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Author Toni Morrison used fictional narratives to make readers uncomfortably aware of their collective role in perpetuating the culture of poverty and pitying its victims. In her first novel, The Bluest Eye, she focused on the most vulnerable member of society – a child – to depict the consequences of extreme social isolation and shine a spotlight on problematic explanations of poverty that fail to critique dominant narratives. This article examines how Morrison utilized relationships in The Bluest Eye to expose the societal conspiracies that damage children. Through her characters, Morrison challenges us to move away from the comfort of pitying victims to interrogating the role we play, especially in our schools. Using literary analysis, this article makes a case for helping young people resist the internalization of negative stereotypes, helping them use their voices to confront the deficit thinking and structural racism that pervades today's educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to views that young people with the label of autism are incapable of engaging in collective cultural practice, this article examines how they construct identities through social interactions to belong, compete, and participate. In a multi-sited ethnography of high school students with disabilities, we focused on two students as they move across contexts of school, debate team, and home. Over two years of interviews and participant observation, these students demonstrated nuanced efforts to distance themselves from the ‘autistic’ label. These acts of positioning illuminated how they negotiate identities with the knowledge their interactions shape how people perceive their participation in different contexts. By following them across informal and formal environments, we could see how they transition across multiple social worlds and appreciate the combined power these contexts have on youth identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]