
Additional Appointments
Affiliate Faculty, Disability Studies; Affiliate Faculty, Banks Center for Educational Justice
Maggie Beneke
My scholarship is concerned with transforming deficit discourses surrounding young children’s 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 “normalcy" in early literacy contexts. I consider how such resistance can inform shifts in teacher education and early childhood education.
Multimedia
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. Online Publication/Abstract.
Journal Articles
- Beneke, M., Machado, E., & Taitingfong, J. (in press). “I draw mommy right here…wearing 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Phuong, J., Padía, L., & Beneke, M. R. (2024). Struggling toward abolition and dreaming beyond ableism in teacher education. Theory into Practice, 63(4), 340-352. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Beneke, M. R., Cioé-Peña, 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Machado, E., Beneke, M. R., & Love, H. R. (2024). “So that I may hope to honor you”: Centering wholeness, agency, and brilliance in qualitative research with multiply-marginalized young children. Educational Researcher, 53(4), 245-251. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Beneke, M. R., Machado, E., Taitingfong, J., Dhoot, S., Nagarajan, J., & Rupert, M. (2023). “‘Together’ means I am not the only one”: Educators reclaiming interdependence in early literacy through narratives of struggle. Language Arts, 100(5), 365-377. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Mueller, C., & Beneke, M. R. (2022). Whiteness and ability: Discourses in disability history curriculum legislation. Educational Policy. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Beneke, M. R. (2022). Disability critical race theory in and through early childhood literacies. Research in the Teaching of English, 56(3), 331-333. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Beneke, M. R. (2021). Investigating young children's conceptualizations of disability and race: An intersectional, multiplane critique. Educational Researcher, 52(2), 97-104. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Beneke, M. R. (2021). Mapping socio-spatial constructions of normalcy: Whiteness and ability in teacher candidates' educational trajectories. Whiteness and Education. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.
- 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. Online Publication/Abstract.