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Constructing disability: A phenomenological interview study of one student's experience(s) of disability
Abstract
This dissertation reports a study of the experience of disability of one student identified as having a Nonverbal Learning Disorder (NLD), his parents, teachers, and other educational personnel at the private, boarding school he attends. This qualitative, phenomenologically-based interview study examines the narratives of each of the participants to explore the construction of disability that each has developed and to present a picture of the multiplicity of perspectives that coexist and interact in this student's daily life. This study used in-depth phenomenological interviewing as its primary approach to qualitative research and supplemented that with more traditional, qualitative interviewing techniques. In-depth interviews were conducted with the study's primary participants: the student and his parents. Three 90-minute interviews were conducted with each of these participants, focusing on their stories of the student's disability. The audiotaped interviews, transcripts of those interviews, and my notes during the interview process became the raw data for this study. From these data, profiles and portraits of the central participant were developed by selecting data from the transcript of each participant's interview. Data was selected and coded according to its relevance to the construct of disability and portraits were crafted from the selected data. The completed portraits are presented in the participant's original words and are arranged, with my interpretive remarks, in chapters that reference the participants' relationships with the student participant. Two concepts, locus of disability and identifying features of disability were used to compare and contrast the stories of participants in this study. The findings of this study suggest that the construction of disability among a student, his parents, teachers, and other school personnel is multiple and heterogeneous in nature. The extent to which those constructions were idiosyncratic and dependent upon personal relationships with the student participant is a central finding of this study. Implications for educational administration are discussed.
Subject Area
School administration|Special education
Recommended Citation
McDonald, Peter John, "Constructing disability: A phenomenological interview study of one student's experience(s) of disability" (2001). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI3012164.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3012164