ABSTRACT
When I met Jay and Laura his teacher and the other children at Axelton Middle School, I brought with me my experiences as a White female high school teacher in a diverse district near Washington, DC. As a teacher, I questioned why my “basic” English Language Arts classes were densely populated with students of color (particularly Black boys and English Language Learners) while the other “advanced” classes appeared to be comprised almost entirely of White students from middle and upper-income homes. Meeting Jay, observing his interactions with Laura, and the ways in which he was immediately profiled as “emotionally impaired or learning disabled,” reignited my passion for understanding and addressing questions of how children are placed in categories and assigned identities of able or deficient.
