Who May Be Literate? Disability and Resistance to the Cultural Denial of Competence

Abstract

Through a critical interpretivist frame, the authors use ethnography and archives to examine themes associated with society’s ongoing denial of literate citizenship for people with perceived intellectual disabilities. They link this denial to the experiences of other devalued and marginalized groups to challenge the common perception that citizenship in the literate community is an organic impossibility for people defined as intellectually disabled. The authors present four themes of literate disconnection and, in the conclusion, ponder the moral shift necessary to craft a science of literacy for all.