Shane Kingston Cynamon

My name is Shane Kingston Cynamon. I am a fourth-year PhD Candidate in the sociocultural wing of the anthropology department at UC Davis. My doctoral research focuses on how autism is medicalized within society, as well as how students with autism navigate the K-12 system and how they and their peers, teachers, and staff perceive the condition within the context of the larger classroom. My dissertation work has involved observing and conducting interviews at different schools for a semester-long period. Phase 1 of my fieldwork, took place in Winters from August - December of 2025, observing special education classrooms at Waggoner Elementary on Monday and Tuesday and Winters Middle School on Wednesday and Thursday, as well as interviewing teachers and staff. In Phase 2 which took place between January - June of 2026, I was at Oak Hill School in San Anselmo on Monday and Tuesday, which is a private school that educates students who are neurodivergent from Kindergarten - 12th Grade as well as having adult support programs, and on Wednesday and Thursday at Peregrine School in Davis which is a private school with curriculum centered around outdoor education. I took note of how students with autism learn within a range of classroom settings, as well as how they interact with their peers within the context of the school setting. I also expanded interviews to include adult students at Oak Hill School in Phase 2. In addition, I continued to interview teachers and staff at both Oak Hill and Peregrine School. This was done to learn what it means to educate and support students with autism, in the case of teachers and staff, or what it means to be a student on the autism spectrum from the perspective of adult students.