The Maintenance Years: Third Generation Mothers

Abstract

I am defining the third historical time frame as the years between the mid-1990s and the present in which special education, a public school institution now for more than 20 years, is the naturalized educational response to students who demonstrate difficulty learning. I introduce five mothers whose children, born either in the late 1980s or 1990, are currently of school age and labeled learning disabled (LD): Elsie whose daughter Emily was born in 1988; Kim and Kanene whose respective sons, Jacob and Marvin, were born in 1989; Katie whose son Louis was born in 1990; and Debra whose son, Justin, was also born in 1990 (see appendix B). I also include Chloe (introduced in chapter four) whose later narratives cross into this time frame (see appendix E).