Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership

Department

Educational Leadership

First Reader/Committee Chair

Dr. Angi Stone-MacDonald

Abstract

The present study examined equity and inclusion in early childhood special education through the lived experiences of administrators, educators, and caregivers. Despite decades of legislation, preschool students of color with dis/abilities continue to experience disproportionate identification for special education, exclusionary discipline, and limited access to inclusive settings (DHHS & DE, 2023; NCD, 2018). Grounded in Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), this study explores how intersecting systems of racism and ableism shape early childhood educational access and opportunity.

Guided by a phenomenological approach with a transformative paradigm, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with eighteen participants including administrators, early childhood special education teachers, and caregivers of preschool children with dis/abilities. Artifact data from five local school district websites were analyzed to contextualize participant experiences within district-level policy discourse. Data analysis involved a multi-cycle coding process to identify themes within and across stakeholder groups.

Findings reveal a central pattern of regulated belonging, in which inclusion is widely supported in principle yet conditionally enacted in practice. Across stakeholder groups, access to inclusive settings was mediated through behavioral expectations, perceived readiness, resource availability, and institutional capacity. General education environments were consistently positioned as normative spaces, and children with dis/abilities were required to meet implicit standards to gain access. Behavior functioned as a primary gatekeeping mechanism, while structural constraints, including staffing shortages, limited training, and funding limitations, normalized segregation. Caregivers described significant advocacy, institutional literacy, and emotional labor required to secure inclusive opportunities, highlighting how responsibility for equity is often forced onto families.

Extending DisCrit scholarship into early childhood education, this analysis demonstrates how racialized ableism operates through everyday decisions that regulate belonging in preschool systems. Findings suggest that inclusion is not primarily limited by stakeholder resistance, but by structural design and systemic underinvestment. Recommendations include re-centering inclusion as a civil rights issue, restructuring early childhood systems to support universal access, investing in sustained professional learning, embedding communication supports as foundational infrastructure, and institutionalizing equitable family partnerships.

The current study contributes to the field by reframing early childhood inclusion as a matter of social justice and institutional accountability, rather than individual readiness, emphasizing that equitable inclusion requires transforming the systems that determine who belongs.

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