Contemplating Dis/Ability in Schools and Society

The story of educator David Connor is also, as it turns out, the story of the unfolding relationship between special education and disability studies in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. With clarity and humor, as well as love and gratitude for his students and colleagues over the years, Connor weaves his memoir with honesty, compassion, and a keen intelligence. Contemplating Dis/ability in Schools and Society will be treasured by teachers, professors, and others committed to making public education more humane and just for all students, their teachers, and society more broadly. -- Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts
In this autoethnographic memoir, David Connor intimately reflects on thirty years as a (special) educator. Organizing the memoir around his career trajectory, Connor compellingly narrates a series of personal and professional experiences beginning with his life as a new teacher, and later as a doctoral student, college professor, and finally, department chairperson. Throughout the book, Connor acknowledges the tensions and conflicted feelings that are shared by many of us whose scholarly work is situated in Disability Studies in Education (DSE) but whose faculty and teaching responsibilities reside in special education programs. David Connor is a prolific writer and compelling scholar whose contributions to education, and DSE in particular, are significant due to the breadth of topics studied and the depth of scrutiny and analysis applied to each project. -- Susan L. Gabel, Wayne State University