Kathryn Meyer
Doctoral Student
Kathryn Meyer is a doctoral student in educational studies with a specialization in special education at BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. She is a research assistant on projects focused on improving special educators’ working conditions. Her research interests center around how social movements, grassroots organizing, and teacher activism can transform the working and learning conditions of disabled teachers, staff, and students. Using qualitative methods, she draws on theory and research from critical disability studies, labor studies, and community organizing.
Kathryn has taught general and special education in Louisiana and Massachusetts. As an educator, she continues to work in elementary classrooms to develop and enact curriculum about the history of the disability rights and disability justice movements. As a teacher educator, she uses critical theories to empower K-12 educators to center and amplify the strengths, assets, and lived experiences of disabled children and their families.
Advisor: Elizabeth Bettini
Pronouns: she/her
In the Media
Education
EdM, Special Education, Boston University
MSW, Boston University
BA, English, Manhattan College
BA, Sociology, Manhattan College
Courses
SE 706: Introduction to Special Education
SE 580: Methods and Materials in Special Education
Selected Publications
Bettini, E., Morris-Mathews, H., Lillis, J., Meyer, K.M., Shaheen, T., Kaler, L., & Brunsting, N.C. (2021). Special educators’ roles in inclusive schools. Invited chapter for J. McLeskey, F. Spooner, B. Algozzine, & N.L. Waldron (Eds.), Handbook of Effective, Inclusive Elementary Schools: Research and Practice.
Selected Presentations
Meyer, K.M. (March, 2022). Centering Disability Justice in the Education Labor Movement During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Presentation at the Boston Labor Conference.