Ctr. for Community Engagement

DISABILITY STUDIES AND UNIVERSAL DESIGN:
Every educator will encounter students who meet the criteria for disability within public education and grapple with how to successfully foster learning, equity and inclusion in diverse classrooms and schools. This online course, introduces Disability Studies in Education-- a liberation movement discipline distinct from Special Education-- that offers unique insight into these endeavors and proposes Universal Design as a guiding principle.

Disability Studies proposes that "disability" is contextualized within particular social, cultural and political environments according to the acceptable limits of human variability in those environments. This contrasts with the "medical, model," which positions disability as a deficit inherent to an individual, to be rehabilitated, remediated or cured. Contrasting these two different theoretical models helps us to explore the ideology that may underlie ableism, stigma and privilege. Our inquiry will include lived experience and counter culture narratives associated with various disability groups. We will conclude by investigating how we may employ the principle of Universal Design to create embracive learning environments where all students feel valued and empowered, as well as how we may work to dismantle systemic barriers to equity and inclusion within Education.

Disability Studies intersects with other critical disciplines such as Critical Race Studies, Feminist Studies and Gender Studies, all of which foreground lived experience and de-center dominant narratives that cast particular individuals or groups as the "Other." These intersections are also considered in the course, shedding light on the persistent over-representation of minorities in Special Education and exploring whether disablement may function as a mechanism of marginalization for various groups.

Through assigned readings and communal online discussion among professional peers, we will investigate the philosophical, pedagogical, and pragmatic approaches to dis/ability, equity, and, inclusion in education. Teachers, counselors, administrators, psychologists, specialists and academics should all emerge from this course with the historical context, intellectual framework, and practical skills to deepen their professional practice and help promote social justice-both within the sphere of education and in the wider world.