Toward a Critical Theory Approach to Lives Considered Emotionally Disturbed

Abstract

Issues of power residing within various special education processes surrounding the lives of children considered emotionally disturbed have not been adequately addressed within our profession. In order to begin a discourse implicating ourselves in processes of hegemony and domination within educational practice and research, I propose a critical theory approach to understanding and representing lives considered disturbed. From this strand of socio-political theory, we may begin to hear and tell critical stories; specific, biographic narratives which value the child's personal knowledge and negate the dominant accounts in our field.