Indigenous students are disproportionately represented in special education programs in the United States, with 19% of them tracked into special education programs in public schools. Despite this fact, the intersection of Indigeneity and disability remains underexplored, offering a unique opportunity to develop frameworks that promote positive educational outcomes for Indigenous students. This dissertation examines how unique Indigenous cultural contexts intersect with experiences of systemic oppression to shape understandings of disability, special needs, and accommodations for Indigenous children in special education.During nine months of ethnographic fieldwork at a Tribal school in central Minnesota, situated within Anishinaabe territory, I explored how parents, guardians, and educators assessed the need for special education services, the factors influencing placement decisions, and the outcomes for students receiving services. I also observed the aids and accommodations provided to students in special education and how these supports were implemented in practice . I also interviewed students using a novel method that I developed for Indigenous children using art elicitation. The interview method was mostly successful with students being able to express aspects of themselves and identities in both visual media and in conversation. This method allowed them to communicate complex topics and ideas, which are otherwise difficult for them to vocalize. My dissertation integrates analytical framings from Indigenous education, disability critical race theory (DisCrit), and critical Indigenous theory in presenting several key themes. First, the concept of survivance, the continued existence and survival of Indigenous people in the face of colonialism, and refusal, the act of refusing settler colonial power, are useful for understanding educational environments. The Tribal school itself was created as an expression of both survivance and refusal, and these two concepts are also expressed by the families who attend the school. They express survivance by enrolling their children in a school that offers a culturally and community-based education, but they also express refusal in different ways, notably when elders reject or resist efforts to enroll children in their care in special education services. I emphasize the importance of trust and relationship-building with students and their families because of historical and contemporary trauma surrounding educational institutions. The legacy of trauma complicates the understanding and categorization of disability within the Tribal school context because, as I argue, there is an attempt to separate and make distinctions between students struggling with trauma and students struggling with disabilities, even though trauma and learning disabilities share similar symptomology. In this area, I argue that the focus on this distinction may lead to providing more effective interventions. It also challenges disability reductionism to instead engage more effectively with the long-term impacts of social issues affecting Indigenous people
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