Badder than “Just a Bunch of SPEDs”: Alternative Schooling and Student Resistance to Special Education Rhetoric

Abstract

This study of a Northeastern alternative high school examines the salience of two discourses—one focused on students who have problems, the other on students who are problems—in the alternative schooling process. At Cromwell Alternative North (CAN), teachers and staff promoted a view of students as youth with “special needs.” In the students’ social world, having “special needs” was not awarded status like being a troublemaker was. Students at CAN therefore had to manage both discourses in their daily interaction with teachers and peers. Some students accepted special needs rhetoric, some rejected it. Most attempted to manage it creatively, being a problem in the eyes of peers and having problems in the eyes of teachers. Code switching between the two discourses, however, was not something all students could do. A handful of students—“shining stars”—managed both “SPED,” slang for special education students, and “bad” discourses to achieve the greatest social and academic successes at CAN.