ABLE Assembly

Dr. Jenna Gabriel (she/her) is a disabled educator, scholar, artist, and mother whose work focuses on cultural access and anti-ableist arts learning in solidarity with disabled students. Her research investigates the historical roots of dominant, oppressive understandings of disability and race, with a particular focus on post-Brown Virginia schools, and Disability Art as a site of radical politics from which (art) educators can draw in anti-ableist, identity-affirming instruction. From these cultural and historical foundations, Gabriel is also interested in understanding how disabled youth develop political identities against racial capitalism’s influence on schooling—and the transformative potential of the arts in supporting youth development. She is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters about this work and her dissertation (Art) Education in the Afterlife of Massive Resistance: Constructing, Capturing, and Commodifying Racialized Disability in Virginia’s Student Assignment Practices, 1956-1966 and Present Day was awarded VCU’s 2024-25 Distinguished Dissertation prize for the Humanities and Fine Arts.

In her research, teaching, and activism, Gabriel is deeply committed to a collaborative practice that embraces the intimacy and flexibility at the heart of disability justice work. Prior to beginning her doctorate, she oversaw special education initiatives at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and directed K-12 youth development programs at Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) in Boston, in addition to working as a teaching artist throughout New York City. She continues to consult with arts organizations across the country and train educators and administrators in strategies for supporting disabled students. Jenna holds a PhD in education from Virginia Commonwealth University, an EdM in arts in education from Harvard University, and a BFA in drama from New York University. 

Outside of her professional work, Gabriel maintains a creative practice inspired by visible, disabled mothering as a practice of transformation, reclamation, and collective resistance. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, son, two dogs, and six chickens. 

Keynote Title: Looking Back to Imagine Forward: Unpacking the Historical Construction of Race and Disability in Arts Education and Dreaming Otherwise 

Description: This address will draw on archival and interview findings to discuss how histories of oppression against marginalized students continue to influence present-day arts education, especially in specialty arts programs committed to traditional ideals of artistic excellence. An intersectional understanding of disability helps us to see how, throughout history and in present day, the single-issuing of disability has obscured the movement of whiteness in the arts and education, enabling disability to be constructed through its intersections with racism, then captured and commodified to uphold the status-quo privileging of white students. Exploring how even—and, perhaps, especially—well-intentioned educators uphold ableist ideals of participation, Gabriel will unpack the assumptions at the heart of these practices so that we can collectively imagine more just arts educational futures.