Learning Disabilities and Methodologies of Harm: Indigeneity, Pathologization, and Ambiguity in the Psychological Disciplines

• Author / Creator

  Schiefelbein, Wyatt Douglas

• In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) and the Psychological Foundation of Canada (PFC) issued a joint statement identifying the harms that psychological research and intervention have caused Indigenous communities, while also stating their commitment to address these harms. Though this report focused on the implications of ethnocentric epistemologies and unethical practices in psychological research and interventions, in this thesis I argue that the source of this harm is in fact found in the ontological commitments of disciplines such as psychology, psychiatry, and education. More specifically, I argue that it is the commitment of these disciplines to the concept of disability as both a pathological and detrimental reality of certain bodies and minds that is the underlying factor causing the harms discussed by the CPA and PFC. In this thesis, I focus on the case of learning disability and intelligence as co-constitutive concepts. Rather than understanding such topics as intelligence and learning disability through the lens of disability, I argue it is more appropriate to analyze these topics through the lens of whiteness and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from lands and resources. It is for the purpose of understanding the function of psychological disciplines in the continued theft of Indigenous lands and resources that I develop a research methodology I call Indigenous critical disability studies (I-CDS), drawing on current Indigenous scholarship and disability studies to do so. Using the I-CDS framework, I argue that a possessive logic intelligence acts directly as a means of justifying the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from lands and resources by settler colonial nations through appeal to the mental superiority of whites. However, the concept of intelligence risks falsification through being conceptualized as positively associated with learning potential. The concept of learning disabilities derives from a process of pathologization and the need to protect intelligence from this potential falsification. However, learning disabilities are also threatened by the possibility of falsification. Where intelligence is protected through pathologization, the concept of learning disability is protected by a method I term “ambiguity.” I conclude this thesis with the assertion that in order for psychological disciplines to address the harm they cause Indigenous communities, psychological researchers and practitioners will need to radically alter the methodologies they employ, their understandings of mental phenomena, and the role they play in the continued colonization of Indigenous lands and bodies. I also contend that Indigenous peoples should work to replace psychological disciplines with disciplines informed by Indigenous peoples own worldviews and research methodologies

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Disability Studies
  • DSM-5
  • Indigenous Methodologies
  • Whiteness Studies
  • Education
  • Colonialism
  • Pathologization
  • Recapitulation
  • Learning Disability Studies
  • Whiteness
  • Body Logic
  • Models of disability
  • Indigenous Body Logic
  • Models
  • Indigenous Studies
  • Smartness
  • Critical Indigenous Studies
  • Medical Model
  • Operational Ambiguity
  • Disability
  • DisCrit
  • Definitional Ambiguity
  • Sovereignty
  • Metis Research
  • Metis Disability Research
  • Medical Model of Disability
  • Learning Disability
  • History of Intelligence
  • Human Variance
  • Pathologisation
  • Psychiatry
  • Methodologies of Harm
  • Patriarchal White Sovereignty
  • I-CDS
  • Pathology
  • Recapitulation Theory
  • Social Model
  • Social Model of Disability
  • Disability Research
  • Métis Research
  • Intelligence
  • Psychology
  • Indigenous Approaches to Psychology
  • Indigenous Psychology
  • Educational Psychology
  • Indigenous Critical Disability Studies
  • Indigeneity
  • Possessive Logics
  • Indigenous Models of Disability
  • LD
  • Métis Disability Research
  • Truth and Reconciliation
  • Psychological Disciplines
  • Indigenous Methodology
  • Ambiguity
  • DSM
  • Disability Critical Race Theory
  • Indigenous Disability
  • Critical Disability Studies
  • Possessive Logic
  • ICDS

• Graduation date

  Fall 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Education

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-v1bn-rv93

• License

  Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.