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Crossing the Divide? Diversity Issues in Teacher Education and Special Education

We would like to thank the editors of Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) for the opportunity to respond to Leah Wasburn-Moses's thoughtful response to our article, "Diversity in Teacher Education and Special Education: The Issues That Divide." In our article, we identified what we believe are fundamental differences in how dominant voices in the special education and general teacher education diversity communities think about human differences and suggested that these differences represent a "divide" that has proved difficult to bridge. We argued, for example, that the dominant discourse in special education is underpinned by cognitive perspectives on teaching and learning that contrast sharply with the sociocultural theories of learning that inform the work of many general teacher educators working from a social justice perspective. We were careful not to claim, however, that the positions we ascribed to "dominant" voices in special education apply to all special educators, a point Wasburn-Moses raises. The work of some special educators is informed by the same sociocultural theories that underpin our work, and certainly there are more than a few researchers in the general teacher education community whose work is informed by cognitive theories of learning. We recognize that in any field, there are many voices, but in the case of special education, the dominant discourse continues to be strongly influenced by cognitive theories of learning and the theoretical divide between the special education and general teacher education diversity communities has made collaboration between (many) special educators and general teacher educators nettlesome. Similarly, we did not--and would not--claim that social justice is an issue that is of interest only to general teacher educators. We can think of many special educators who have long-held commitments to social justice, including Janette Klingner, Beth Harry, Marlene Pugach, Mara Sapon-Shevin, Tom Skrtic, Steve Gelb, and Kathy McMahon-Klosterman (one of Wasburn-Moses's colleagues at Miami University) among others. Lou Denti (Denti & Whang, 2012), a special educator at California State University-Monterey Bay, edited a recently published volume specifically devoted to issues of social justice, a volume to which Curt Dudley-Marling contributed a chapter. And, of course, there are many general teacher educators with no particular commitments to social justice. Again, as this is a major point raised in Wasburn-Moses's response to our article, we want to be clear that we are not claiming that there is one perspective shared by all and only special educators or by all and only general teacher educators. Clearly there are overlaps between these groups. However, at this point in time, dominant discourses in these two communities represent a "divide" that has been difficult to span. Space limitations do not permit us to respond to all of the points Wasburn-Moses raised in her critique of our essay. Here we elaborate on a few of the most important issues she raised. Our Charge First, we agree with Wasburn-Moses that polarizing the work that relates to diversity in general teacher education and special education ultimately does not serve either field very well. However, it is important to understand the argument in our essay in terms of the task we were asked to take up in the JTE special issue edited by Marleen Pugach, Linda Blanton, and Lani Florian (2012), which explored diversity and disability in teacher education. The editors titled the editorial that introduced their special issue "unsettling conversations," and they characterized the issue's aim as "unravel[ing] the thorny problem of why ... there has been comparatively little discussion about the role of special education within the larger discourse of diversity of race, class, culture, and language" (p. 235). They called for an "honest, difficult, and much-needed dialogue" across diversity communities, which they anticipated would engender "inherent discomfort" as we crossed into "unfamiliar territory" (p. …