Date of Award
5-11-2025
Date Published
June 2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Special Education
Advisor(s)
Beth Myers
Second Advisor
Mario Rois Perez
Abstract
“Because I Felt Like We Weren’t Chained Down Anymore” investigates a rarely discussed yet profoundly consequential choice: families of students with intellectual disability who revoke consent for special education services. Drawing upon Disability Studies in Education (DSE), Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), this dissertation situates revocation of consent within a larger struggle against entrenched ableism, racism, and segregation in American schools. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, I explore the lived experiences of five families who navigated and resist the special education system, clashed with segregated placements, and ultimately decided their children would be better off stepping away from services intended to support them. The findings illustrate how parents work tirelessly to humanize their children, resisting deficit-laden narratives that reduce students with intellectual disability to “burdens” requiring containment rather than learners deserving equitable education. Families describe encountering an unyielding machinery of special education—often mired in rigid bureaucracies and low expectations—and make the wrenching decision to relinquish formal supports in favor of more genuinely inclusive spaces. Far from acting impulsively, these parents marshal their social, financial, and cultural capital to challenge schools. Yet, these very acts of resistance are shaped by inequities, with whiteness granting some parents the privilege to withdraw from the system more easily. Ultimately, the research reveals how revoking consent is both an indictment of special education’s segregating practices and a testament to the resilience of families who refuse to accept a system that undervalues their children. This dissertation offers urgent implications for policy, practice, and teacher education: reimagining support structures, disrupting the racialized assumptions underpinning special education, and centering the voices of families who dare to envision schooling as liberation. By amplifying these stories, we are invited to question not only what special education is, but what it could—and should—be for all learners.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Soldovieri, Sara Jo, "“Because I Felt Like We Weren't Chained Down Anymore”: The Experiences of Families of Students with Intellectual Disability Who Revoke Consent for Special Education Services" (2025). Dissertations - ALL. 2107.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/2107
