MACMILLAN Childhood Disability, Advocacy, and Inclusion in the Caribbean: A Trinidad and Tobago Case Study (Palgrave Studies in Disability and International Development)

This book presents an ethnographic case study of the personal motivations, advocacy, and activation of social capital needed to create and sustain the Immortelle Children’s Centre, a private school that has served children with disabilities in Trinidad/Tobago for four decades. Based on narratives by parents from the 1980’s, current parents, teachers, community advocates, and the author, who was the founder of Immortelle in 1978, the study views the school within the context of a nation standing in a liminal space between developed and developing societies. It argues that the attainment of equity for children with disabilities will require an agenda that includes a legal mandate for education of all children, increased public funding for education, health and therapeutic services, and an on-going public awareness campaign. Relating this study to the global debate on inclusion, the author shows how the implementation of this agenda would have to be adapted to the social, cultural, and economic realities of the society. Review “The uniqueness of this book lies in Beth Harry’s ability to straddle the macrocosmic and microcosmic scales of analysis by skillfully placing the 40-year history of the Immortelle Children’s Center within the larger context of the history of Trinidad/Tobago’s post-colonial development. Currently, Trinidad occupies what Beth calls a “liminal space” of in-between-ness and is poised to enter the next stage of pursuing the moral imperatives of development by ensuring educational services for children with disabilities. Beth addresses the dilemma of the applicability of the international standard of inclusive education to the social/economic context of Trinidad/Tobago. By offering indigenous alternatives to the international framework of inclusive education, this book is must reading for academicians and practitioners alike in the field of international inclusive and special education.” (Maya Kalyanpur, Professor, Special Education, University of San Diego, USA) “A penetrative ethnographic case study of Immortelle Children’s Centre, a parent-led initiative founded by Beth Harry in 1978 to educate children with disabilities. Four decades later, Beth turns an analytical gaze onto the project and skillfully weaves the voices of parents, caregivers, teachers, and community activists into a study pierced through with empathy. The enquiry confronts legacies of elitism, racial hierarchies and patronage within liminal Caribbean post colonies, challenges global inclusion discourses, celebrates volunteerism and social capital and argues for systemic support from a State founded on philosophies of inclusion.” (Paula Morgan, Professor of West Indian Literature and Culture, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago) “Providing educational services to learners with disabilities has been a subversive idea because it raises unsettling questions: Who possesses rights? What does competence mean across the range of human capabilities? There is an urgent need to deepen our understanding of these questions, particularly in nations of the South. Grounded in the rigor of ethnography and the authority forged by lived experience, Harry offers a multifaceted historical portrait of such questions. The setting is a young nation of the South with a deep commitment to equality. The result is a rich depiction of the tribulations surrounding the disruption of normative views about ability, as well as the triumphs of transforming intolerance toward disabilities. In the end, we gain a cultural understanding of educational access and opportunity.” (Alfredo J. Artiles, Dean, Graduate College, Ryan C. Harris Professor of Special Education, Arizona State University, USA) “A must read for anyone interested in international developments in education, this book provides an inside account of account of the development of Immortelle, a Centre for educational provision for children with