JOURNAL OF LEARNING DISABILITIES VOLUME 38, NUMBER 2, MARCH/APRIL 2005, PAGES 159–174 Studying Disability and Disability Studies: Shifting Paradigms of LD— A Synthesis of Responses to Reid and Valle David J. Connor Abstract In this article, I discuss the 11 diverse responses to Reid and Valle’s work on the discursive practice of learning disabilities (LD), impli- cations for instruction, and parent–school relations. I highlight key ideas from each article and then focus on three common areas of interest shared by most respondents: the unacceptable status quo of schooling practices; desired changes in schooling practices; and knowledge production in the field of special education and its relation to schooling practices. In light of the many issues raised, I urge the need for a reflective turn in the field of LD and for openness toward diversification of thought. R eid and Valle’s article (in this issue) is extremely provocative, overtly designed to challenge “mainstream” special education think- ing. Reid and Valle set about systemat- ically analyzing the cornerstones on which the traditional (special) educa- tion (see Note 1) knowledge base rests. In confronting these foundations, they question (and reject) many widely held beliefs, including (a) learning disabili- ties (LD) as solely existing within indi- viduals; (b) segregated special educa- tion as a rational response to student diversity; and (c) special education as an apolitical enterprise. Reid and Valle tease apart several significant strands that they assert coalesced to help form and continue to shape concepts such as “learning disability” and “special edu- cation.” In doing so, they claim the role of scientific, medical, and psychologi- cal discourses in (special) education, intertwined with institutional and legal discourses, has served to ground the field in practices that are, at best, largely ineffective and, at worst, dam- aging to the individuals they purport- edly seek to help. Positing the need to also foreground social, political, and cultural discourses in educational re- search, Reid and Valle contend that a sociopolitical vision can begin to re- dress the currently unacceptable state of the respective fields of LD and (spe- cial) education. Having justified their beliefs and established their stance, Reid and Valle share a vision in which pedagogy grounded in sociocultural theory and critical theory can trans- form classroom practice, while serving as a guide to create authentic, equitable parent–school relationships. By focusing on the process of meaning-making in LD scholarship, Reid and Valle carefully examine which forces interact with each other to determine the notions, ideas, and con- cepts that have become enshrined as foundational knowledge, subsequently taught to fledgling teachers, and delib- erately (re)circulated in higher and “lower” educational institutions alike. However, by contextualizing LD as a concept manufactured through a con- tingency of occurrences at a particular time and place, a reified thing success- fully circulated and taken up by power- ful institutional forces, transformed into a scientific entity and, thereby, eventu- ally accepted as a taken-for-granted (i.e., “real”) phenomenon, Reid and Valle question the very existence of LD as an objective fact. What exactly is it that Reid and Valle have placed before researchers in the field of (special) education, as well as teachers of students labeled LD, to contemplate? For some traditional thinkers, the paradigm from which Reid and Valle speak will disorient, confuse, confound, and even perhaps enrage. For other individuals, their ideas will provide grounding, serve to clarify matters, and help crystallize thinking about numerous intercon- nected issues. Regardless of the read- er’s paradigmatic stance, I believe Reid and Valle have provided (special) edu- cators with an opportunity to reflect on our systems of belief. In particular, they require us to consider the knowl- edge base on which our beliefs rest and, by doing so, compel us to ponder from where specific knowledge hails, how it was created, why it became en- shrined as “truth,” who is affected by