'They Think It's Trendy to Have a Disability/Mental-Illness': Disability, Capital and Desire in Elite Education

Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

Y

20

Foreign Countries; College Students; Competitive Selection; Institutional Characteristics; Reputation; Selective Admission; Students with Disabilities; Self Concept; Social Capital; Political Attitudes; Mental Disorders; Student Attitudes; Social Class

10.1080/01425692.2023.2237199

0142-5692
1465-3346

Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an 'elite' sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of dis/ability and healthism--centring on mental health and wellbeing--are becoming further embedded in educational policy. Drawing on theoretical work by Bourdieu and Foucault, we demonstrate how the students in this study appeared able to re-make disability as a liberal intellectual identity marker and use it as a form of capital within the bounded college sub-field. However, we argue that these empowered disabled subjectivities were strongly "middle-classed" and "precarious." The findings have implications through advancing current understandings of young people's complexifying relationships with disability in education, of enduring inequalities around disability, and how social class is implicated in this.

As Provided

2023

EJ1398127