Open AccessDisabling Fields, Enabling Capital: Mothers with Disabilities and the Concerted Cultivation Habitus
Author(s) -
Angela Frederick
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
disability studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2159-8371
pISSN - 1041-5718
DOI - 10.18061/dsq.v38i4.6162
Subject(s) - habitus , identity (music) , sociology , capital (architecture) , class (philosophy) , cultural capital , field (mathematics) , disability studies , middle class , gender studies , style (visual arts) , psychology , political science , geography , social science , epistemology , aesthetics , law , philosophy , mathematics , archaeology , pure mathematics
This article examines the experiences of mothers with disabilities who engage in concerted cultivation, a parenting style commonly practiced in middle-class communities. The author explores these mothers' experiences in the "fields" of their children's schools and organized extracurricular activities. Findings illuminate how ruptures in these mothers' middle - class habitus occur as they confront accessibility barriers and social exclusion while engaging in concerted cultivation. These mothers are found to simultaneously deploy class-based resources to overcome these barriers. This analysis lays bare the ways in which the concerted cultivation habitus presumes a nondisabled identity.