¶ … classroom instruction and are these ideas/strategies feasible for a particular classroom, can they be adapted, alter, or incorporated to benefit students with disabilities?
A Critique of the Journal Article 'Cultural Models of Transition: Latina Mothers of Young Adults with Developmental Disabilities' and Implications for Classroom Instruction
The journal article Cultural models of transition: Latina mothers of young adults with developmental disabilities was a qualitative examination of attitudes of Latina mothers of young adults with disabilities, toward approaches to the transitions of those young adults from school-age activities to more independent living. According to the authors: "Sixteen Latina mothers of young adults with disabilities participated in the study, recruited from an agency
serving low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking communities" (Rueda,
Monzo, Shapiro, Gomez, & Blacher, Summer 2005). The qualitative study emphasized five themes: life skills and social adaptation; importance of family and home vs. individualism and independence; mothers' roles and decision-making expertise; information access; and dangers of the outside world....
Transition is described in the article as occurring from ages 14 through 26. The major discrepancy in the thinking of the Latina mothers interviewed, in several focus groups, and the dominant cultural attitude in which they and their disabled children lived, had to do with the mothers' view of adulthood for their disabled children vs. that of the dominant culture (i.e., United States Caucasian society). The American educational and cultural view of transitioning disabled individuals into adult life within our society has much to do with issues of independence and productivity, that is, training the disabled to work; to be productive; to live as independently as possible, and to fit in as well as possible, in the outside world, with non-disabled others.
Latina mothers participating in the focus groups for this study, however, saw the concept of their disabled young adult children…
