opportunity and justice. In schools, social workers can: advocate for greater school inclusivity, address structural barriers to engagement, and help students across the spectrum of ability befriend one another. It further suggests the need for disability justice-informed social work research to better understand disabled youth’s peer relations and school experiences.