Young children with disabilities, marginalised and voiceless: A case of Eswatini

Significantly, many people with disabilities are victims of classification over generalizations with the assumption that disability is equal to inability. This study focused on challenges faced by children with disabilities in accessing Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) services in Manzini Region of Eswatini. Anchored on the Critical Disability Theory which views disability as a cultural, historical, relative, social, and political phenomenon, the study assessed and analysed the disability issues on the accessibility to ECCD services for young children. Through interviews, data was collected from10 ECCD centres in Manzini which were purposively selected. Ten ECCD teachers, 5 principals, and 5 parents/caregivers participated in the study. The results revealed that failure by these children to access ECCD services in the community impacts negatively on their holistic development. Sadly, young children living with a disability in Eswatini face significant challenges, one of the reasons, just like most of our African countries, being that those who have some form of disability were bewitched or inflicted by some bad spirits. ECCD specialist educators highlighted the need for comprehensive training services that will help them cater to children with special needs. The study recommended for extensive awareness programmes to sensitize communities on the rights of the child, regardless of body, mental or sensory condition.

On Fat Clothes: Unraveling Plus-Size Design Discourse

This article considers the possibilities and limitations of plus-size clothing— a subcategory of ready-to-wear that is deeply embedded in the history of dieting, exercise, standardized sizing, and the industrialization of clothing manufacturing in the United States. In doing so, it draws on fashion theory and disability theory in exposing how plus-size clothing functions as a normalizing mechanism, thereby inhibiting innovation in this sector. The article concludes with a counterexploration of the possibilities of “fat clothes” and the novel w ays of seeing and existing in the world that they might enable.

Experiences of Students with Visual Impairments at an Open Distance and e-Learning University in South Africa: Counselling Perspective

The purpose of the qualitative study on which this article is based was to explore the experiences of students with visual impairments registered at an Open Distance and e-Learning University in South Africa, through a phenomenological research design. Literature was reviewed on student support in distance education and concepts from the critical disability theory, biopsychosocial model of disability, connectivism and affect theories formed the conceptual framework for the study. Telephonic semi-structured interviews were used as a technique to collect data from seven participants. Data were transcribed and then coded employing ATLAS.ti. The emerged themes centred on students’ counselling experiences, the synergy between the departments, and accessibility of services. It was also determined that students lose academic time due to the lack of resources and study materials in alternative and accessible formats. While policies and implementation plans were claimed to be in place, they do not address the reality on the ground due to a lack of coordination of disability issues, and late referral of students to counselling services. The study recommends the prioritisation of disability issues, and it needs to be incorporated in the wider university’s strategic plan to accelerate its implementation. This will translate to (i) training ICT staff on various computer software programs needed to support students with visual impairments, (ii) developing alternative formative and summative assessments, (iii) developing a graduateness and job readiness intervention programme to empower the students financially and add value to the university’s employment equity agenda, and lastly (iv) putting the disability unit at the centre of all disability matters for coordinating purposes.

Strategies Used by Teachers in Readiness for Mainstreaming of Learners with Special Needs in Public Primary Schools in Masaba South Sub County. A Case Study of Kisii County, Kenya

Mainstreaming is a concept and practice of educating learners with challenges in regular education settings. Mainstreaming advocates for education of all categories of learners without discriminating the specific group of individuals with disabilities. The study sought to assess strategies used by teachers in readiness for mainstreaming of learners with special needs in public primary schools in Masaba South Sub County, Kisii County, Kenya. The study was underpinned by the Social Model of Disability theory. Simple random sampling was used to select a sample of 234 teachers while purposive sampling was used to select the 25 headteachers from the schools which were used in the study. Questionnaires were employed for data collection. A pilot study was carried out in one of the schools within the study area. The study adopted survey research design to investigate the study variables. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in analyzing data. The findings of the study found out that teachers’ attitude, professional development and experience influence mainstreaming. The study also observed that for mainstreaming to be achieved, the curriculum needs to be structured, teachers should be trained in special needs education, and the school environment should meet the needs of learners with special needs. It is recommendable that the government and all education stakeholders should jointly enhance expansion of facilities in the already established schools. This will encourage all teachers, trained or not to be ready to handle all categories of learners in the mainstream settings in Masaba South Sub County.

Speaking in signs: Communicating the gospel with deaf people in Zimbabwe

Churches in Zimbabwe have excluded deaf people, limiting their access, presence and participation in Missio Dei and Missio Ecclesiae. So far, there is minimal Zimbabwean theological scholarly attention to communicating the gospel with deaf people. Much of the available related literature focusses on education for deaf people. This article applies a critical disability theory, which is explanatory, practical, normative, and promotes equality and inclusion. In this contribution, communication of the gospel with deaf people is explored. Against the backdrop of marginalisation of deaf people and the inconsideration of the hearing Church, this study interrogated the gospel communication gap that needs to be bridged between deaf people and the hearing Church. The culture of deaf people and communication of the gospel in Zimbabwe were examined. Reflecting through a topic ‘Speaking in signs: Communicating the gospel with deaf people in Zimbabwe’, using a qualitative research methodology through interviews with 20 participants from different institutions for deaf people and Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, this research observed that very few denominations have reached out to deaf people with the gospel, whilst the majority have not. The study challenges traditionally exclusive Zimbabwean ecclesiology, missiology and communication of the gospel. It recommends inclusive and contextualised communication of the gospel through the incorporation of sign language and deaf culture towards effective evangelisation and discipleship of deaf people.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The trainers of deaf people, Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe and deaf people themselves provided an example of an interdisciplinary approach to communicating the gospel with deaf people in Zimbabwe where Ecclesiology, Communication and Disability Studies collaborate towards inclusive sharing of the gospel, and the realisation of Missio Dei and Missio Ecclesiae in Zimbabwe.

Cripping the Welfare Queen

Drawing together feminist- and queer-of-color critique with disability theory, this essay offers a literary-cultural reframing of the welfare queen in light of critical discourses of disability. It does so by taking up the discourse of dependency that casts racialized, low-income, and disabled populations as drains on the state, reframing this discourse as a potential site of coalition among antiracist, anticapitalist, and feminist disability politics. Whereas antiwelfare policy cast independence as a national ideal, this analysis of the welfare mother elaborates a version of disability and women-of-color feminism that not only takes dependency as a given but also mines the figure of the welfare mother for its transformative potential. To imagine the welfare mother as a site for reenvisioning dependency, this essay draws on the “ruptural possibilities” of minority literary texts, to use Roderick A. Ferguson’s coinage, and places Sapphire's 1996 novel Push in conversation with Jesmyn Ward's 2011 novel Salvage the Bones. Both novels depict young Black mothers grappling with the disabling context of public infrastructural abandonment, in which the basic support systems for maintaining life—schools, hospitals, social services—have become increasingly compromised. As such, these novels enable an elaboration of a critical disability politic centered on welfare queen mythology and its attendant structures of state neglect, one that overwrites the punitive logics of public resource distribution. This disability politic, which the author terms crip-of-color critique, foregrounds the utility of disability studies for feminist-of-color theories of gendered and sexual state regulation and ushers racialized reproduction and state violence to the forefront of disability analysis.

Ableism in academic knowledge production

The article takes up feminist disability scholars’ request for an integration of disability (theory) into women’s and gender studies and intends to take stock of the status and development of this integration. By means of qualitative content analysis, excerpts of German and US handbooks of gender research are examined for their degree of integrating disability (theory) and for inherent ableism. Considering the scholars’ requests of full integration and a subsequent transformation of gender research the sample shows only minor signs of change and the request must be upheld.

The inner self-narratives and academic self-perceptions of those with learning disabilities in post-secondary settings

The purpose of this study was to explore the various disabled identities of those with learning disabilities in higher educational settings, and its impact on academic self-worth. The majority of scholarship has essentialized both disabled identity and academic self-perception, fostering the victimization of those with learning disabilities in the pursuit of their education. This study problematized the medical model, viewing disability as an internal and fixed identity, negatively implicating self-worth. In contrast, this study incorporated a critical disability theory, to highlight the social construction of disability, complimented with a postmodernist lens to appreciate the fluidity of identity and perceptions. A narrative methodological approach was utilized to give voice to the experiences and stories of five self-identifying learning disabled students from Ryerson University. The findings of this research suggest that learning disabled student relate to three different types of disability narratives or identities, implicating their academic worth in many ways.

The inner self-narratives and academic self-perceptions of those with learning disabilities in post-secondary settings

The purpose of this study was to explore the various disabled identities of those with learning disabilities in higher educational settings, and its impact on academic self-worth. The majority of scholarship has essentialized both disabled identity and academic self-perception, fostering the victimization of those with learning disabilities in the pursuit of their education. This study problematized the medical model, viewing disability as an internal and fixed identity, negatively implicating self-worth. In contrast, this study incorporated a critical disability theory, to highlight the social construction of disability, complimented with a postmodernist lens to appreciate the fluidity of identity and perceptions. A narrative methodological approach was utilized to give voice to the experiences and stories of five self-identifying learning disabled students from Ryerson University. The findings of this research suggest that learning disabled student relate to three different types of disability narratives or identities, implicating their academic worth in many ways.

Maawandoonan: early childhood disability support services in Constance Lake First Nation

This paper details an institutional ethnography conducted in Constance Lake First Nation, a rural Oji-Cree community in northern Ontario, Canada. The study is a part of a larger project called the Inclusive Early Childhood Service System Project, which is partnered with several municipalities and service organizations in four communities across Ontario. The current project examined six family narratives of accessing disability support services for young children. The project seeks to understand how the service system functions from the perspective of families, and the impact of institutional interactions on families within the service system. Employing critical disability theory and Indigenous perspectives of child development, the study seeks to develop a culturally-based conceptualization of disability support for Indigenous children with disabilities or gifts.