Greetings from the Disability Division Co-Chairs
Hello!
Once again we hope this newsletter finds you all safe and well. Life continues to change and transform as the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic is being remedied. We hope you will continue to be safe and send you support as life begins to transition into new normal.

In this editions newsletter, we will be welcoming the new Disability Division Co-Chair, outlining the SSSP 2021 Conference schedule, and highlighting accomplishments of various division members.

Please note that if panelists are not listed for a specific conference presentation that it can be found on the SSSP Page here .
Information about the conference schedule for the program committee presentations can also be found at the link above. For additional information on papers associated with conference presentations, also access the link above.






 Co-Chair Spotlight!
Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides is an assistant professor in the Department of Special Education at the City University of New YorkÐ Hunter College. Her scholarship is interdisciplinary. It is focused primarily on understanding how equity, access, and opportunity are constructed in educational policy and law; how educational policies and laws are complied with in schools; and how the social, historical, and cultural contexts of schools and the teaching and learning processes relate to racial (in)equity. Her book, published with Teachers College Press in 2018 and entitled Does Compliance Matter in Special Education: IDEA and the Hidden Inequities of Practice, won the Outstanding Publication Award in 2020 by the Disability and Society Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). She recently published a related piece in Sociology of Education entitled Unpacking the Logic of Compliance in Special Education: Contextual Influences on Discipline Racial Disparities in Suburban Schools.

Disability

Date: Wednesday, August 4 Time: 9:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Session 004: Disability, Family, and Care in the Covid-19 Era Sponsors: Disability Youth, Aging, and the Life Course
Organizers: Christina Barmon, Central Connecticut State University Sara E. Green, University of South Florida
Presider: Christina Barmon, Central Connecticut State University

Description:
This session explores the experience of family caregiving under the special circumstances imposed by the global pandemic. Papers address critical issues
related to providing assistance - within a variety of contexts - to children, adults, and elders diagnosed with disabilities or chronic illnesses. Papers highlight both particular challenges and stressors presented by the pandemic and creative adaptations.


Date: Wednesday, August 4 Time: 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Session 021: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Disability and the Future of Work in a Post-Pandemic Economy
Sponsors: Disability Labor Studies
Organizer: Kate Caldwell, University of Illinois at Chicago Presider/Discussant: Litany Esguerra, University of Illinois at Chicago

Description:
The pandemic has made an indelible impact on the world's economy, one that is disproportionately affecting the disability community. This panel features diverse perspectives on disability employment to bring the past, present, and future into critical conversation to address the question: What is the future of work for people with disabilities in a post-pandemic economy?


Date: Saturday, August 7 Time: 9:30 AM - 11:15 AM THEMATIC
Session 041: Disability Revolution: Of Oracles, Intersections, and Equality
Sponsor: Disability
Organizers: Kate Caldwell, University of Illinois at Chicago Loren Wilbers, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Presider: Kate Caldwell, University of Illinois at Chicago
Discussant: Asha Rao, University of Illinois at Chicago

Description:
This panel brings into conversation an amazing panel of intersectional thought leaders to discuss the future of disability action and scholarship: from disability studies to disability justice, COVID-19 and the emergence of "disabled oracles", and what it takes to lead a revolution in the way we approach disability.


Disability
Date: Thursday, August 5 Time: 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Session 050: Transformative Technology and the Growing Digital Divide: Educational Promise and Peril
Sponsors: Disability Educational Problems Environment and Technology Organizer: Andrew Baird, Christopher Newport University Presider: Taylor Devereaux, University of Central Florida

Description:
This session explores the interplay of technology and dynamic social structures within the context of education and socialization globally. There is particular emphasis on some of the more novel 21st century challenges that technology promises to ameliorate or exacerbate as education moves toward an
inevitably more digital future

Date: Friday, August 6 Time: 9:30 AM - 11:15 AM THEMATIC
Session 062: The Future of Disability Rights in a Post-Pandemic World
Sponsor: Disability
Organizers: Kate Caldwell, University of Illinois at Chicago Loren Wilbers, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Presider: Kate Caldwell, University of Illinois at Chicago
Discussant: Allison Carey, Shippensburg University

Description:
As we face the uncertainty of the continuing pandemic, scholars and activists are questioning the position of disability rights in a post-pandemic world on a international scale.

Date: Friday, August 6 Time: 11:30 AM - 1:15 PM THEMATIC
Session 070: Revolutionizing the Disability Experience
Sponsor: Disability
Organizers: Kate Caldwell, University of Illinois at Chicago Loren Wilbers, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Presider &
Discussant: Loren Wilbers, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Description:
The disability experience is central to so much of disability scholarship and activism. This panel features a wonderful variety of authors looking at and problematizing the disability experience in society through multiple lenses.


Date: Saturday, August 7 Time: 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Session 113: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Covid-19, Disability, & the Politics of Education
Sponsors: Disability Educational Problems Institutional Ethnography
Organizers: Kyla Walters, Sonoma State University Heather Sue McDonald Rosen, University of Georgia Rashmee Karnad-Jani, University of Toronto
Presider/Discussant: Heather Sue McDonald Rosen, University of Georgia

Description:
Presenters in this session will engage in a timely conversation about educational problems and potential solutions, with an emphasis on higher education.



Member Publication Highlight:
Stephanie J. Lau, Susan McKelvey, Christine H. Groah, Elizabeth E. Getzel
Background: This paper focuses on interviews conducted with women veterans with disabilities in Virginia and how they feel their needs would best be met as they transition to civilian college life. The interview questions were designed to capture the basic experiences of women veterans with disabilities who were enrolled in higher education. Those interviewed responded to 13 questions, which focused on background information, how their disability affected their education, what resources they used, and how schools can best meet their needs as women veterans with disabilities. Two members of the project staff conducted independent thematic content analyses, then discussed and agreed on common themes identified. Those themes were: cultural differences, military identity, bureaucracy, experiences, and disability influence. These women veterans revealed that they have difficulty transitioning from the highly structured military world to the less-structured civilian world; their disabilities have an impact on their education options: they seek out quiet spaces, they need more communication and direction on resources and accommodations, and they would like women-specific support groups. Project staff concluded that women veteran students should be treated as a cultural group with specific needs, such as quiet spaces, transition training and mentoring by women peers, and increased communication about veteran-eligible services.


Reference: Lau, S. J., McKelvey, S., Groah, C. H., & Getzel, E. E. (2020). Unique Needs and Challenges of Women Veteran Students with Disabilities: Conceptualizing Identity in Higher Education. Journal of Veterans Studies, 6(3), 101Ð109. DOI: http://doi.org/10.21061/jvs.v6i3.212

Member Publication Highlight:
Catherine Voulgarides, Alexandra Aylward, Adai Tefera, Alfredo J. Artiles, Sarah L. Alvarado, Pedro Noguera
Abstract: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ([IDEA] 2004; IDEA Amendments 1997) is a civil rightsÐbased law designed to protect the rights of students with disabilities in U.S. schools. However, decades after the initial passage of IDEA, racial inequity in special education classifications, placements, and suspensions are evident. In this article, we focus on understanding how racial discipline disparities in special education outcomes relate to IDEA remedies designed to address problem behaviors. We qualitatively examine how educators interpret and respond to citations for racial discipline disproportionality via IDEA at both the district and the school level in a suburban locale. We find that educators interpret the inequity in ways that neutralize the racialized implications of the citation, which in turn affects how they respond to the citation. These interpretations contribute to symbolic and race-evasive IDEA compliance responses. The resulting bureaucratic and organizational structures associated with IDEA implementation become a mechanism through which the visibility of race and racialization processes are erased and muted through acts of policy compliance. Thus, the logic of compliance surrounding IDEA administration serves as a reproductive social force that sustains practices that do not disrupt locally occurring racialized inequities.

Reference: Kramarczuk Voulgarides, C., Aylward, A., Tefera, A., Artiles, A. J., Alvarado, S. L., & Noguera, P. (2021). Unpacking the Logic of Compliance in Special Education: Contextual Influences on Discipline Racial Disparities in Suburban Schools. Sociology of Education, 00380407211013322.