1.8. A Step Further:
Including Disability Content in Courses
Accommodations are to help and support people so they have an equitable experience on campus. Universal design tries to change the environment instead of the individual, understanding that many barriers are actually in the environment and ableism, and the problem isn't with the person who has a disability.
Unfortunately, most students (and faculty) don't know very much about disability. For most of history, disability has only been defined as a medical condition that should be studied by people in medicine, rehabilitation, counseling, and special education fields. On disability awareness days, campuses are usually not providing Even though people with disabilities are incredibly diverse (because anyone can have a disability), they have a shared history of disability. Many people think of disability as an identity, or the basis for community and culture. People with disabilities share experiences with audism, and the field of disability studies teaches about disability as a social construction like race or gender.
Unfortunately, most students (and faculty) don't know very much about disability. For most of history, disability has only been defined as a medical condition that should be studied by people in medicine, rehabilitation, counseling, and special education fields. On disability awareness days, campuses are usually not providing Even though people with disabilities are incredibly diverse (because anyone can have a disability), they have a shared history of disability. Many people think of disability as an identity, or the basis for community and culture. People with disabilities share experiences with audism, and the field of disability studies teaches about disability as a social construction like race or gender.
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One way faculty can go beyond compliance and UDL is to include disability in their courses. Then students are not only learning about disability on disability awareness days or through the disability services office. They also learn how to talk and think about disability in new ways. If you consider it from a socio-political perspective, most college students are expected to study racism at some point in their college careers. But ironically, because of ableism, they don't get the chance to discuss ableism or how disability can be constructed as anything except a medical condition. Below are some suggestions for integrating disability into the curriculum, with links to more information.
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Professor Lennard Davis discusses disability across disciplines and reinforcement of "normality."
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Some examples:
- Statistics and research courses: Include data sets related to disability, or discuss the way different perspectives of race, gender, and disability may affect how esearchers collect and label disability data, and whether they inclue people with disabilities in research design (e.g., accessible research instruments).
- Biology: When discussing evolution, also discuss situations where atypical behavior or bodies are accepted, "normal," or even possibly giving an advantage. For example, if Darwin is right and the fittest have survived, why is mental illness so prevalent? What advantages do people with mental illnesses contribute to society?
- History: When discussing the holocaust, have students discuss the way Nazis perfected killing techniques on people with disabilities, and how they influenced eugenics in the U.S.
- Literature courses: Include works by authors who have a disability, or consider subtexts of disability and difference through lenses of ableism and sociopolitical models of disability.
