Teaching the ‘invisible’ disabled students in the classroom: disclosure, inclusion and the social model of disability

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Matthews
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Giulianne Krug

The number of disabled students enrolling in college is steadily increasing in the United States (U.S.). At the same time, there is a trend in this country of efforts to increase diversity and inclusion in postsecondary institutions. As an underrepresented minority in these efforts, disabled students, many of whom aspire to careers in the health professions, have not persisted in college to the degree of their non-disabled counterparts. There is a paucity of research seeking to understand the experiences and perceptions of disabled college students, with particularly limited efforts notable in the U.S. as compared to other countries worldwide. Studies specific to disabled health professions students as a cohort are nonexistent to date. Central University (CU) is a large, research very-high institution in the Midwest with several health professions programs within the College of Health Professions (CHP). Approximately 7% of students enrolled in the CHP are registered with the Office of Disability Services (ODS), consistent with the proportion of disabled students across campus. The director of the ODS at CU identified accessibility and inclusion as a specific concern in health professions education, both at CU and nationally. This research is a direct response to that concern. In effort to hear the collective voices of disabled students in the CU CHP, a qualitative case study was conducted using a series of 3 extensive semi-structured interviews. Additionally, participants were encouraged to take photographs representative of their experiences of access and inclusion within the school. Nine participants completed all three interviews and one participant completed one. Consistent with enrollment in the CHP overall, 7 (70%) participants were enrolled in the non-professional health sciences program and 3 (30%) were enrolled in professional programs within the school. Consistent with students registered with the ODS at CU, 9 students had invisible disabilities (90%) and 1 had a visible disability (10%). The social model of disability, which identifies societal structure as the problem which serves to disable individuals as opposed to the impairment, was used as a lens through which the data was analyzed and interpreted. While all participants were able to identify specific faculty, staff members, and peers who treated them with respect and inclusion, a significant number of experiences represented in the interview and photographic data were either suggestive of or overtly revealed experiences and perceptions of marginalization and exclusion. Several students reflected upon the experience of entering the ODS building and feeling instantly set apart; once registered, informing instructors of their accommodation status further served to separate participants from their peers and often resulted in a negative response from the faculty member. Student experiences of inclusion and acceptance often varied dependent upon others' ability to see and understand the disability; invisibility or misapprehending of disability often resulted in outright denial of reasonable accommodations. Further, consequences of disability disclosure resulted in both subtle and overt discouragement from pursuing admission to CHP programs on several occasions. Overall, disabled students in the CHP voiced concerns with faculty, staff, and peer attitudes and behaviors that served to marginalize them and prevent full and equal engagement in their education as their non-disabled peers. The implications of this research are significant and far-reaching. Disability service offices on the CU campus and beyond operate on the medical model of disability; the results of this study suggest the social model of disability as an appropriate lens through which to examine the disability policies on which campus disability offices establish criteria and procedures for supporting disabled students. Further, and perhaps more importantly, replication of this research across disciplines and institutions would serve to inform and perhaps perpetuate policy change in this country. Exploration of faculty, staff, and clinical preceptor understanding about disability policy, educational rights of disabled students, and inclusive educational practices would serve to identify specific areas of education needed to enhance the educational experiences of disabled college students. Specific to the health professions, exploration of admissions processes to identify potentially discriminative admission practices and inform new, more inclusive practices would be an important step to creating equal educational opportunity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-63
Author(s):  
Angela Makris ◽  
Mahmooda Khaliq ◽  
Elizabeth Perkins

Background: One in four Americans have a disability but remain an overlooked minority population at risk for health care disparities. Adults with disabilities can be high users of primary care but often face unmet needs and poor-quality care. Providers lack training, knowledge and have biased practices and behaviors toward people with disabilities (PWD); which ultimately undermines their quality of care. Focus of the Article: The aim is to identify behavior change interventions for decreasing health care disparities for people with disabilities in a healthcare setting, determine whether those interventions used key features of social marketing and identify gaps in research and practice. Research Question: To what extent has the social marketing framework been used to improve health care for PWD by influencing the behavior of health care providers in a primary health care setting? Program Design/Approach: Scoping Review. Importance to the Social Marketing Field: Social marketing has a long and robust history in health education and public health promotion, yet limited work has been done in the disabilities sector. The social marketing framework encompasses the appropriate features to aligned with the core principles of the social model of disability, which espouses that the barriers for PWD lie within society and not within the individual. Incorporating elements of the social model of disability into the social marketing framework could foster a better understanding of the separation of impairment and disability in the healthcare sector and open a new area of research for the field. Results: Four articles were found that target primary care providers. Overall, the studies aimed to increase knowledge, mostly for clinically practices and processes, not clinical behavior change. None were designed to capture if initial knowledge gains led to changes in behavior toward PWD. Recommendations: The lack of published research provides an opportunity to investigate both the applicability and efficacy of social marketing in reducing health care disparities for PWD in a primary care setting. Integrating the social model of disability into the social marketing framework may be an avenue to inform future interventions aimed to increase health equity and inclusiveness through behavior change interventions at a systems level.


Medicne pravo ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 86-94
Author(s):  
R. B. Hobor

In spite of all the short-comings, the level of protection of rights and capabilities of people with disabilities has become a good indicator of nation’s development, and such a trend is nothing but hopeful. At the same time, one can hardly imagine that this high attitude would be attainable without the influence of left liberal ideologies, that among omnibus achievements granted the shift from medical to social disabilities model.This situation cannot stand but to resemble in a certain state of rights and capabilities exercise, and even the availability of access to the key resources is impossible to bring to the point of marginalization of the mental and physical health problems. As the analyzed material shows, left liberal ideologists,being responsible for shaping the current International Law on Persons with Disabilities, finally succeeded in promoting their principle ideas in the nation case-law. The right to water, lay down on the ship’s practice, as you will look lower, you can use the clever illustration of that relief flow, as the national judiciary can fix the development of the rights and capabilities of individuals from the same basis.The article further develops the idea, that national courts sometimes tend to use realistic approach (as invented by R. Pound, J. Llewellyn, O.W. Holmes) for the sake of implementing the social model of disability. It has been concluded that legal realism is a transmitter for left liberal values in the modern western societies.


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