“A wound that has been festering since 2007”: The Burma/Myanmar naming controversy and the problem of rarely challenged assumptions on Wikipedia

Purpose: The Burma/Myanmar naming controversy on Wikipedia stands as an exemplary debate at least in terms of the politeness and civility of discourse. It was also one of the longer running debates on Wikipedia beginning almost at the same time as the creation of the article in 2003. But this debate has other lessons for those interested in one of the world’s key pieces of information infrastructure. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: The author’s approach to the study of the Wikipedia talk pages devoted to the Burma/Myanmar naming controversy is qualitative in nature and explores the debate over sources through textual analysis. Findings: Editors brought to their work a number of underlying assumptions including the primacy of the nation-state and the nature of a “true” encyclopedia. These were combined with a particular interpretation of neutral point of view (NPOV) policy that unnecessarily prolonged the debate and, more importantly, would have the effect, if widely adopted, of reducing Wikipedia’s potential to include multiple perspectives on any particular topic. Originality/value: The study clearly shows how editors tend to uncritically reproduce the dominant assumptions of their societies. When combined with positivist readings of NPOV policy, this has grave implications for Wikipedia’s potential to open up representation to a wider set of knowledge producers and perspectives. Much of this potential cannot be realized if the assumptions of editors, especially their flawed understanding of NPOV, cannot be challenged effectively.Accepted versio

Critical Aspirations: Disability, Education, and Community Cultural Wealth in a Sanctuary City

This study explores the needs and experiences of refugee parents of emergent bilingual students labeled as disabled (EB/LADs) and their networks of interpreters and community-based educators. This investigation focuses on the relationships (and disconnects) within these networks related to language, migration, culture, race, disability, and special education experiences in formal and community-based schooling contexts. The bulk of extant scholarship regarding parental experiences in special education typically centers school-based experiences rather than community- and home-based experiences, such as daily acts of nurturing and communication (e.g., Cioè-Peña, 2018). However, school-based spaces, processes, and resources are in many ways inaccessible to EB/LAD families because they implement and uphold expectations and protocols which are rigidly defined by white, Western, middle-class norms for participation and discourse (Ijalba, 2015). As such, this project centers the home- and community-based experiences of refugee EB/LAD parents and community-based educators of EB/LADs through exploring how and under what circumstances they cultivate and engage Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) in support of their children labeled as disabled, as well as their needs related to the formal schooling context.Using an integrative theoretical framework, this study addresses the following research questions: (1) What are the needs and experiences of refugee parents of EB/LADs as they navigate disability, education, and institutional processes; and (2) How do community-based education networks assess and address the needs and experiences of refugee parents of EB/LADs? By addressing these questions, this study contributes to the field of education at the crossroads of emergent bilingual education, special education, and critical culturally sustaining practice through qualitative case study. Further, by focusing on the perspectives of members of a refugee community in a sanctuary city in Upstate New York, this study sheds light on the lived realities of the educational programs in which most EB/LADs are enrolled in New York State, as well as the dark patterns which suspend parents and families in surreptitious, proxemic interactions with educators and policymakers. Finally, this study offers recommendations for cultivating supportive critical partnerships between schools and parents of EB/LADs through engaging in a critical reflexive praxis of sanctuary for EB/LADs, their families, and communities