Disability, Social Class and Stigma: An Intersectional Analysis of Disabled Young People’s School Experiences

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed a renewed interest in stigma and its effects on life-course trajectories of disabled people. However, sociological narratives largely adopt monolithic understandings of disability, neglecting contextual meanings of different impairments and conditions and their intersections with other ascriptive inequalities, which may be consequential for exposure to stigma. Our article provides an intersectional analysis of disabled young people’s lived experiences of stigma in mainstream school settings. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 35 autistic, dyslexic and/or physically disabled students, we show that stigmatisation is contingent on social class background, which affects students’ location within the school. We also find substantial variation in experiences of stigma between and within sub-categories of conditions/impairments, as a consequence of the perceived distance from normative ideals of skills and behaviour attached to individuals in school settings. Our findings highlight the importance of intersectional analyses of stigma, challenging universalised views about stigmatised disabled people.