Reclaiming disabled creativity: How cultural models make legible the creativity of people with disabilities

The field of creativity studies underrepresents—even excludes—creators who have disabilities. The underrepresentation partly reflects an approach that pathologizes disability. Disability as a pathology or marker of ineligibility makes the contributions of people with disabilities invisible or illegible to creativity research. However, disability operates as a marker of membership in a larger disability culture. Considering disability and creativity as cultural phenomena locates a means for including disabled creators in creativity studies. Cultural models describe creativity in terms of groups sharing values, experiences, and resources. People with disabilities participate in subcultures (e.g., deaf communities) and/or larger cultures (i.e., disability culture). Disability cultures encapsulate shared experiences and values as well as resources. In the following article, I pair three propositions from cultural creativity models with evidence from creators with disabilities to demonstrate that (a) members of disability culture experience the world in ways that generate creative expression, (b) encountering a world designed for abled bodies incites the creativity of disabled people, and (c) disabled and abled people collaboratively create. However, not all methodological approaches effectively include creators with disabilities. Qualitative approaches suit best when the researcher practices reflexivity and allows creators with disabilities the right to manage their own representation within the project.

Disability, Culture, and Technology

Ghana has many interventions or systems to eradicate poverty among vulnerable people, especially those with disabilities. Ghana's Parliament launched the Social Protection Program in conformity with the United Nations Convention on the Right of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) as well as the Disability Law of Ghana. One of these programs is the Social Protection Program, under which rehabilitation and RLG ICT training of People with Disabilities (PWDs) have been implemented in the classroom. The main goal of this program is to educate PWDs, granting them employable skills and thereby enabling them to become independent citizens. This chapter, which is related to one of the recommended topics, “Issues and Challenges of Digital Tools and Applications in the Classroom,” draws on and employs a phenomenological approach to confirm the lack of culturally responsiveness of technology to the Ghanaian disability community. Participants indicated they were disconnected from the program because the technological devices were foreign and not connected to their indigenous culture.

The Disability Rights Movement

This chapter provides an overview of the social movement advocating for disability rights, including its origins, goals, strategies, structure, and impact. The chapter’s primary focus is on the movement in the United States, although developments in other nations are also discussed. The chapter reviews the origins of the disability rights movement in the 20th century in response to stigma and discrimination associated with disabilities and the medical model of disability; addresses the movement’s advocacy strategies, as well as the social model of disability that provided the conceptual underpinning for its goals and activities; and describes how the major components of the movement, including cross-disability organization, were brought together through collaboration and the common experiences of disability culture.

Using Multimedia to Create Explicit and Culturally Responsive Content Area Vocabulary Lessons

Topics presented in content area courses at the secondary level are often comprised of specialized and/or multiple-meaning vocabulary terms that can challenge students’ understanding. Additionally, gaps in relevant knowledge from prior learning experiences in earlier grade levels may further impede comprehension of content area concepts. This is often the case for students with disabilities and culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students who tend to struggle in secondary content area classes due to learning barriers related to disability, culture, language, or the intersection of these student characteristics. Content Acquisition Podcasts for Students (CAP-S) is a multimedia tool that has been effective in increasing vocabulary knowledge among students with disabilities. However, this article provides a detailed description of how CAP-S embed instructional practices that are effective for students with disabilities from CLD backgrounds, and includes a step-by-step guide to support practitioners in creating and recording their own CAP-S vocabulary lessons to increase success among CLD students with disabilities participating in secondary content area classrooms.

#failbetter

Recalling Beckett's treatment of failure ( Three Dialogues, 1949; Worstward Ho, 1983), this article considers ‘fidelity to failure’ as a performative and political issue. In dealing with both the aesthetics and ethics of Beckett's failure, the article is informed by recent publications and events within the field ( Kenny ; Morin ; Maprayil; 2020 ). These interventions build upon a body of literature on Beckett ( McMullan, 1994 ; Calder, 2001 ; Anderton, 2016 ; Thomas, 2018) and culture ( Bersani and Dutoit, 1993 ; Ridout, 2006 ; Bailes, 2011 ; Halberstam, 2011 ). The article examines the phenomenon of failure within Beckettian production and wider ethical implications surrounding the (mis)appropriations of ‘failing better’. Having established the uses – and misuses – of this phrase, the article proceeds in three interlinked parts: a) aesthetic failure in Beckett's creative practice through to his legacy in experimental theatre and popular culture; b) performance more broadly, including intersections with disability culture and queer studies; and c) performative interventions in public discourse, from Brexit in Europe to the 2016 US Presidential Election as well as social movements such as Black Lives Matter.

Выйти за пределы «гетто»: стигма инвалидности и попытки ее преодоления

В научной литературе ведутся споры о существовании культуры или субкультуры инвалидности. Однако не вызывает сомнений, что у людей с ограниченными возможностями здоровья формируются особые стили жизни, обусловленные не только наличием того или иного заболевания или нарушений функций организма, но и восприятием инвалидности как социокультурного феномена в конкретном обществе, а также стигматизацией людей с инвалидностью как социальной группы. Опираясь на свои полевые материалы, а также тексты автобиографических сочинений, автор показывает, каким образом в России складывается социокультурное «инвалидное гетто» – замкнутая среда, в котором люди с ограниченными возможностями здоровья часто учатся, работают, общаются. Отмечается, что такой стиль жизни характерен прежде всего для инвалидов детства. В статье также рассматриваются жизненные стратегии тех, кто получил статус инвалида во взрослом возрасте и кто пытается выйти за пределы «замкнутой» среды. Автор видит причины подобного обособления в низком статусе людей с ограниченными возможностями здоровья, а также в стигматизации инвалидности, глубоко укорененной в российском обществе и культуре. There are scholarly discussions about the so-called disability culture / subcultures. However, nobody doubts that there are specific lifestyles of disabled persons determined not only by their illness, dysfunction or disability, but also by the perception of disability as a social and cultural phenomenon in various societies in particular historical and cultural contexts. These lifestyles are also much impacted by the stigmatization of disability which exists in many societies. The author examines problems of the so-called sociocultural “ghetto” for disabled people in Russia. Drawing on her field materials – texts of in-depth interviews and analysis of autobiographies, she demonstrates the process of construction of this subculture in which disabled people often live. This lifestyle is mostly typical for persons with innate disability. The author also investigates life experience of people with acquired disability who try to escape life in the “ghetto” and who experience other problems. E. Nosenko-Stein sees the cause of this “ghetto” construction in the stigmatization of disability, which is profoundly rooted in Russian society and culture.

Best Practices for Working with Students with Physical Disabilities

The Disability Studies in Education framework offers the best practices for working with, listening to, and addressing the strengths and needs of students with physical disabilities in schools. Areas covered include reducing barriers to physical and social access, utilizing expertise of students with disabilities to inform practice, reducing stigma while creating disability culture in the classroom, and assisting students with physical disabilities in building self-advocacy skills.

Controversies around the social model of disability

Twardowski Andrzej, Controversies around the social model of disability. Culture – Society – Education no 2(16) 2019, Poznań 2019, pp. 7–21, Adam Mickiewicz University Press. ISSN 2300-0422. DOI: 10.14746/kse.2019.16.1 The aim of the article is to present a critical analysis of the social model of disability.In the first part, the author discusses the genesis, essence and basic advantages of the social model of disability. Next, five major disadvantages of this model are analysed:/1/ avoiding dealing with impairment as an important aspect of the lives of people with disabilities, /2/ separating impairment from disability, /3/ assuming that all people with disabilities are exposed to social oppression, /4/ postulating the creation of an environment without barriers and /5/ assuming that disability is the basis of the identity of people affected by it. In the final part of the article, the author presents reflections on the possibility of creating a new, more holistic model of disability.

Review of Disability, Culture, and Development: A Case Study of Japanese Children at School by Misa Kayama and Wendy L. Haight

No abstract available.

Ordinary Extraordinary Activism: Student-led filmmaking in disability studies

In this article, we, as disability studies educators in Toronto, Canada, reflect on our interpretations of a student group's call to 'people' disability culture. This request tasked us with mapping disability culture in Canada, and representing it through the arts-based approach of new disability documentary. We produced five student-directed films, Ordinary Extraordinary Activism, that bridge theory with lived experience by profiling activists whose lives involve participating in disability culture. Here, we describe how our work supported and transcended the affirmative model by drawing on intersectionality and Disability Justice. We critically consider the aesthetic and representational tensions of producing films under crip time. Through this writing, we reflect on the three-year process of filmmaking as a gesture of online pedagogy and analyse three out of five films.