making higher education more accessible
a disability justice inspired framework for engaging on campus dis/abled communities
project prompt: create an artifact that applies the principles of social learning theories to novel scenarios to interact with others from a position of understanding, and not judgment.
tools: google suite, canva, gemini, chatgpt.
design question: “how might higher education institutions become more accessible through meaningful engagement of students with disabilities?”
methods: literature review, the socratic method, stakeholder interviews, policy analysis, graphic design.
outcome: a white paper proposing a framework that policymakers at higher education institutions can use to engage disabled communities on campus.
i was inspired by the work being done by disability justice activist organizations and scholar-activists. i wanted the project i created to allow me create an artifact that meaningfully engages with their work. for my research direction, i investigated the lived experience of disabled people of color in higher education institutions in america. through my artifact, i explored the intersection across race, ability, and learning through the lens of disability justice activism. the ultimate goal was to create a product that sheds light on how the current mode of accessibility isn’t enough through policy and case study analysis and provide an approach that policymakers in higher education institutions can leverage in their work.
for my theoretical frameworks, i worked within bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory and DisCrit (disability studies and critical race theory). i picked bronfenbrenner because i wanted to situate my artifact within the social model of disability which posits that disabled individuals are not disabled by their abilities but by the infrastructures within which they live. in simple terms, person a is not disabled because they are inherently so but because the society in which person a is tasked to navigate is not set up to accommodate their abilities. bronfenbrenner’s theory and the social model are in conversation and worked well for my topic as i was specifically looking at the ways in which higher ed institutions have created both formal and informal structural barriers for disabled bipoc to overcome, how they are currently overcoming it, and how we might break down these disabling structures to design more accessible and equitable spaces. through DisCrit, i was able to explore the intersection of race and ability to investigate how disabled bipoc are multiply marginalized, and how disability and race are both socially constructed concepts with often harmful implications in our material reality. by situating my research in these frameworks, i was able to center the voices of those most impacted by inequitable structures and think critically about how we can not only resist these structures but also co-create equitable ones.