Maggie Beneke
Email
beneke@uw.edu
Phone
206-221-3445
Office
115C Miller
Area
Special Education

Maggie Beneke

Associate Professor
Culturally Sustaining Education Early Childhood Special Education ( SPED-TEP ) Education, Equity and Society Special Education Doctoral Teacher Education and Teacher Learning for Justice
My scholarship is concerned with transforming deficit discourses surrounding young children’s identities and competencies, particularly young children who are marginalized by intersecting oppressions (e.g., ableism, racism, linguicism). I come to this work as a white woman scholar and former inclusive early childhood teacher who was labeled with a disability as a young child. Drawing on framings from critical disability studies in education and disability justice movement work, in my recent research I have examined how young children, families, and early educators negotiate, resist- and imagine beyond - oppressive notions of “normalcy" in early literacy contexts. I consider how such resistance can inform shifts in teacher education and early childhood education.
Education
Ph.D. University of Kansas; Special Education
M.A.T. Tufts University; Child Development
B.A. Illinois Wesleyan University; English Literature & Studio Art
Publications

If you'd like a copy of a publication but do not have institutional access, email beneke@uw.edu.

  • Beneke, M. R., Machado, E., Taitingfong, J., Dhoot, S., Nagarajan, J., & Rupert, M. (in press). “‘Together’ means I am not the only one”: Educators reclaiming interdependence in early literacy through narratives of struggle. Language Arts.
  • Machado, E., Beneke, M. R., & Taitingfong, J. (2023). "Rise up, hand in hand": Early childhood teachers writing a liberatory literacy pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R., & Love, H. R. (2022). A DisCrit analysis of quality in early childhood: Toward pedagogies of wholeness, access, and interdependence. Teachers College Record. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Mueller, C., & Beneke, M. R. (2022). Whiteness and ability: Discourses in disability history curriculum legislation. Educational Policy. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R., Machado, E., & Taitingfong, J. (2022). DisCrit literacies: Early childhood teachers reading school as text and imagining an otherwise. Reading Research Quarterly, 57(4), 1237-1257. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R., Machado, E., & Taitingfong, J. (2022). Dismantling carceral logics in the urban early literacy classroom: Towards liberatory literacy pedagogies with/for multiply-marginalized young children. Urban Education. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R., Siuty, M. B., & Handy, T. (2022). Emotional geographies of exclusion: Whiteness and ability in teacher education research. Teachers College Record, 124(7), 105-130. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R. (2022). Disability critical race theory in and through early childhood literacies. Research in the Teaching of English, 56(3), 331-333. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R., Collins, S., & Powell, S. (2021). Mothering young children of color with disabilities and the politics of care. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54(3), 328-344. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R. (2021). Investigating young children's conceptualizations of disability and race: An intersectional, multiplane critique. Educational Researcher, 52(2), 97-104. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Love, H. R., & Beneke, M. R. (2021). Pursuing justice-driven inclusive education research: Disability critical race theory (DisCrit) in early childhood education. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 41(1), 31-44. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R. (2021). Mapping socio-spatial constructions of normalcy: Whiteness and ability in teacher candidates' educational trajectories. Whiteness and Education. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R., & Cheatham, G. A., (2020). Teacher candidates talking (but not talking) about dis/ability and race in preschool. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(3), 245-268. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R., & Cheatham, G. A. (2019). Race talk in preschool classrooms: Academic readiness and participation during shared-book reading. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 19(1), 107-133. Online Publication/Abstract.
  • Beneke, M. R., Newton, J. R., Vinh, M., Blanchard, S. B., & Kemp, P. (2019). Practicing inclusion, doing justice: Disability, identity, and belonging in early childhood. Zero to Three, 39(3), 26-34. Online Publication/Abstract.