Resisting the Atomization of the Student: Unpacking Ontario’s Individual Education Plan for a Holistic Engagement of Disability

Abstract

Historically, education in Canada has been defined by colonial and ableist norms of knowledge production. Hinged on a Eurocentric value system of folding students into the white hegemony, as settlers colonized Canada (Morris et al, 2023). Canada’s history of formal schooling preceded confederation and during and post-confederation, curriculum became an impetus to solidify national identity and ideals of “civic duty” (Gresco, 1986). Disability was not factored into this ideal and while disability existed, the aim of the education quickly moved to remediate deviants thought to be ‘curable’ or to forcibly exile them (Parekh, 2022). Thus, the practice of the institutionalization of disabled people normalized and the current state of Special Education in Canada has not totally divorced colonial and ableist roots (Morris et al, 2023). This paper will express the current landscape of Ontario Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) as legal documents that outline the specific educational needs and academic, environmental and instructional accommodations for students with disabilities and exceptionalities. While this process centers the rights of the student from a legal perspective and can protect them from the discrimination, this paper will offer that Individual Education Plans are a product of a chronic institutional desire to pathologize and remediate disabled students; atomizing their agency as learners and identity as members of society. The application of Holistic Curriculum (Miller, 2019) will support a re-imagining of disability in education calling for advocates and educators alike to resist an overt Medical Model of disability that is plaguing Canada’s education system today.