Consent And Autonomy As The Foundation Of Neuroqueering Learning Spaces For Autistic Children And Young People

A Critique Of Western Education

Abstract

This article challenges traditional Western education models, prioritising normative performance over individualised learning. It argues that these systems, established during the Industrial Revolution to fulfil capitalist needs, have become oppressive for neurodivergent learners, particularly Autistic individuals. Drawing on neuroqueer theory and the neurodiversity movement, the article advocates for educational spaces rooted in autonomy and consent, allowing for authentic expression and interest-led learning. The authors propose a shift towards embodied, interdependent, and rhizomatic learning environments that honour neurodivergent needs, challenging the current obedience-based, meritocratic structures. Through this lens, the article critiques the rigid structure of modern education and calls for systemic change that nurtures safety, trust, and neuroqueering potential. Educators can support all students’ well-being by creating inclusive, flexible learning spaces, particularly those marginalised by neuronormative standards.

Introduction

Western models of education are held up as the pinnacle of learning spaces. Despite this they continue to fail huge swathes of children and young people, with many (regardless of neurocognitive style) being forced out of the school system by the inaccessibility of the classroom setting, this is especially prevalent amongst the Autistic and neurodivergent population (Connolly et al., 2023).

The most significant part of the schooling systems that we know today came with the industrial revolution. Having an illiterate workforce presented a challenge to the growing complexity of capitalist production processes, and it was clear that a more universal standard of education would be required to fulfil the need of progress. Education became about increasing productivity through uniformity, and less regard was paid to individual needs or experiences.

The 20^th century further expanded this with the introduction of compulsory education in many western countries. The latter half of the 20^th century brought a renewed focus on diversity and inclusion with the aim to reshape education as we know it to better serve a student population of greater diversity. Prior to this, education was reserved for the elite, non-disabled, and otherwise privileged few (Chapman, 2023).

Despite a renewed focus on more access to education for a greater number of people, education has perpetuated a meritocratic attitude within which we are made to feel that without academic achievement our social value will be reduced (Fisher, 2021). Western education in this sense has become a tool of oppression within which those that have access to autonomy within their education are the ones who receive privilege (Heleta, 2023). They benefit from the productivity of those who are not afforded the luxury of autonomy within their education (Kumashiro, 2000).

The Modern Learning Space

The modern classroom is epistemologically incompatible with the inclusivity that it purports to honour (Shapiro, 2020). It is built upon a politics of resentment that manipulates our fear of reduced social status in order to force us to conform with its principles and goals, regardless of whether those goals are relevant or helpful to the individual (Boren, 2024) . Current curriculums and access to education is controlled by a privileged class that moulds the learning space to their own benefit which upholds class disparities and the capitalist systems (Kumashiro, 2000).

Young minds that are predisposed to learning are placed into a learning space where the information they consume is dictated by the needs of capitalism rather than their own needs or goals (Kumkel, 2018). This perhaps plays a role in organised religions vested interest in education given its ability to shape the values and ethics of young people (Heleta, 2023).

Take for example the suggestions of banning the teaching of critical race theory. Racism and white supremacy are a tool of oppression that serves those at the top of the system. Therefore, many call for its removal from educational systems in order to protect those who use white supremacy to their benefit (Abu Moghli & Kadiwal, 2021).

The modern learning space has become a site of societal control wherein young people are conditioned into normativity rather than allowed to follow their interests and expand their repertoire of knowledge (Foucault, 1977). This systemic conditioning nurtures a culture of oppression via behaviourism. The basis of which is a positivist attitude that there is a pinnacle of human behaviour (which we call neuronormativity) and sits firmly in the pathology paradigm through the medicalisation and targeted elimination of any embodiment or behaviour that diverges from normative standards (Walker, 2021). The behaviour is seen as a separately occurring phenomenon that occurs uncoupled from one’s subjective experience.

“Behaviorism is a dehumanizing mechanism of learning that reduces human beings to simple inputs and outputs.” — Stimpunks Foundation, n.d.

This systemic oppression directly encourages Autistic people to internalise ableism (Sinclair, 2012). It is a necessary tool of privilege that seeks to retain the imbalance of power within western society.

What Happens To Those Who Cannot Be Conditioned Into Normativity?

Society breaks those that cannot be conditioned into normativity by convincing them they were already broken (Sinclair, 2012). Tools such as stigma, medicalisation, behaviourism, creation of social hierarchies, and other forms of oppression uphold the pathology paradigm (Walker, 2021). The pathology paradigm can be considered as a worldview under which all that deviates from “the average man” (Quetelet, 1842) is the metaphorical broken machine as positioned by Descartes (Chapman, 2023). The pathology paradigm positions the neurodivergent brain as suboptimal (and therefore subhuman) to the needs of society and in need of correction and repair (Walker, 2021).

This pathological approach to non-conformity set the stage for the emergence of eugenics and institutionalisation of those who did not meet the exact standards or normativity in terms of their productivity and expression of Self (McCusker, 2012). This can be traced back to the late 19^th century with Galton’s work to apply things like selective breeding to human populations in order to produce so-called desirable traits (McCusker, 2012).

While eugenics is now widely regarded as abhorrent, other systems have been put in place to integrate non-conforming students into this system. Rather than eliminating children who are neurodivergent, western society implements complex legally binding assessments and education plans. When standard tools of conditioning are ineffective, systems use methods that can be effectively summed up as “forcing square pegs into round holes” (Slee, 2011).

This is deeply problematic and contributes to the staggeringly high suicide rate for not just Autistic children, but adults as well, diagnosed or not (Cassidy et al., 2022). It may also play a role in the litany of co-occurring conditions that Autistic people experience due to its role in creating chronic stress between an Autistic person and their interaction with their environment (McEwan & Stellar, 1993). Other negative outcomes that need to be considered include substance use issues, mental health issues, and criminal activity and exploitation, all of which are known outcomes of minority stress (Botha & Frost, 2020).

A widely known issue for marginalised learners is the “school to prison pipeline” that see’s those who cannot achieve in this meritocratic system pushed into criminal exploitation and eventual incarceration. This in particular effects multiply marginalised and racialised groups (Wald & Losen, 2003). One way or another, if you can’t be conditioned, you are segregated or eliminated from society at large. Disturbingly common outcomes for Autistic people are suicidality, institutionalisation, or imprisonment (Hedley, 2017).

Looking For An Antidote

The immediately observable outcomes of these systemic issues can be observed in the increasing rates of mental health issues and the misleadingly named “school refusal” that has been particularly high in UK schools with persistent absence almost doubling between 2018/19 and 2022/23 (Department for Education, 2023). 92.1% of absent children are neurodivergent and 83.4% are Autistic (Fielding et al., 2024). In children aged 7 to 16 years (in England) the rates of mental health issues among students rose from 1 in 9 (12.1%) in 2017 to 1 in 6 (16.7%) in 2020 (NHS Digital, 2022).

Mental health issues disproportionately affect Autistic children, with some 70% meeting the criteria for a mental health diagnosis, versus 14% of non-Autistic children; the presence of ADHD further increased the likelihood of a mental health diagnosis (Simonoff et al., 2008). It should be noted that the COVID-19 pandemic both showed us that non-traditional schooling can work, while also seeing negative outcomes for students forced to return to the status quo Pelicano et al., 2021).

This highlights that current systemic oppression within the educational system is having the opposite effect of that which is intended. Rather than conditioning children into normative performance, it is instead causing a crisis of wellbeing that is removing children from the system that conditions them (Fisher, 2021). The pandemic created space for children to learn and engage with education with greater autonomy, and that autonomy was denied upon return to the physical school building. The logical conclusion is that the current status quo does not work for anybody, but this is amplified for Autistic children and young people who serve as the “canary in the coal mine” in this context (Fisher, 2021).

We are reaching a critical point in society where few are benefiting from our current education system. Fisher’s (2021) also highlights this from the perspective of teachers, students, and parents/carers. The purpose of education hasn’t changed over the years; though we no longer need workers for factory production lines and should not be endorsing behaviourist approaches to fulfil this outdated perception that education is only there to serve capitalism. The consequences of this way of approaching education means that children are becoming more ‘disembodied’ and alienated as time goes by (Aldred & Aldred, 2021). Both students and teachers have less autonomy than ever before.

Neoliberal society requires high levels of productivity at the cost of autonomy. We are encouraged to produce profit while costing the system as little as possible. Education currently serves as a means to prepare children and young people for this by enforcing normativity from a young age (Chapman, 2023). School-aged children and young people are denied autonomy in favour of meeting goals and standards that have been arbitrarily set according to the needs of the system (Aldred & Aldred, 2021). Neoliberalism’s requirements have become so unachievable that the system is essentially cannibalising itself. Rather than nurturing and encouraging a workforce, it is creating a greater need for public health and social care services. Neoliberalism is creating a need to move away from neoliberalism (Brown, 2015).

In response to this terminal capitalism we have seen the emergence of grassroots resistance among minority groups. Of particular relevance to this discussion is the emergence of the social model of disability (Oliver, 1983), this positioned disability as a matter of equal access rather than the cartesian idea of broken machines/people. This new way of thinking lead to the establishment of critical disability studies in academia, subsequently followed by the community creation of the neurodiversity movement in the 1990’s (Botha et al., 2024). The neurodiversity movement built on the social model of disability and the long-established concept of biodiversity to position diagnoses such as autism as natural variations of human bodyminds rather than disorders or conditions (Walker, 2021).

Emerging from the grassroots resistance to systemic oppression is the conceptualisation and practice of neuroqueer theory and neuroqueering respectively. Neuroqueer theory invites people of all neurocognitive styles to queer their bodyminds through the subversion of neuronormativity (Walker, 2021). This in turn allows us to open up routes out of restrictive systems and see the potential that has been obscured from our view. We the authors propose that neuroqueering may present a means to “throw away the masters tools” (Walker, 2021) and liberate the education systems of the west from normative performance.

How Does One Neuroqueer Learning Spaces?

We posit that autonomy is one of the most fundamental principles of neuroqueer theory. In order to neuroqueer, one must first have autonomy. This is problematic in western education systems that deny children and young people their autonomy by default (Fisher, 2021). Therefore, the first step in neuroqueering learning spaces is to decouple the thoughts of both learners and teachers from “what am I supposed to do?” to “how do I exist authentically?”, or to put it in simple terms, we must ask ourselves what we want to do.

A neuroqueer learning space needs to be fluid. As we create and explore possibilities through autonomous neuroqueer practice, the learning space itself needs to move with the needs of it’s students. In order to understand neuroqueering’s relationship with Autistic learners, we have to understand Autistic culture and performance. Autistic people naturally occupy a neurologically queer space with their interaction with the world and embodiment (Yergeau, 2018). A learning space built on autonomy allows for the neurologically queer expression of Autistic learners, where as current educational practices seek to eliminate this expression via neuronormative practices.

This autonomy via authenticity is built upon the vital foundation of safety and trust:

“Can we trust the space you offer?

Can we trust the words you utter?

Can we trust the time decided?

Can we trust the form provided?

Can we trust your singular view?

Can we trust the treatment we receive from you?

Can we trust the way you perceive?

Can we trust you to sit, listen and receive?

Can we trust you not to leave another dent……in us….again? Can we trust the system you’ve decided and provided

… will it actually be in our best interest…

… with our knowledge and guide?”

Fraser, 2019

Historically and presently, no, we cannot trust. We exist within a system that uses it’s words and space to eliminate the potential for neuroqueering. As a foundation stone we believe we need an embodied approach to education and we need our educational facilitators to act as “space-holders” to allow the freedom of creative learning to take place so children feel safe to be themselves (Aldred & Aldred, 2023).

Aldred & Aldred (2023) wrote, “There is no learning without the body.” An embodied educational practice is based on trust. Once you have trust you can support well-being and co-regulation of the bodymind. An embodied educational practice advocates for a body and sensory system first, interdependence and relational approaches, omnidirectional learning, and offers the opportunity for neuroqueering potential.

“The idea of interdependence is that we can meet each other’s needs in a variety of ways, that we can truly lean on others, and they can lean on us. It means we have to decentralise our idea of where solutions and decisions happen and where ideas come from. We have to embrace our complexity. We are complex.”

Brown, 2017

Current systems rely upon obedience, which is incompatible with interdependence. Rather than building safety and trust, obedience removes the autonomy to choose whether or not to consent. It is built on fear; fear of punishment, fear of parental involvement, fear of academic failure. There cannot be interdependence or collaboration without consent. Obedience is enforced, whereas consent is given and can be withdrawn at any time (Freire, 1970).

The matter of consent is as relevant to teachers as it is to students. Teachers with autonomy are more readily able to shape learning spaces to the needs of learners. Current systems take a prescriptive approach to education that limits the actions that educators can take within the learning space. This essentially removes the freedom to address needs, which is highly problematic for the Autistic learner (Fisher, 2021). The requirement of obedience is not helpful to anyone, and makes teachers and facilitators victims of the system in similar ways to their students.

Through the autonomy of consent, we create spaces that allow for Autistic children’s natural penchant for flow-state and hyperfocus, with the subsequent evolution in learning that arises from that. Spaces become collaborative, with learning being facilitated rather than dictated. Children and young people can be guided by interest and intrinsic motivation (Fletcher-Watson & Happé, 2019), . Via the process of neuroqueering we dismantle the enforced hierarchy and instead allow for consensual leadership and facilitation. Consent allows for informed decision-making by all parties in the learning space, not just those with the privilege of power.

Within an educational context, this means decentralising education, or at least making attempts within our own lives to change the way learning spaces are conceptualised, moving away from the hierarchical model of ‘Master’ and ‘Student. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) would describe this as an arborified structure, where the student branches rely in the master’s tree trunk. What happens to the master impacts the students that depend on them. We propose that a rhizomatic approach (Deleuze & Guattari, 2013), to be considered as an interdependent system with no central point, allows for more effective learning and deconditioning from neuronormative standards. Or simply, leadership via ongoing consent with the aim of facilitating interest led collaboration with no pre-determined end point.

“Produce stems and filaments... connect with them by penetrating the trunk, but put them to strange new uses” — Deleuze & Guattari, 2013

Through the practice of consent and autonomy, we can create pockets of safety within the current system, demonstrating ways to move away from the misplaced ideals of western education. A decentralised, rhizomatic learning space becomes a shelter for marginalised children while the wider work of systemic change is undertaken that will benefit all.

“And for what, for what. No matter what you do it will never amount to anything but a single drop in a limitless ocean. What is an ocean but a multitude of drops.” — Mitchell, 2004

We need trust in every space, in all our personal and professional relationships and in ourselves so we can engage and learn. We change spaces drop by drop, until they have become the limitless ocean of possibility. With trust as a foundation that enables us to intentionally liberate ourselves from culturally ingrained and enforced neuronormativity, we can begin to neuroqueer and transform ourselves and our learning spaces.

Practical Considerations For Neuroqueering Learning Spaces

“Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses…” — Lorde, 1979

To neuroqueer is not to destroy, but to reconstruct, opening new possibilities where previously thought impossible. To neuroqueer a learning space you must first understand it’s foundations and structure, then use that structure in such a way that it is reformed and redefined. Brick by brick we are rebuilding the master’s house, using tools of our own design, so that it is no longer the master’s house. It is a perpetual process with infinite iterations that allows us to adjust at will. It is not the work of a single person, there is no hierarchical nature to how one neuroqueers space. Neuroqueering on a systemic level is a collaborative endeavour.

The educationalist in this respect could be the model for how neuroqueering the contemporary learning space alters how we think, feel, and embody our education. For Autistic students this means modelling autonomy and consent where previously it has been denied. Normative structure of education deny autonomy through everyday acts. Examples include the need for permission to use the toilet, strict deadlines on coursework, and enforcing of a restricted curriculum. The teacher then can model autonomy through somatic liberation and interest-led learning. Allow Autistic learners to lead through their experience of their bodymind and the flow of their interests.

“Can we trust you to understand that sound is once, twice, three times as loud?

Can we trust you to understand that light, ‘that light’… there is burning, burning our eyes?

Can we trust you to provide the space to breathe?

Can we trust you to understand that our senses are more involved BIGGER?

Can we trust you to let us move away from you… that you cause the trigger?

Can we trust you not to deplete our hard fought for energy and vigour?

Can we trust you to listen when we say we are tired…. and let us leave the room?

Can we trust you to give us time to form……form our own words…. it our way and not yours?

Can we trust you not to constantly correct when we misspell or stutter?

Can we trust you to say what you are going to do and not just assume?

Can we trust you to understand that your correction… may only be correct for you?

Can we trust you to not magnify difference and constantly question our existence?

Can we trust you to leave us and let us decide?

Can we? Can we trust you? Can we decide?

Fraser, 2019

It is not enough for students to trust their educator. For the educator to model autonomy and consent they must shift their cognition to trust in themselves, the ultimate tool we have in an oppressive society. Oppression relies on us not trusting the Self, when we change that, oppressive measures become less effective. The systems of oppression are built to convince us to trust in them and not ourselves by destroying our sense of Self. The destruction of trust in oneself can be found at the root of many children’s lack of self-worth and even their abuse by those with predatory intentions. By modelling trust in oneself, those teaching students may then begin to model autonomy and consent, shifting away from the culture of domination that is so pervasive in western education.

Cavendish Learning Spaces: A Hypothetical Case Study

“The path to escape the box of a sick society involves rediscovering timeless and minimalistic principles for coordinating creative collaboration” — Bettin, 2021.

Thornburg (2013) advocates for the creation of spaces that provide the autonomy and accommodation of need that allows for flow to occur and all students to be met in their own space. It provides safety and freedom to learn in ways that empower the learner rather than enforce a regime. Boren (2021) conceptualised these as Cavendish spaces in the context of neuroqueering learning spaces.

The Three Cavendish Learning Spaces comprise of:

Caves: Spaces for quiet reflection and self-directed or interdependent exploration and learning, recovery and rest. A private space to transform learning from external knowledge to internal belief. Home of reflective construction. Cave’s build autonomy through private space to process information and understand its impact on the student’s life. It is a place of safety in one’s own company away from instruction or routine. The cave is a space of building interoception through introspection, allowing the student to understand the needs of their bodymind.

Campfires: Spaces for learning with a storyteller - teacher, mentor or carer. Spaces where education facilitators actively subvert neuronormativity. Educators embark on their transformative neuroqueer journey so their re-storying can inspire neurocosmopolitanism (Walker, 2021). The campfire allows for the student to consent to a temporary hierarchy in which they learn from the wisdom of a teacher, rather than being forced to abide by their teachings. The student can step away from the campfire at any point, according to the needs of their bodymind. It requires the somatic freedom to listen and respond to one’s bodymind without the need for approval. It is a space where students are encouraged to know their own needs and trust in them. It is not about being given a choice or arbitrary, tokenistic options, it is about choice not being a factor, as it was never held back from availability.

Watering Holes: Spaces for social learning with or alongside peers and carers. Community enables thoughts and ideas to expand rhizomatically. These represent a space in which the human need for connection is fulfilled at a consensual and mutually beneficial pace. The student can share their interests and grow their knowledge through the mutual exchange of information while creating friendships.

Learning takes place in all of these spaces. All of the learning is a critical as the other, regardless of the space within which it occurs. It does not have to be radical or grandiose. It invites the learner to become neuroqueer by opening up to the concept that space and bodymind can be neuroqueered. Simply by questioning the status quo we are already at the start of dismantling the status quo. One drop at a time, until the limitless ocean cycles into something new, again, and again, and again.

Conclusion

In order to shed the shackles of normative culture, we must attack it at its root; the system of education that indoctrinates us into such culture.

All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so. — Mitchell, 2004

The boundaries between current societal standards for education, and the liberated education of potential futures are not as robust as we have been led to believe. It’s time to step beyond the path that was laid before us and take foot on the path less trod.

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