Ashley Taylor

Associate Professor of Educational Studies; Chair, Department of Educational Studies

Department/Office Information

Education

Contact

ataylor1@colgate.edu (315) 228-6156

I specialize in philosophy of education, feminist disability studies, and inclusive education. I came to this work after witnessing ableism—and resistance to ableism—within residential and employment programming serving individuals labelled with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

I'm especially interested in what disability studies scholars have called "able-mindedness," and how able-mindedness informs epistemic practices—practices that have to do acquiring, generating, and sharing knowledge. You can learn a bit more through this short audio clip from Academic Minute.

In other work I look at the intersections of dis/ability, race, and gender in education, inclusive pedagogies, and frameworks of institutional accessibility in higher education. To learn more about this work, check out my co-authored piece in Spark Magazine on (Re)Producing White Privilege through Disability Accommodations.

I teach courses in educational foundations, inclusive education/critical special education, and feminist and critical disability studies.

BA, University of Kings College
MS, Syracuse University
PhD, Syracuse University

Journal Articles

McDonough, K., & Taylor, A. (2025). Moral status, epistemic agency, and the education of students labeled with intellectual disability. Theory and Research in Education. Open access link.

Taylor, A. (2023). The Paradox of Epistemic Ability Profiling. Journal of Philosophy of Education 57 (4-5), 880-900. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopedu/qhad066

McDonough, K. M. and Taylor, A. (2021). Paternalistic Intervention: Intellectual Disability and the Justification of Paternalism in Education. Philosophical Inquiry in Education 28(2), 196-208. https://doi.org/10.7202/1082925ar

Taylor, A. and McDonough, K. M. (2021). Safeguarding the Epistemic Agency of Intellectually Disabled Learners. In Winston C. Thompson (Ed.), Philosophy of Education. Open access link.

Bacon, J. K. and Taylor, A. (2021). Teaching “Subversively Inclusive” College Courses on Disability, Identity, History, and Activism. Journal of Teaching Disability Studies. Open access link.

Bonet, S. W. and Taylor, A. (2020). “I Have an Idea!:” A Disabled Refugee’s Curriculum of Navigation for Resettlement Policy and Practice. Curriculum Inquiry 50(3), 242-261. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2020.1834332

Taylor, A. (2020). Embodied Refusals: Conceptualizing Civic Dissent with Students Labeled with Disabilities. Educational Theory 70(3), 277-296. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12426

Lamboy, L., Taylor, A., and Thompson, W. C. (2020). Paternalistic Aims and Misattributions of Agency: What the Over-Punishment of Black Girls in U.S. Classrooms Teaches Us About Just School Discipline. Theory and Research in Education 18(1), 59-77. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520912510

Taylor, A. & Shallish, L. (2019). The logic of bio-meritocracy in the promotion of higher education equity. Disability & Society 34(7-8), 1200-1223. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2019.1613962

Taylor, A. (2018). Knowledge Citizens? Intellectual Disability and the Production of Social Meanings within Educational Research. Harvard Educational Review 88(1), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-88.1.1

Book Chapters

Shallish, L. E., Smith, M. D., & Taylor, A. (2022). Collusive Symbiosis: Notes on Disability as White Property in Higher Education. In Subini A. Annamma, Beth A. Ferri, and David J. Connor (Eds.), DisCrit Expanded: Reverberations, Ruptures, and Inquiries (pp. 31-44). Teachers College Press.

Taylor, A. (2020). The Metaphor of Civic Threat: Intellectual Disability and Education for Citizenship. In Linda Ware (Ed.), Assemblages: Critical Readings in Interdisciplinary Disability Studies (pp. 53-67). Springer Publishing.

Edited Volumes

Taylor, A. and McDonough, K. (2021). Intellectual Ability and Disability: New Questions for Philosophy of Education. Philosophical Inquiry in Education 28(2). https://doi.org/10.7202/1082915ar

Phi Eta Sigma Professor of the Year, Colgate University, May 2021
Exemplary Diversity Scholar, National Center for Institutional Diversity, University of Michigan 2016
All University Doctoral Prize, Syracuse University 2015
National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship 2014-15

EDUC 101/FSEM 182: The American School
EDUC 207: Inclusive and Anti-Ableist Education
EDUC 309: Philosophies of Education
EDUC 321: Psychological Perspectives in Education
EDUC 332: Disability, Difference, and Inclusion (Course taught in partnership with Otsego Academy at Pathfinder Village)
EDUC/WMST 339: Feminist Disability Studies
EDUC 450: Senior Thesis Seminar
EDUC 460: Honors Seminar

(Re)Producing White Privilege through Disability Accommodations in Spark Magazine, co-authored with Michael D. Smith and Lauren Shallish.
Read my blog post on HEPG's Voices in Education blog where I discuss my article "Knowledge Citizens? Intellectual Disability and the Production of Social Meanings within Educational Research."
Listen to a podcast discussion of my work with the Pedagogies of Punishment Project.