Mainstreaming Critical Disability Studies Towards Undoing the Last Prejudice
View/ Open
Abstract
According to critical disability studies scholars, disablism may be the fundamental system of unearned advantaging and disadvantaging upon which all other notions of difference-as-deviance are constructed. If so, a deeply critical and intersectional investigation of enabled privilege/disablism prepares a grounding from which seeds of novel and effective approaches to social and educational justice may be cultivated. Whether or not disablism holds this pivotal position, the costs to us all in terms of personal, ethical, professional, and financial losses are too steep, have always been too steep. In this disquisition I begin by arguing for the prioritizing and centering of a radical emancipatory discourse--across and within all education venues--regarding disability. In Chapter 2, I explore models of disability and notice where awareness of enabled privilege has been absent in my own experience as an educator and call for all educators to consider what might it mean if awareness of enabled privilege and the harms of disablism were at the center of our daily personal, social, and institutional lives. Chapter 3 investigates the perceptions of post-compulsory education professionals regarding what constitutes disability allyship and identifies three unique viewpoints. Chapter 4 blends conceptualizations of allyship developed within various social justice literatures with those identified viewpoints of disability allyship to yield a model professional development approach focused on an intersectional analysis for social justice through disability justice. The dissertation concludes in Chapter 5 with a discussion of core assertions and findings and points to future research priorities.