scholarly journals Access Imagined: The Construction of Disability in Conference Policy Documents

2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Price

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML /> <o:AllowPNG /> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">Conferences are a crucial area of professional development for persons with disabilities, but they are also among the most least accessible spaces that disabled persons may encounter. I argue that we need further research into these highly charged spaces, and I contribute to this agenda by analyzing 17 accessibility policy documents produced by 8 different professional organizations. Using critical discourse analysis, I examine the choices these documents have made, both verbal and visual, as well as possible outcomes of these choices for various audiences. In closing, I offer a list of generative questions that the authors of such documents should consider. It is impossible for a policy document to “imagine” access perfectly ahead of time; rather, we should understand and treat policy documents as part of a continually evolving dialogue.</span>

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Nazari

This paper is an attempt to analyse one of the documents which may affect the classroom activities of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, namely teachers' guides. It also explores the context at which the document is aimed and critiques how EFL teachers are advised to teach as well as how EFL is taught. As such, the paper stands where critical discourse analysis and language policy come together in the study of language policies in education. The teachers' guide chosen and the analysis carried out here are not necessarily concerned with their representativeness and typicality but with the opportunity they provide to the researchers and teachers to learn about such language policy documents and how language and language teaching objectives are represented in them. The issues raised in this paper will have relevance to the EFL teachers' guides and EFL education in other contexts, as these issues are likely to be true of other EFL milieux.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saad El Hakmi

This paper explores the exclusionary practices in Canada conducted by professional organizations towards international medical graduates (IMG’s) and foreign-trained engineers through a literature review and critical discourse analysis of the certification process. The political economy approach explains the constant need of Canada to bring highly skilled immigrants but there is a discrepancy between their selection and the labour market outcome. The discourse analysis reveals that professional organizations use policies and regulations (that protect the White mainstream Canadian values) as a legitimate tool to impose tough requirements that devaluate IMG’s and foreign-trained engineers’ credentials/work experiences and prevent them from practicing their professions in Canada.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saad El Hakmi

This paper explores the exclusionary practices in Canada conducted by professional organizations towards international medical graduates (IMG’s) and foreign-trained engineers through a literature review and critical discourse analysis of the certification process. The political economy approach explains the constant need of Canada to bring highly skilled immigrants but there is a discrepancy between their selection and the labour market outcome. The discourse analysis reveals that professional organizations use policies and regulations (that protect the White mainstream Canadian values) as a legitimate tool to impose tough requirements that devaluate IMG’s and foreign-trained engineers’ credentials/work experiences and prevent them from practicing their professions in Canada.


2020 ◽  
pp. 147402222094482
Author(s):  
Eloise Symonds

Recognising the popularity of partnership models, this article questions the current literature on partnership within the humanities and explores the possibility of effectively implementing partnership within the English discipline, through exploration of the traditional modes of learning associated with specific disciplines and the barriers that exist through the traditional teacher-learner dynamic. It considers the difficulty of breaking down both the conventional learning methods of reading English and traditional hierarchies in universities in order to foster more collaborative processes. In this article, I use Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of critical discourse analysis to explore 32 interviews, 12 observations and 12 policy documents from two post-1992 English universities. Negotiating partnership models in the humanities requires further exploration, with attention given to conventional methods of learning associated with disciplines, traditional learner-teacher hierarchies and the structural barriers these associations create for establishing collaborative learning relationships between academics and undergraduates.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amber Gazso

In this article, I undertake a critical discourse analysis of policy documents and in-depth interviews with seven caseworkers and 28 benefit recipients to explore how two discourses, ‘work first’ and ‘distance from the labour market,’ inform how persons living with addiction access and then experience social assistance in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Drawing in Foucauldian insights on power, I reveal the conceptualisation of benefit recipients’ eligibility for Ontario Works through these two discourses and how this is replete with ideological assumptions and disciplining power relations, constitutive of a subject position of ‘the recovering addict’, and suggestive of social control implications. I argue that the coercion and regulation of benefit recipients’ lives on Ontario Works has not disappeared but transmuted for Torontonians living with addiction, and conclude by considering the governance of this population as biopower.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Claude Byungura ◽  
Henrik Hansson ◽  
Kamuzinzi Masengesho ◽  
Thashmee Karunaratne

Abstract With the development of technology in the 21st Century, education systems attempt to integrate technology-based tools to improve experiences in pedagogy and administration. It is becoming increasingly prominent to build human and ICT infrastructure capacities at universities from policy to implementation level. Using a critical discourse analysis, this study investigates the articulation of ICT capacity building strategies from both national and institutional ICT policies in Rwanda, focusing on the higher education. Eleven policy documents were collected and deeply analyzed to understand which claims of ICT capacity building are made. The analysis shows that strategies for building ICT capacities are evidently observed from national level policies and only in two institutional policies (KIST and NUR). Among 25 components of ICT capacity building used, the ones related to human capacity are not plainly described. Additionally, neither national nor institutional policy documents include the creation of financial schemes for students to acquire ICT tools whilst learners are key stakeholders. Although there is some translation of ICT capacity building strategies from national to some institutional policies, planning for motivation and provision of incentives to innovators is not stated in any of the institutional policies and this is a key to effective technology integration.


Author(s):  
Emma Trentman ◽  
Wenhao Diao

Abstract The 21st century has seen an emphasis in US media and policy documents on increasing the numbers of US students studying abroad and also the amount of US students studying ‘critical’ languages. This paper examines the intersection of these discourses, or the experiences of critical language learners abroad. We analyze this intersection by using critical discourse analysis to examine US media and policy documents and data from students studying Arabic in Egypt and Mandarin in China. This analysis reveals considerable discrepancies between rhetoric and experience in terms of language and intercultural learning. We argue that a critical examination of current discourses of study abroad (SA) reveals that they in fact recreate the colonial map, mask global inequalities, and create a new global elite. We conclude that language and intercultural learning abroad will remain a source of tension until SA students and programs critically engage with these discourses.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Daniel Villegas

The Colombia Bilingüe (Colombia Bilingual)1 program was introduced by the Ministry of Education (MEN) in 2004 with aims of increasing the teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at primary, secondary and tertiary education level. However, this program has failed to reach its set language goals and has come under strong criticism. Scholars suggest that Colombia Bilingual has not only been unsuccessful in improving English skills but has resulted in unequal practices by favoring language instrumentation, marketization of language services and stratification of people. This paper offers a Critical Discourse Analysis of seven policy papers set forward by the government that have introduced and given continuation to this program. I will argue that the construction of equity in Colombia’s EFL policy is framed within a limited interpretation that has mainly given priority to improving Colombia’s international competitiveness while overlooking other important elements of equity such as autonomy, identity, and equality. I will conclude that the presence of social efficiency messages in the policy documents substantiates previous studies’ criticism and highlights the importance of policy documents towards reaching more equitable language learning practices.


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