Abstract/Statement
This article explores how neuroqueering can be a complementary component to culturally-sustaining practices (Paris & Alim, 2014), and explores how culturally sustaining frameworks can affirm neurodiversity. Issues such as criminalization of Autistic people of color, and implications of diagnosis disparities and barriers to receiving services are well known (Kearl, 2021). As Gordon (2021) notes, Centering Autistic culture (#BlackAutisticJoy) and ways of being is an important part of affirming Autistic students' identities. Culturally sustaining practices (Paris & Alim, 2014) that seek to provide supportive classroom spaces that affirm students’ culture and identity must also include attention to these intersections of neurodivergence and related structural barriers. Using neuroqueering (Yergeau, 2018; Walker, 2021) as a lens for analyzing current oppressive sociocultural practices in teaching that enforce compliance and normativity, this article aims to bridge theory and praxis. The authors argue that neuroqueering can inform pedagogies of culturally sustaining practices in ways that respond to the landscape of educational disparities that many autistic students of color face. Implications for practice, structures, and philosophical approaches to education are discussed, as well as the importance of providing neuroqueer-affirming classroom spaces and representation.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Hughes, Nathan and Krazinski, Meaghan
(2024)
"Neuroqueering as Culturally Sustaining Practice,"
Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture: Vol. 6:
Iss.
1, Article 12.
DOI: 10.9707/2833-1508.1179
Available at:
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ought/vol6/iss1/12
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