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This paper presents a case study of the Inclusive Research Network (IRN), an inclusive research group founded by the Centre for Disability Studies, contributing to a National Disability Research Agenda (NDRA) setting project. IRN members with ID carried out their own consultations with disability stakeholders. This paper sets out the experiences of the IRN members in facilitating focus groups as part of phase 2 of the NDRA project. As this project took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and state lockdowns, this paper also provides a reflection on new ways of carrying out research and provides an insight into the process for other groups seeking to engage in inclusive research of this nature in a challenging and changing environment. IRN members showed great interest in being involved in the project, and their motivations aligned with the project’s objectives. Facilitating the focus groups on Zoom took some preparation and posed accessibility challenges but enabled a more diverse group of people to attend. IRN members with ID improved their online facilitation skills and confidence but concluded that they preferred working face to face. IRN members overcame the challenges presented by online focus groups, and their involvement added value to the NDRA project. Researchers are encouraged to continue practicing inclusive research in times of remote working and virtual interaction and to share their experiences for mutual learning.

Conversations of educational equity in mathematics necessitate a more deliberate, nuanced look at the mathematical processes of learning for students of color from historically marginalized communities. This paper describes the theoretical work of a research collaborative that seeks to develop understanding of the experiences around mathematical identity of Latinas labeled with Learning Disabilities in mathematics classrooms. Expanding the theory of Complex Embodiment from Disability Studies, we explore new interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological tools to analyze the emotional, embodied experience of learning mathematics in the social worlds of mathematics classrooms, using emotional discourse. We take up theoretical and methodological practices around intersectionality through analysis of how power and positioning operate in mathematics identity development. We find that the young woman whose narratives we explore in this paper is positioned through deficit discourses around disability and multilingual learners, yet she understands herself through a positive mathematical affinity she shares with her mother. Over time, we see her narratives shift emotionally away from mathematics, as well as away from this connection with her mother. Her narratives help us develop a theoretical perspective that understands emotion in mathematics learning as both embodied and socially constructed.

This article takes a feminist disability studies approach to the analysis of the responses of women with visual impairments to representations of blindness, disability, and gender in advertising. Empirical data gathered via semi-structured interviews with women who are visually impaired (N = 5) enhances existing understandings of oppressed audiences' polysemic interpretations of advertisements. The research findings reveal participants' subversion of stereotypical approaches to visual impairments, ocularcentrism, and gendered constructions of blindness, which are found in advertisements (N = 3) produced post-2000 in the United Kingdom and United States. Participants highlighted subtle stereotyping in advertisements through exploring the intersecting nature of disability and gender identities. Advertisements were used by participants as prompts for reasserting their affirmative senses of self and as a means of critiquing sociocultural attitudes toward women with visual impairments. Recommendations for future research and practice in relation to advertising polysemy and the representation of disabled women in advertising are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers methodological and ethical implications of qualitative interview data deemed unusable for research analytic purposes because the interviewee had an intellectual disability. Critical disability studies theory is used to reimagine the utility of one case of so-called unusable qualitative data. Excerpts from this qualitative data that came from a pilot study interview of a PhD project are full of possibility for learning. Yet, among conclusions drawn, rhetoric about disability inclusion appears undermined by ableist normativity. Specifically, the problems associated with valuing abled ways of speaking within wider narrative research and scholarship will be the focus of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the need to transform current literacy pedagogy for students with significant support needs (SSNs), addressing the challenges and discrepancies in inclusive education. Topics include the persistence of exclusionary practices, the importance of presuming competence, bending normalized social rules, and recognizing interdependence as pedagogy to create more inclusive literacy environments for students with SSNs.

Copyright of Journal of Erciyes Communication / Erciyes İletişim Dergisi is the property of Erciyes University, Faculty of Communication / Erciyes Universitesi Iletism Fakultesi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing shift away from the Social Model of Disability (SMD) in both theory and practice. This article aims to substantiate the relevance of SMD by addressing the main arguments against it and by identifying why and for whom it is still relevant. In the introductory section, we focus on the recent production of multiple disability models in order to contextualize their emergence and elucidate the reasons behind their proliferation. In the main section of the article, we critically engage with three lines of criticism against SMD in order to explain why it remains relevant and for whom. Our main point is that, in the context of the neoliberal capitalist era, the SMD is indispensable for all disabled persons who have been denied their dignity, both in material and cultural terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prominent role of job matching in enhancing workplace inclusion and integration of persons with disabilities has drawn scholarly and practitioner attention. Matching the abilities of persons with disabilities to suitable jobs is crucial for sustainable employment and capacity development. However, an integrated view of the job matching process for persons with disabilities, especially in the context of emerging economies like India, remains elusive. The present study aims to explore how the process of matching persons with disabilities to suitable jobs unfolds in contemporary organizations in India. Participants for this study included management representatives of seventeen organizations that employ persons with disabilities. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts highlighted the following: the job matching process (a) consists of three overarching phases (pre-matching, matching, and post-matching) that encompassed five stages (job analysis, ability profiling, gap analysis, gap resolution and evaluation) (b) is continuous and ongoing, requiring employers' conscious and voluntary efforts with dynamic strategies (c) entails strategies that span across organization, group and individual levels (d) involves adjustment to various dimensions of the job such as process, duration, schedule, task, resources, location and equipment and (e) can be executed in a formal or informal manner. The findings serve to highlight the inherent complexities in the job matching process that require an individual-centric approach for optimal results. We present implications for theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) offers opportunity against a historical background of underfunded and fragmented services for people with disability. For people with acquired brain injury (ABI), concerns have been raised about how they access NDIS individualised funded supports. The aim of this research was to explore how community-dwelling individuals with ABI in Queensland navigate the NDIS participant pathway to individualised funded supports. Methods: This study used a multiple case study design within a policy implementation framework. Twelve people with ABI, nine family members and eight NDIS funded and mainstream service providers participated. Data was collected from relevant NDIS documentation, health records and semi-structured interviews with individuals with ABI, family members, and service providers. Results: The current study highlighted the complexity of navigating the NDIS participant pathway of access, planning, implementation and review for people with ABI, their family and service providers. The NDIS pathway was impacted by the insurance and market based NDIS model itself, time, communication, and the requirement for external supports. Equally, the process was affected by environmental factors, individual person and injury factors as well as service providers, with a range of outcomes evident at the individual, family and system level. Conclusions: Findings suggest that the NDIS has struggled to make specific allowance for people with ABI and the complexity of their disabilities. Providing people with ABI access to the NDIS Complex Support Needs Pathway may redress many of the difficulties people with ABI experience accessing and using NDIS funded supports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grounded in the intersectional principles of disability justice, this article attends to the integration of digital tools in qualitative inquiry. With a focus on the unique temporal landscapes of Disabled people, I suggest ways that digital tools can foster a more equitable, accessible, and just inquiry experience. Using personal accounts from two digital tools, I highlight the relationship between crip time and digital tools at the sites of (a) video conferencing platforms, and (b) qualitative data analysis software. This is balanced alongside scholarly debates about access friction (i.e., accommodations are not universal or stagnant) and the digital divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Raising a child with disabilities requires a significant parental investment that is greater than that required by typically developing children. Previous studies have shown that parents caring for a child with a disability experience a range of health problems, particularly the mothers. However, few of these studies have controlled for maternal health prior to birth. Methods: This study used a sample from the Norwegian administrative register that comprised all children born between 2009 and 2015. We followed the mothers and their children for 11 years, between 2009 and 2019. The outcome variable was the mothers' physical and mental health, which was assessed using specific ICD-10 diagnoses recorded in the Norwegian Patient Register (NPR). The data included information on the mothers' health before and after the birth of their first child, enabling us to control for maternal health prior to birth in our analysis, in addition to socio-demographic characteristics. The analyses of maternal health were performed using multiple logistic regression, and the results are presented on both a relative scale (odds ratio [OR]) and an absolute scale (average marginal effect [AME]), both with 95% confidence intervals. Results: Mothers caring for a child with a disability have higher odds of having a diagnosis of a musculoskeletal disorder, depression, anxiety, sleeping disorder or migraines than mothers of children without a disability. The differences between the two groups of mothers decrease after adjusting for the characteristics of the children, mothers and families, but remain significant for musculoskeletal disorder, depression, anxiety and sleeping disorder, although the absolute differences are modest. Conclusion: The findings suggest that mothers caring for a child with a disability are more likely to have health problems than mothers of children without a disability after controlling for maternal health prior to birth. Providing more support for mothers of children with a disability might help to improve their health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although computational methods facilitate research studies greatly, academics with visual impairment cannot utilize these tools to their maximum potential. Not only do computational research methods themselves have many shortcomings, but the needs and problems encountered by researchers with visual impairment in using these tools are not identified. In particular, the use of qualitative data analysis software (Q-DAS) by researchers with visual impairment has not been thoroughly examined. Thus, the current article addresses the benefits that visually impaired researchers can gain from employing commercial Q-DAS software packages in analyzing qualitative data. Further, Q-DAS problems that researchers with visual impairments experience are discussed. In addition, the article proposes solutions by which Q-DAS utilization in studies performed by/for the visual impairment community could improve. The article has many significant contributions, not only for scholars with visual impairment but also for elderly scientists whose vision declines over time. The article addresses this topic through critical disability studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Leisure/Loisir: Journal of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper looks at the new field of the critical posthuman disability studies and its potential to provide theoretical framework for critical theory’s engagement with modern technologies. How the concept of the bionic body affects representation of the disabled in contemporary culture and, in turn, how representation of the disabled body affects the changing boundaries of what is and what isn’t considered ‘human.’ Historically, the human body, as represented and defined on stage and in art, has maintained a strictly defined visual integrity. Anything not shaped as ‘human’ was typically deemed monstrous (from hybrid mythological creatures to severely disabled ‘elephant men’). Simultaneously, the category of ‘human’ was used to circumscribe the boundaries of belonging and the categories of valuation: some groups, including the disabled were deemed ‘sub-human’ and designated to either be disposed of (as the carrier of ‘life unworthy of life’) or, if possible, to approximate the ‘human’ body. (Romanska 2019: 92-93). Until very recently, the goal of the prosthetics industry was to create limbs that would serve as visual stand-ins for missing limbs. Similarly, the technological capacities of prosthetic limbs were delineated by human capacities: the disabled were to be given as much ‘abilities’ as the non-disabled, but no more. However, this perception of what the disabled body can and should do has changed with technological progress: not only do the newest prosthetics often look as ‘unhuman’ as possible, but their capacities put into question the capacities and limits of the non-disabled body. All of these and other issues that have emerged in recent years at the crossroads of posthumanism, disability, and biomimicry have led to the development of posthuman disability studies, which tries to untangle and reconceptualize the ethical, legal and philosophical boundaries of human enhancement, species belonging, life and death, and human rights. The posthuman biomimicry, and the prosthetic aspects of digital and AI technologies presupposes a form of disabling of the human body: body without any connection to some type of machine is an inferior body. In this context, understanding the historical dynamics, critical, philosophical, and ethical debates that have dominated disability studies can provide a framework to how we reconceptualize our posthuman, hybrid future in which our existence with the machines that redefine previous hierarchies is inevitable.

This article summarizes three studies conducted by Speach and colleagues (2023) on the compensation of disabled employees. The first study found that initial salary rates offered to job applicants with disabilities were statistically similar to those without disabilities. However, the second study revealed that job candidates with disabilities negotiated lower final salaries than those without, and this was influenced by participants' perceptions of disability-related stereotypes. The third study showed that hiring managers were more likely to offer lower negotiated salaries to job applicants with disabilities, and this was mediated by their expectations of negotiation likelihood. The findings suggest that the salary disparity between job applicants with and without disabilities persists beyond the initial salary proposal and highlights the need for organizations to address biases and promote fair negotiations to combat salary disparities. [Extracted from the article]

In a textbook horror-story of global capitalism, on December 3, 1984, the U.S owned Union Carbide pesticide factory spewed forty tons of lethal toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) on the city of Bhopal in India. Nearly 10,000 people died and 30,000 people were disabled overnight. Continued exposure to MIC at the factory site has disabled many more in the decades since. Yet, few disability scholars have considered the histories of the survivors of the leak as a key site of crip politics. Drawing on work by Nirmala Erevelles, Jina Kim, Jasbir Puar, and Alison Kafer, this paper explores how the long history of debilitation, disablement, and survivorship since the Bhopal Gas Leak provides essential ground for re-zoning disability studies in the Global South. Braiding the theory of debility with the methodology of critical disability studies, this article posits that it is insufficient to say that the most marginalized in the Global South experience debility. Rather, it is also necessary to focus on their modes of survival in the face of the constant material and intellectual reproduction of said debilitation. The article demonstrates how poor lower-caste and Muslim workers and city-dwellers in Bhopal were subject to the debilitating logics of transnational corporate negotiations, racialized environmental de-regulation, and governmental profit-seeking in the years leading up to the leak. Through crip readings of medical research published between 1985 and 2000, I argue that this debility has been compounded through knowledge production which did not pay heed to the ways in which its victims contended with their vulnerability. In contrast to these sources, this article further examines testimonies and organizational pamphlets to contend that survivors in Bhopal offer their own model of disability justice and crip survival in the face of debilitation. In an era of vibrant disability rights organizing in the United States, the survivors of the leak emerged in global media primarily as victims of a tragedy caught in an endless cycle of injustice. Moving past the stance of pity often deployed in discussions of Bhopal, I highlight efforts of survivance that center disabled futurity, even as these activists use a different vocabulary and thereby strive to channel attention and resources to the myriad forms of crip survival in postcolonial India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to limited motor capabilities, people with upper limb disabilities have trouble utilizing a typical mouse while operating a computer. Different wearable Assistive Mouse Controllers (AMCs) have been developed to overcome their challenges. However, these people may not be able to realize the importance, ease of use, and social approval of these AMCs due to their fear of new technology, lack of confidence, and lack of ingenuity. These may negatively affect their attitude and intention toward accepting AMCs for equitable human-computer interaction. This study presents the development of a sensor-based head-mounted AMC, followed by an empirical analysis of its acceptance using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) from the socioeconomic perspective of Bangladesh. In a similar vein, we examined the effects of three additional psychological constructs—technology anxiety, confidence, and innovation, on its acceptance along with the original components of the TAM. A total of 150 individuals with stroke-induced upper limb disability participated in an online survey, and their responses were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, following the general least square method. Analysis revealed, about 96.44% of the participants had positive attitude towards the AMC, and almost 88.56% of them had positive intentions to accept it. Furthermore, about 68.61% of them expressed signs of anxiety, 96.35% were confident, and 94.16% of them had an innovative mindset in terms of device usage. The findings imply that individuals with an innovative mentality are more capable of comprehending the practical implications of a new technology than those without one. It is also feasible to reduce technological anxiety and boost a user's confidence while using an AMC by combining an innovative mentality with straightforward device interaction techniques. Additionally, peer encouragement and motivation can significantly enhance their positive attitude towards accepting the AMC for facilitating their interaction with a computer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, two teacher educators share their educational journey using narrative inquiry. Specifically, the authors share how they learned to ground their teaching and research in disability studies, what they have learned in the field to become better teachers for their students in (special) education, and why the shift in their theoretical framework and teaching might be relevant to other educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to gauge the understanding of accessibility related to business communication material among individuals working in corporate America. Participants were asked to define accessibility, then given a definition of accessibility, and then asked to identify how to make a report and a visual accessible. A substantial number of participants were not able to define accessibility, nor identify how to make accessible changes to a report or visual. Those who could define accessibility considered accessibility goals in terms of general access to resources, usability, audience analysis, or disability-related accessibility. Business majors were less likely than other majors to be able to identify disability-related methods of making a report or visual accessible. Implications for business communication education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we present six autoethnographies of lives marked by crisis that reflect on the issues of access, very broadly defined, that the COVID 19 pandemic has raised or redefined for each of us. As the time of crisis has made access concerns more and more evident it also exposes how access is not an issue just for disabled people, but for all lives. Drawing on recent scholarship in disability studies that critically interrogates access through an intersectional lens, we take this unexpected unveiling as an occasion to further tease out the complexities, ambiguities, and messiness of access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusion has become a global buzzword relating to education policy and practice. Mostly, it is tied to discussions about access and opportunities in education spaces as well as school policies and the curriculum decisions and pedagogical actions of teachers. As part of this critique, we propose defining inclusion as intersubjective experiences associated with feelings of belonging, acceptance, and value that are dynamic, ephemeral, spatial, and in flux. Here, we advocate for centering the experiences and amplifying the voices of disabled children and young people in and about education spaces, while acknowledging the wider social forces that structure those spaces, as only disabled young people can explain how they feel in the educational spaces where they find themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual certification programs are proliferating as the principal means of preparing teachers for inclusive practice. Drawing on the 1,408 university-based teacher education programs on the 2019 Title II database, we examined the institutional website discourse for every program offering prospective teachers the opportunity to earn a general and special education license. One-quarter of these websites reflected discourse conveying inclusion as a reform, transformational, and equity strategy for teaching; three-quarters limited discourse to the practical benefit of earning two licenses, absent any elaboration regarding inclusive teaching. This raises questions regarding whether these programs serve a robust reform function in orienting prospective teachers to inclusive practice or instead a transactional function that maintains the traditional binary relationship between general and special education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music educators and researchers have grown increasingly aware of the need for traditional musical practices to promote inclusive music for disabled people. Inclusive music participation has been addressed by Accessible Digital Musical Instruments (ADMIs), which welcome different ways of playing and perceiving music, with considerable impact on music-making for disabled people. ADMIs offer exciting possibilities for instrument design to consider and incorporate individual constraints (e.g., missing arm, low vision, hearing loss, etc.) more than traditional acoustic instruments, whose generally fixed design allows little room for disabled musicians inclusivity. Relatively few works discuss ADMIs in the context of disability studies, and no work has investigated the impact of different disability models in the process of designing inclusive music technology. This paper proposes criteria to classify ADMIs according to the medical, social, and cultural models of disability, then applies these criteria to evaluate eleven ADMIs targeting d/Deaf people. This analysis allows us to reflect on the design of ADMIs from different perspectives of disability, giving insights for future projects and deepening our understanding of medical, social, and cultural aspects of accessible music technology.

The 'expressivist objection' (EO) refers to the notion that using reproductive (genetic) technologies to prevent the birth of future would‐be disabled people contain, and express, a negative valuation of life with disability. Whilst the EO has received increased attention in recent years in line with rapid technological and genomic developments, there remains scant research on how EO concerns are experienced and expressed by disabled people and their families, especially within and between impairment groups. Bringing together two studies—one with adults and family members living with genetic conditions (n = 62) and one with parents of children with Down's syndrome (n = 22)—we argue that disabled people and their families variously embrace, reject or rework the EO across contexts, and yet also frequently situate it within broad support for reproductive technologies. We present three key factors that mediate responses to the EO: (1) the nature of impairment and its integration within identity; (2) social and cultural contexts relating to disability and (3) the (individual and collective) imagined futures of disabled people. In so doing, we blend the conceptual architecture of medical sociology and disability studies, arguing that this allows us to accurately illuminate the nuanced responses of disabled people and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing care needs of an ageing disabled population and older people who become disabled due to the ageing process itself raises the issue of insufficient care and the need for a social reorganisation of care between the State, families, the market and civil society. Current research on care focuses on perspectives where technology can play an important role. Technology designed to enhance care and self-care helps to promote the participation of older people in society. The authors participated and present a line of research developed in Spain that analyses whether technology is being used as a model that reproduces care practices with a welfare approach or as a phenomenon that facilitates a social model of disability that contributes to greater autonomy of the elderly in carrying out daily activities, self-determination, and where the community context plays a more critical role, as has been recommended by supranational organisations. Educating seniors about digital literacy is important, as is advancing research by collaborating with seniors to co-design technology for care and self-care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ye's song "Through the Wire" exists in two versions. The first was recorded in late 2002 after a near-fatal car crash and features Ye rapping through a jaw wired shut as he recovered from reconstructive surgery. After he healed, a second version was recorded in 2003 and released as the lead single from his debut album. Although Ye raps unimpeded in this later version, it was still marketed as the authentic product of physical disablement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US White flight left historically and intentionally targeted marginalized groups in cityscapes in the impoverished dust of public transport. These racialized phenomena restructured urban environments and deadened surrounding landscapes, engendering deliberately barren space too far to traverse by no- and low-income feet. Now, in the present-COVID-19 envirusment, Midwest landscapes are an eyesore, which perpetually disable and dehumanize, further denying working folks from safe social distancing and PPE in areas already plagued with socio-historical and economic disenfranchisements. Meanwhile, redlined and/or gentrified affluent spaces remain composed of mostly Whites of a certain status. This project explored present-COVID-19 human implications of cars in a nation founded upon ecological devastations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This reflective case study is situated at the intersection of the literature on pedagogical partnership, child-parent research, and Critical Disability Studies. It presents a mother/daughter, faculty/student exploration of the daughter's lived experiences of navigating, as a legally blind person, the campus and courses of a college designed for fully sighted students. After presenting our conceptual frameworks and describing, using text and a video, the daughter's lived experience of navigating the accommodation culture on her campus, we describe the semester-long partnership process through which the video was created with the goal of moving faculty, staff, and students toward equity culture. To support others in developing such video projects on their own campuses, we draw on details of this partnership to offer guidelines for co-creating representations of the lived experiences of other students with disabilities. By synthesizing learnings from this experience and the literature noted above, we offer recommendations for transforming accommodation culture into equity culture. These recommendations include: establishing diversity as the norm in every learning context; intentionally inviting a revision of differences from deficits to resources; going beyond providing accommodations to understand students' lived experiences; and sharing the active taking of responsibility for shifting from accommodation to equity culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Herman Melville's poetry collection Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) using theories and concepts from the sphere of disability studies. Mobilizing evidence from Melville's letters as well as close readings of the poems, I argue that Melville presented a complicated relationship to questions of bodily wholeness and autonomy in his written work, particularly in response to the political and existential stresses of the U.S. Civil War. Melville conceptualized Battle-Pieces as a chronological archive intended to redeem a narrative of wholeness and overcome a perceived weakness or deficiency in the body politic. However, the book's fractured arc serves rather to highlight a lack of healing, both political and corporeal. Melville's obsession with the "whole" body is apparent both in his unpublished, private writing and through close readings of the poems "Donelson," "The College Colonel," and others. Reading Battle-Pieces through the lens of disability studies makes visible the author's conflicted responses to wounded bodies. Melville's obsession with wholeness and healing was part of a larger national obsession--that of mending the rift between North and South by tending to the physical wounds of individual veterans--a historico-medical context that Melville scholars have largely ignored. Placing Melville's poems within a larger conversation about medical intervention and the limits of the 'disabled' body as a symbol for national regeneration, in this article I show how Melville overtly engaged in ongoing debates about healing and nation-building in the aftermath of the Civil War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This investigation examined what information is typically included in an undergraduate rehabilitation syllabus and how this information is presented in written form to students. Method: Syllabi (n = 117) from six undergraduate programs, each of which reflected a different program emphasis, were reviewed in terms of their framework (traditional, instructor-centered, student-centered, and enhanced) as well as categorical information contained in their narratives. Findings: An analysis of stylistic features indicate that undergraduate faculty tend to produce syllabi that are instructor-centered and support a pedagogical rather than an andragogical way of learning. The "typical" undergraduate course is a 3-credit offering with an enrollment of about 30 students that meets once or twice per week and is more likely taught by an adjunct faculty (nontenure track) member. While most faculty post information regarding instructor contact information, course description, learning objectives, grading system, and support services, greater variation was noted regarding posting office hours, expected student behavior (e.g., attendance, missing class, and participation), class policies (e.g., late/missing assignments and extra credit), and a description of teaching methods. Conclusion: Given the importance of how syllabi serve as an outline of course content and class policies, it is recommended that rehabilitation educators develop syllabi that are more student-centered and support adult learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, two women of Color researchers examine the intersections of race and disability and ask, "What is the power and purpose of positioning and positionality statements?" Informed by Black feminist theory, and drawing from the DisCrit tenets of intersectional oppressions, historicity, and whiteness and ability as property, the authors focus on researchers' positioning in relation to how they engage and communicate knowledge about multiply marginalized people. Positionality statements, they argue, must be more than a listing of identities or a claim on authority through the naming of professional proximity to marginalized communities. Recognizing the increasing expectations for education scholars to articulate positionality in their scholarship, the authors offer a three-pronged intersectional framework, with provocations about the onto-epistemic, sociohistoric, and sociocultural elements of positioning. Education researchers interested in conveying how intersectional oppressions effect knowledge production will find this framework useful for crafting positionality statements that consider the multidimensional nature of power, oppression, and research in relation to their field, the literature, and multiply marginalized participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rehabilitation science has, for years, endorsed a connection between quantitative research and the philosophical assumptions of positivism. These assumptions can limit the scope of rehabilitation research, particularly in relation to matters of equity, diversity, and inclusivity. As our field moves toward a greater focus on inclusivity in research design and patient-centred care, it is imperative that we reconsider the theoretical foundations of rehabilitation research and practice. We provide an analysis of positivism on equity, diversity, and inclusivity within quantitative rehabilitation research, using the Participant Intervention Comparison Outcome (PICO) model to provide structure for the resultant discussion and recommendations. Our analysis reveals that there are significant limitations and ethical concerns to engaging in positivism as the primary paradigm for quantitative rehabilitation research. We argue that decoupling of positivism and quantitative research methods may be warranted. Equitable and inclusive rehabilitation research requires the researcher to consider variables which are neglected in the positivist paradigm. We argue that critical theory can equip researchers with a lens to better address injustices within rehabilitation research. We provide a series of recommendations for researchers to engage critical theory at each stage of the PICO model of clinical trials. Common assumptions in quantitative rehabilitation research (i.e., positivism) can limit the utility of research findings to rehabilitation patients. Equitable, diverse, and inclusive participant samples in research better reflect the diversity of real world rehabilitation patients, helping us better serve these populations. Critical theory can help researchers and clinicians identify and avoid interventions that may cause harm to rehabilitation patients. Research and practice that prioritize concepts of "normalcy" (i.e., "normal gait," "normal behaviours") may perpetuate negative concepts of disability and further marginalize the individuals that our interventions aim to serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizenship is popularly associated with able-bodiedness, both physically and cognitively. However, disability studies over the last few decades has revealed the extent to which the idea of the nation as composed of able-bodied constituents is little more than fantasy, one that can create or galvanize barriers to full political and social participation. Part of this task has involved re-evaluating key works of canonical literature through the lens of disability. In the following paper, I apply this approach to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and argue that Beckett’s play disrupts not just the fantasy of a nation composed of able-bodied citizens but the language of able-bodiedness itself, which has implications for how we conceive of citizenship and participatory politics. While impairment has been critiqued in Beckett before, the extensive examples of pained and impaired characters in his works have often been subsumed under broader philosophical themes, such as existentialism, nihilism, or Cartesian dualism, and rarely linked to issues of citizenship, politics, or the social and built environment. I explore how Beckett’s approach to theatrical and linguistic performativity contributes to how he staged the experience of pain and disability that has implications for how we conceive of and practice citizenship.

Disability studies is a dynamically developing discipline; however, it usually focuses on the Anglophone world. Scholars representing this field often concentrate on deconstructing popular stereotypes and revealing hidden systemic discrimination. Although more and more initiatives are taken up – such as disability pride – it seems that an affirmative approach to disability remains in the minority. This article is a proposal for going beyond the mentioned schemes. Entering the area of the Latin American culture, I try to verify whether the findings of disability studies can be confirmed there. Proposing the interpretation of dis-ability in terms of resource, I want to broaden the affirmative perspective on disability. This paper aims at a critical reflection on the creative potential of visual impairment used by blind and low-vision Mexican artists in the creative process. Driving upon the research conducted between 2020 and 2022, I argue that they use their visual impairment as a resource in their artistic activity. I distinguish four aspects of the functioning of visual impairment as a resource in artistic work: inspiration, representation, non-ocularcentric imagination, and accessibility.