Toward a Culture of Inclusion

Rethinking Disability

By Rose Ewald
 ❖ Medical Model
Overview
❖ Defining Disability
❖ Accessibility
❖ Accommodations
❖ Diversity and Inclusion
❖ Equity
❖ Social Model
❖ Redefining Disability
❖ Barriers
The Old Paradigm
Medical
Model
Defining Disability

Amputation Balance
Chromosomal, metabolic, or genetic Cognition
Developmental or intellectual Hearing
Immune-mediated Mobility
Loss of function Sensory
Neurological Speech
Neuromuscular Vision
Psychological or psychiatric
Psychomotor Some
Post-Traumatic Stress disabilities are
Traumatic Brain Injury “invisible”
Foust Building, 1892 Alumni House, 1937
Ricole Wicks
UNCG Census Support & Resources
❖ 2017-18 ❖ Office of Accessibility Resources
and Services (OARS)
▪ UNCG student
population- 19,653 ❖ Military-Affiliated & Veterans
Services
▪ Registered with
Office of Accessibility ❖ Student Health Services
Resources and ❖ Student Counseling Center
Services (OARS)-
1,844 ❖ Dean of Academic Affairs

▪ 9.25% of UNCG ❖ Human Resources ADA/EEOC

student body
Diversity,
Inclusion, and
Equity
Diversity

❖ Diversity means different things to different people:

▪ demographic diversity, reflects our personal
characteristics – tied to identities of origin
▪ experiential diversity, shapes our emotional
universe – influences identities of growth
▪ cognitive diversity, makes us look for other minds
to complement our thinking – shapes identities of
aspiration
Inclusion

❖ Inclusion is not a natural consequence of diversity

❖ Inclusion is about people with different identities

feeling and/or being valued, leveraged, and welcomed
within a given setting

❖ “Diversity is being asked to the party. Inclusion is

being asked to dance.”
Equity

❖ Equity recognizes that advantages and barriers exist

❖ Equity is a process that begins by acknowledging that

unequal starting place and continues to correct and
address the imbalance

❖ Equity, consistently engaged in, ensures that people

with marginalized identities have the same
opportunity as everyone else
The New
Paradigm

Von, P., & Bieler, P. (2017). How to study chronic diseases-

implications of the convention on the rights of persons with
disabilities for research designs. Frontiers in Public Health,
5(May). doi:10.3389/FPUBH.2017.00088
Social
Model
Redefining Disability

❖ Disability is not something individuals have. What

individuals have are impairments. …

❖ Disability is the process which happens when one

group of people create barriers by designing a world
only for their way of living, taking no account of the
impairments other people have.
State Services Commission. (2009). Defining disability. In Enabling ability:
Meeting the employment requirements of people with disabilities in the public
service. New Zealand: State Services Commission.
Barriers
Identifying Barriers

❖ Barriers can be identified through dialogue, cultural

humility, and a willingness to see through another’s
eyes and put yourself in their place

❖ The best community members to talk to are those

with an impairment because they know through
their personal experiences how they are disabled by
the barriers they face
Alyssa Pickens
Barriers

Structural: Technology-Related:
❖ Braille signs ❖ Adaptive technology
❖ Signs indicating location of ❖ Podiums/Equipment
accessible services or facilities
❖ Automatic door openers Other:
(pushbuttons) ❖ Safety-related issues
❖ Accessible parking ❖ Accessing information
❖ Crosswalks, ramps, sidewalks ❖ Services (or lack thereof)
❖ Elevators ❖ Cultural barriers
❖ Accessible seating ❖ Stigma
❖ Accessible bathrooms ❖ Discrimination
Barriers

Ableism is the overarching act of prejudice and/or

discrimination against disabled people and the
devaluation of disability and corresponds with able-
bodied/neurotypical privilege, the set of unearned
privileges held by nondisabled individuals.
Kattari, S., & Hanna, M. (2018). “you look fine!”. Affilia, 33(4), 477-492.
doi:10.1177/0886109918778073
Barriers

Microaggressions are a way of perpetuating ableism. These

may include telling someone that they speak very well for a
deaf person, or that they are lucky to get to bring their dog
everywhere with them, asking a group of people to all stand
for an activity, or making a joke about how fast someone can
go in their wheelchair.
Kattari, S., & Hanna, M. (2018). “you look fine!”. Affilia, 33(4), 477-492.
doi:10.1177/0886109918778073
Thoughts?

Questions?

Comments?