Abstract
This chapter seeks to analyze the systems school psychologists operate within, with a focus on bias and harm toward culturally and linguistically diverse children during the special education assessment process. The paper will begin with an overview of school psychologists' roles in the special education assessment process, followed by a critical analysis of the ways in which many current assessment practices are harmful manifestations of socially constructed norms based in white supremacy. The chapter will conclude with suggestions for school psychologists on how to practice from a more liberatory perspective in four domains: (1) Questioning Definitions of Ability, Disability, and Disorder; (2) Context and Intersectionality, (3) Flexibility, Creativity, and Justice; and (4) Collaboration and Healing. Readers will be asked to consider how disability has been socially constructed to mirror behavior that deviates from socially constructed norms based in whiteness. They will also be asked to consider alternative ways of collecting data and assessing present levels of students in order to take their intersectional identities and experiences into consideration and then appropriately respond with interventions that provide pathways to hope, justice, and healing.