If the structure does not permit dialogue, the structure must be changed.
~ Paulo Freire
~ Paulo Freire
Research
My research is grounded in scholarship as a humanizing practice towards dialogic consciousness raising with dignity and care and situated within the fields of special education and critical inquiry (Paris & Winn, 2014). I center my research in the experiences, perspectives, and solutions of multiply marginalized youth and adults, their families, and communities to dismantle, redesign, and reconstruct schools. As a scholar with a strong intersectional social justice orientation, humanizing approaches to inquiry are at the heart of my scholarship. Because of these commitments, my scholarship is informed by the ideological underpinnings, movements, and practices of abolition, disability rights, and environmental, linguistic, and racial justice. I aim to center the experiences and voices of my co-researchers and the participants while also acknowledging how understandings and practices (including my own) are situated within interrelated sociocultural, historical, and institutional powers and processes.
Epistemological and Theoretical Approach
My epistemological assumptions inform what I consider knowledge. I position myself within critical and participatory epistemologies wherein I believe knowledge is influenced by power but is also holistic, relational, and cyclical (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). My epistemological and ontological considerations are inherently connected. I position myself within and between critical and Indigenous ontologies because my understandings of being and becoming are co-constructed, relational, and embrace the interconnectedness of self and group within society and nature (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). Yet, as a white woman, I cannot claim Indigenous ontologies. In sum, I see the nature of being as relational and holistic but also structured by arrangements of power that are shaped by particular ideologies, processes, and systems that require social change.
My dissertation research was framed by sociocultural theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978) and Disability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit; Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013) and focused on the school experiences of disabled girls of color in middle and high school. As a learning theory, sociocultural theory acknowledges that learning is interactional and mediated by material and conceptual artifacts (Rogoff, 2003). As an intersectional framework, DisCrit strengthens sociocultural theory with an explicit examination of how power is produced and maintained in learning contexts (Esmonde & Booker, 2016). This blended framing afforded a critical examination of how schooling mechanisms (systems and processes) were generated through discursive practices (e.g., talk, texts, actions) and materializations (e.g., school geographies, classroom layouts, learning tools) for girls of color with disabilities at macrosociopolitical (e.g., ableism, linguicism, racism) and microinteractional (e.g., access to curriculum, classroom interactions) levels (Erevelles & Minear, 2010).
Methodological Pluralism and Axiological Commitments
Considering my commitments to youth, families, teachers, and inclusive schools and communities, it is important for me to engage with multiple methodological tools and cull from interdisciplinary perspectives. First, I use iterative data collection and analysis wherein preliminary analyses within the first phases of data collection informs my next steps in data collection (Bhattacharya, 2017). Data analysis is also iterative through multiple rounds of meaning making and coding as I move back and forth reading the data, turning hunches into questions, and going back to the data to mine for answers. In addition, I combine several data collection methods, including qualitative interviewing techniques (Seidman, 2006), focus groups (Pérez Huber, 2009), observations of teaching and learning, and visual methods (i.e., photovoice, Latz, 2017; Wang & Burris, 1997; cartography, Annamma, 2016; Futch & Fine, 2014). In particular, visual methods supplement dialogue and alter power dynamics between interviewer and interviewee (Clark, 1999; Lapenta, 2011) during data collection. During data analysis, I use narrative analysis (Rodwell, 1998; Saldaña, 2013) and critical discourse analysis (Gee, 2011; Rogers, 2011). Some of my projects are beginning to incorporate surveys as well as geographic information system (GIS) data.
My ethical commitments are grounded in critical and materialist axiological assumptions (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). I believe values and knowledge are inevitably linked and it is my responsibility to respond to the interconnected entanglement we are all a part of. Moreover, I envision scholarship as an ongoing process of becoming through authentic interaction (Kinloch & San Pedro, 2014). My perspectives and professional trajectory have been influenced by partnerships focused on education, health, and ecology with youth, families, teachers, and community members with diverse ontologies, epistemologies, cultural practices, livelihoods, and values. These experiences inform my axiological commitments to center multiply marginalized youth, families, and communities.
Epistemological and Theoretical Approach
My epistemological assumptions inform what I consider knowledge. I position myself within critical and participatory epistemologies wherein I believe knowledge is influenced by power but is also holistic, relational, and cyclical (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). My epistemological and ontological considerations are inherently connected. I position myself within and between critical and Indigenous ontologies because my understandings of being and becoming are co-constructed, relational, and embrace the interconnectedness of self and group within society and nature (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). Yet, as a white woman, I cannot claim Indigenous ontologies. In sum, I see the nature of being as relational and holistic but also structured by arrangements of power that are shaped by particular ideologies, processes, and systems that require social change.
My dissertation research was framed by sociocultural theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978) and Disability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit; Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013) and focused on the school experiences of disabled girls of color in middle and high school. As a learning theory, sociocultural theory acknowledges that learning is interactional and mediated by material and conceptual artifacts (Rogoff, 2003). As an intersectional framework, DisCrit strengthens sociocultural theory with an explicit examination of how power is produced and maintained in learning contexts (Esmonde & Booker, 2016). This blended framing afforded a critical examination of how schooling mechanisms (systems and processes) were generated through discursive practices (e.g., talk, texts, actions) and materializations (e.g., school geographies, classroom layouts, learning tools) for girls of color with disabilities at macrosociopolitical (e.g., ableism, linguicism, racism) and microinteractional (e.g., access to curriculum, classroom interactions) levels (Erevelles & Minear, 2010).
Methodological Pluralism and Axiological Commitments
Considering my commitments to youth, families, teachers, and inclusive schools and communities, it is important for me to engage with multiple methodological tools and cull from interdisciplinary perspectives. First, I use iterative data collection and analysis wherein preliminary analyses within the first phases of data collection informs my next steps in data collection (Bhattacharya, 2017). Data analysis is also iterative through multiple rounds of meaning making and coding as I move back and forth reading the data, turning hunches into questions, and going back to the data to mine for answers. In addition, I combine several data collection methods, including qualitative interviewing techniques (Seidman, 2006), focus groups (Pérez Huber, 2009), observations of teaching and learning, and visual methods (i.e., photovoice, Latz, 2017; Wang & Burris, 1997; cartography, Annamma, 2016; Futch & Fine, 2014). In particular, visual methods supplement dialogue and alter power dynamics between interviewer and interviewee (Clark, 1999; Lapenta, 2011) during data collection. During data analysis, I use narrative analysis (Rodwell, 1998; Saldaña, 2013) and critical discourse analysis (Gee, 2011; Rogers, 2011). Some of my projects are beginning to incorporate surveys as well as geographic information system (GIS) data.
My ethical commitments are grounded in critical and materialist axiological assumptions (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). I believe values and knowledge are inevitably linked and it is my responsibility to respond to the interconnected entanglement we are all a part of. Moreover, I envision scholarship as an ongoing process of becoming through authentic interaction (Kinloch & San Pedro, 2014). My perspectives and professional trajectory have been influenced by partnerships focused on education, health, and ecology with youth, families, teachers, and community members with diverse ontologies, epistemologies, cultural practices, livelihoods, and values. These experiences inform my axiological commitments to center multiply marginalized youth, families, and communities.
2023 PublicationsRECENT JOURNAL ARTICLES
Brown, L. X. Z., Dickens, B., Gray-Garcia, T., Kulkarni, S. S., McLeod, L., Miller, A. L., Nusbaum, E. A., & Pearson, H. (2023). (Re)centering the knowledge of disabled activists, poverty scholars, and community scholars of color to transform education. Disability Studies Quarterly special issue titled “Origins, objects, orientations: Towards a racial history of disability,” 43(1), https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v43i1.9693 Kulkarni, S. S., Miller, A. L., Nusbaum, E. A., Pearson, H., & Brown, L. X. Z. (2023). Toward disability-centered, culturally sustaining pedagogies in teacher education. Critical Studies in Education, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2023.2234952 Miller, A. L. (2023). Intersectionality in U.S. educational research: Visibilizing the historically excluded and under-recognized experiences of disabled girls of color. Educational Review special issue titled “A re-view of educational inequalities,” Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2022.2163377 RECENT CHAPTERS Pearson, H. & Miller, A. L. (in press). Critical disability studies and critical spatial studies as method. In Pasque, P. A. (Section Ed.). Critical Qualitative Research and Social Justice. In J. Salvo and J. Ulmer (Eds.), Routledge Resources Online (formerly: Routledge Encyclopedia of Qualitative Methods). Routledge. [Invited and Peer Reviewed] Miller, A. L., Stinson, C., & Timberlake, M. T. (2023). Grappling with the tensions: Cultivating justice-oriented praxis through collaborative autoethnographic poetry. In D. I. Hernandez-Saca, C. Kramarczuk Voulgarides, & H. Pearson (Eds.), Understanding the boundaries between disability studies and special education through consilience, self-study, and radical love (pp. 235-259). Lexington Books. My CV has a full list of my publications. Please contact me if you would like a copy of an article or chapter at [email protected]. |
Select Funded ProjectsIN PROGRESS
2023-2024 Co-Principal Investigator. Co-designing disability-centered culturally sustaining pedagogies with community activists and youth scholars. San José State University Multi-Institutional Level Up Grant. ($30,000). Saili Kulkarni, PI; Emily Nusbaum, Co-PI. Summer/Fall 2023 Co-Principal Investigator. CyCLE: Collaboratively co-designed literacy experiences. OVPR and College of Education. ($8,000). Christine Hancock, PI; Poonam Ayra, Co-PI. COMPLETED 2022-2023 Co-Principal Investigator. CyCLE: Collaboratively co-designed literacy experiences. Wayne State University Social Sciences Research Support Program 2021. ($10,000). Christine Hancock, PI; Poonam Ayra, Co-PI. 2022-2023 Principal Investigator. Project REIMAGINE: Centering the experiences of disabled girls of color in redesigning and reconstructing educational systems. Wayne State University – University Research Grant Program 2021. ($10,000). Check out the Disability-Centered Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Project! Please see my CV for a full list of funded and unfunded projects. |
2023 PresentationsREFEREED
Mansouri M. C., & Miller, A. L. (2023, November). Contextual considerations: Teachers’ strategies for supporting inclusive practices for students with complex support needs. Paper presentation at the 2023 DADD Annual Conference. Honolulu, HI. Mansouri M. C., Miller, A. L., Kurth, J. A., & Morningstar, M. E. (2023, November). Promoting inclusive practices: Insights from teacher candidates' agentic moves. Paper presentation at the 2023 TASH Annual Conference. Baltimore, MD. Mansouri M. C., Kurth, J. A., & Miller, A. L. (2023, November). Equitable access for all: A comprehensive guide to addressing text complexity of grade-level content. Paper presentation at the 2023 TASH Annual Conference. Baltimore, MD. Kulkarni, S., Miller, A. L., Nusbaum, E. A., Pearson, H., & Brown, L. X. Z. (2023, April). Toward disability-centered culturally sustaining pedagogies in teacher education. Division K symposium presentation at the 2023 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (Organizers: Molly Siuty & Margaret Beneke). Chicago, IL. Miller, A. L., Mansouri, M. C., Ruhter, L. C., Andreoli, M., Kurth, J. A., & Morningstar, M. E. (2023, April). How the interconnectedness of systemic ableism and teacher candidates’ agentic moves shape inclusive education. Paper presentation at the 2023 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL. Miller, A. L., Nusbaum, E. A., & Kulkarni, S. (2023, April). (Re)centering knowledge: Teacher candidates learning from disabled activists and community scholars of color. Paper presentation at the 2023 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL. Wilson, A. L., Bradley, H. L., Reynolds, A., D., Edwards, E. B., & Miller, A. L. (2023, April). Black girl led research: Centering Black girls in transforming schools. Paper presentation at the 2023 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL. Please see my CV for a full list of presentations. |