Intersectional Field Analysis: Conceptualizing Immigrant Families’ Encounters with Special Education Power

Abstract

In this conceptual paper, we introduce intersectional field analysis as a theoretical framework for understanding how power operates in the special education field broadly and how it affects immigrant families in their efforts to influence special education decisions for their children. We apply the framework, which merges key insights from intersectionality and field analysis to describe (a) special education capital and its unequal distribution among positions in the field and (b) the habitus most favored in the field and factors likely to determine immigrant families’ fit with that habitus (i.e., language resources, social identities in the country of origin, and supports in the United States context). In our concluding sections, we discuss implications for practice, future research, and applications of intersectional field analysis for other persistent power and equity dilemmas in special education.