Maggie Beneke
Email
beneke@uw.edu
Office
115C Miller
Area
Special Education

Additional Appointments

Affiliate Faculty, Disability Studies; Affiliate Faculty, Banks Center for Educational Justice

Maggie Beneke

Associate Professor
Culturally Sustaining Education Early Childhood Special Education ( SPED-TEP ) Education, Equity and Society Special Education Doctoral Teacher Education and Teacher Learning for Justice

My scholarship is concerned with transforming deficit discourses surrounding young children鈥檚 identities and competencies, particularly young children who are marginalized by intersecting oppressions (e.g., ableism, racism, linguicism). I come to this work as a white woman scholar and former inclusive early childhood teacher who was labeled with a disability as a young child. Drawing on framings from critical disability studies in education and disability justice movement work, in my recent research I have examined how young children, families, and early educators negotiate, resist- and imagine beyond - oppressive notions of 鈥渘ormalcy" in early literacy contexts. I consider how such resistance can inform shifts in teacher education and early childhood education.

Education
Ph.D. University of Kansas; Special Education
M.A.T. Tufts University; Child Development
B.A. Illinois Wesleyan University; English Literature & Studio Art

Multimedia

Publications

If you'd like a copy of a publication but do not have institutional access, email beneke@uw.edu.

Edited Volumes

  • Beneke, M. R., & Love, H. R. (2025). Beyond compliance in early childhood education: Centering disability, freedom, and belonging.Teachers College Press.

Journal Articles

  • Beneke, M., Machado, E., & Taitingfong, J. (in press). 鈥淚 draw mommy right here鈥earing mask: Care, criticality, and crip linguistics through early childhood literacy. American Educational Research Journal. 10.3102/00028312251367683
  • Siuty, M. B., Beneke, M. R., & Handy, T. (2025). Conceptualizing white-ability saviorism: A necessary reckoning with ableism in urban teacher preparation. Review of Educational Research, 95(3), 505-535.
  • Beneke, M. R., Machado, E., & Taitingfong, J. (2024). Dismantling carceral logics in the urban early literacy classroom: Towards liberatory literacy pedagogies with/for multiply-marginalized young children. Urban Education, 59(6), 1871-1904. 
  • Phuong, J., Pad铆a, L., & Beneke, M. R. (2024). Struggling toward abolition and dreaming beyond ableism in teacher education. Theory into Practice, 63(4), 340-352.
  • Beneke, M. R., Cio茅-Pe帽a, M., & Migliarini, V. (2024). Solidarity on the screen and six feet apart? DisCrit mothering amid multiple social crises. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 37(9), 2582-2599.
  • Machado, E., Beneke, M. R., & Love, H. R. (2024). 鈥淪o that I may hope to honor you鈥: Centering wholeness, agency, and brilliance in qualitative research with multiply-marginalized young children. Educational Researcher, 53(4), 245-251.
  • Beneke, M. R., Machado, E., Taitingfong, J., Dhoot, S., Nagarajan, J., & Rupert, M. (2023). 鈥溾楾ogether鈥 means I am not the only one鈥: Educators reclaiming interdependence in early literacy through narratives of struggle. Language Arts, 100(5), 365-377.
  • Machado, E., Beneke, M. R., & Taitingfong, J. (2023). "Rise up, hand in hand": Early childhood teachers writing a liberatory literacy pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal. 
  • Beneke, M. R., & Love, H. R. (2022). A DisCrit analysis of quality in early childhood: Toward pedagogies of wholeness, access, and interdependence. Teachers College Record. 
  • Mueller, C., & Beneke, M. R. (2022). Whiteness and ability: Discourses in disability history curriculum legislation. Educational Policy. 
  • Beneke, M. R., Machado, E., & Taitingfong, J. (2022). DisCrit literacies: Early childhood teachers reading school as text and imagining an otherwise. Reading Research Quarterly, 57(4), 1237-1257. 
  • Beneke, M. R., Siuty, M. B., & Handy, T. (2022). Emotional geographies of exclusion: Whiteness and ability in teacher education research. Teachers College Record, 124(7), 105-130. 
  • Beneke, M. R. (2022). Disability critical race theory in and through early childhood literacies. Research in the Teaching of English, 56(3), 331-333. 
  • Beneke, M. R., Collins, S., & Powell, S. (2021). Mothering young children of color with disabilities and the politics of care. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54(3), 328-344. 
  • Beneke, M. R. (2021). Investigating young children's conceptualizations of disability and race: An intersectional, multiplane critique. Educational Researcher, 52(2), 97-104. .
  • Love, H. R., & Beneke, M. R. (2021). Pursuing justice-driven inclusive education research: Disability critical race theory (DisCrit) in early childhood education. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 41(1), 31-44. 
  • Beneke, M. R. (2021). Mapping socio-spatial constructions of normalcy: Whiteness and ability in teacher candidates' educational trajectories. Whiteness and Education. 
  • Beneke, M. R., & Cheatham, G. A., (2020). Teacher candidates talking (but not talking) about dis/ability and race in preschool. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(3), 245-268. 
  • Beneke, M. R., & Cheatham, G. A. (2019). Race talk in preschool classrooms: Academic readiness and participation during shared-book reading. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 19(1), 107-133. 
  • Beneke, M. R., Newton, J. R., Vinh, M., Blanchard, S. B., & Kemp, P. (2019). Practicing inclusion, doing justice: Disability, identity, and belonging in early childhood. Zero to Three, 39(3), 26-34.