Title:

Disability, Friendship, and Educational Outcomes: What's the Connection?

In education, we care about academic, social, communication, and behavioral outcomes for all. Friendships and meaningful social relationships are essential components of these outcomes, impacting students’ learning potential, academic achievements, future employment and independence (Benner, 2011; Newcomb & Bagwell, 1996). Children with disabilities often have poor educational outcomes. They also often lack in meaningful relationships with peers, further hindering learning and life outcomes. To better understand these two realities, I embarked on a project with individuals with disability labels to explore their lived experiences of friendship. Participants were recruited from a previous survey about friendship. Snowball sampling was also used (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981), a popular method for researchers of sensitive topics (Lee, 1993). Thirteen people were interviewed; among them were individuals with disabilities, as well as parents and siblings of children and adults with disabilities. All interviews took place over Zoom following consent and assent confirmation. Interviews were transcribed and de-identified. Specifically, I’m using grounded theory methods to code and analyze my data. Grounded theory is well-suited to topics that are inductive in nature and enables the researcher, through coding that organizes and examines data in multiple and dynamic ways, to deconstruct, reorganize, and form conclusions about complex social processes (Strauss, & Corbin, 1994; LaRossa 2005). At this time, preliminary emerging themes include classroom inclusion (and exclusion), safety, communication, and teacher expectations. All data will continue to be analyzed iteratively, though only current emerging themes will be discussed in the presentation. Implications for use in classrooms, clubs, communities, and other places of learning and living will also be discussed.

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