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2007 Award Winners

2007 Senior Scholar Award

Len Barton

Our 2007 Senior Scholar Award goes to Professor Len Barton, a Professor of Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. He is the founding editor of four scholarly journals, on the editorial board of several international journals, the editor and/or author of numerous books and articles, and mentor of some of the field's most significant scholars.

Among Len's many scholarly contributions to DSE has been his early application of (then) emergent disability studies perspectives to education and education policy. As noted in the introduction to Barton & Oliver's (1997) Disability studies: Past present and future, Len uses "his own personal experience to inform debates about special, and indeed by implication, all forms of education." A sociologist by background, he draws on his personal experience of "being a school failure and experiencing the damaging effects of labeling on my identity and self-esteem." As a result, Len has a "specific interest in how oppressed and discriminated people struggle to develop a sense of self-worth and resistance based on an alternative set of values and interpretations" (Inaugural Lecture, Sheffield University, 1993). In this inaugural lecture he also notes "I am convinced, my failure to speak out against disabilist images and oppressive conditions and relations signals consent to the prejudice and discrimination that generates in that silence. To that I cannot consent." As a sociologist and an academic, he still challenges us all with his comments from the Inaugural Lecture of 1993: "The question remaining is the extent to which the institutions we work in, including my own, are involved in discriminatory practices?" As one of the founders of the field, Len continues to use his renown as a sociologist to maintain DSE at the forefront of discussions and debates in education.

2007 Junior Scholar Award

Srikala Naraian

Dr. Srikala Naraian completed her PhD. in Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, in 2006. Interweaving three separate theoretical strands-disability studies, narrative theory and sociocultural theories of learning-her doctoral dissertation examined the participation of students with significant disabilities within inclusive school settings, using the argument that others' narratives are critical to the formation of their identities. Her interests include interpretivist research in education, inclusive schooling practices, and sociocultural theories of learning. She is currently a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Disability, Education and Culture, Universitv of Missouri-St. Louis, where she is collaborating with other faculty on a qualitative research project that chronicles the implementation of an innovative professional development model in an urban school district.

2006 Award Winners

2006 Senior Scholar Award

D. Kim Reid
Dr. Reid is a Professor of Education and Coordinator of Programs in Learning dis/Abilities and Disability Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. She developed this program forged from her decades of long work focused on the social construction of disability. With over 50 published works in leading journals, Kim is a border crosser in the most positive sense of the word-working to bridge the (mis)understandings between special education and disability studies. Kim is especially noteworthy for her mentoring of doctoral students, evidenced by her frequently co-authored publications, and by her numerous grants in support of disability studies at the graduate level.