Ashley Zhou is a student of the Joint Doctoral program in special education with UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Her research focuses on structures of race, class, gender, and disability in special education through the role of the paraprofessional. Analyzing historical archives, she examines the labor formation of paraprofessionals and special education teachers in the aftermath of Brown. Her work also incorporates ethnography to examine the consequences of this labor formation for contemporary challenges in special education. Through this investigation of educational labor, Ashley’s research interrogates special education's ontological and epistemological claims to power, a system that shapes notions of disability and capability within a racialized capitalist society.
Department and Institution:
Berkeley School of Education, UC Berkeley
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