This dissertation is comprised of three manuscripts that coalesce around the topics of Dewey, Disability, and Democratic Education. Each manuscript is formatted for publication and the dissertation itself is prefaced by information that explains my background and how it connects to my current research. As such, the work contained in this dissertation is a product of my experiences as a social studies teacher, special educator, and administrator. Henceforth, my work focuses on Dewey, Disability, and Democratic Education. My research interests culminate in a three-article dissertation. The first paper is entitled, "Using Dewey to Problematize the Notion of Disability in Public Education." A version of this paper is currently under review for publication. In this paper I situate Dewey's theoretical underpinnings in the conversation around special education. Previous scholars of Dewey and disability have examined the ways in which his work speaks to educational growth and educational opportunity; my work adds to this body of research. However, my work is unique in that not only do I discuss pluralistic, communicative, participatory democracy as it pertains to students with disabilities, I also examine how Deweyan democracy can take shape, specifically within the context of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meeting. I conclude by arguing that Deweyan democracy is not only ideal, but realistic, attainable, and necessary, especially in the lives of students with disabilities. In my second paper, I use the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) dataset in a paper entitled, "Can We Meet Our Mission? Examining the Professional Development of Social Studies Teachers to Support Students with Disabilities and Emergent Bilingual Learners." A version of this paper has been accepted for publication in The Journal of Social Studies Research. In this work, I first examine the social studies scholarship looking at students with disabilities and emergent bilingual learners, as well as research about the nature of professional development within the social studies. I then analyze the number of students with disabilities and emergent bilingual learners that we support in the social studies to provide a portrait of the field. Next, I examine the extent to which social studies teachers receive professional development to support those student groups, as well as the extent to which the social studies teachers found the professional development to be useful. My findings indicate that social studies teachers do not receive substantial professional development to support the learning of all students, as evidenced by the limited amount of professional development received focusing on students with disabilities and emergent bilingual learners. In my third paper, I build on previous research examining the possibilities and benefits of participating in informal learning spaces such as Twitter in a paper entitled, "'So I Feel Like We Were Theoretical, Whereas They Actually Do It': Navigating Twitter Chats For Teacher Education." A version of this paper is also under review for publication. In this paper, specifically, I examine the experiences and perceptions of pre-service social studies teachers who particip¬¬¬¬ated in a discipline specific Twitter chat known as #sschat. My findings indicate that pre-service teachers found value in the chat when they were able to share resources with practicing teachers and build professional learning networks. However, there were instances when the pre-service teachers felt like they contributed little because they did not have direct experience with teaching. Additionally, the pre-service teachers expressed dissatisfaction with using Twitter as a platform for professional chats. However, I still contend and conclude that the utility of such chats outweighs the negatives. Therefore, this study sheds light on the potentiality and necessity of utilizing Twitter chats as a space to provide ongoing and systematic support to pre-service teachers to help not only them, but the field of social studies education move forward. These papers when considered together form a foundation of scholarship and further inquiry focused on Dewey, Disability, and Democratic Education, on which I plan to build in the years to come. / Doctor of Philosophy / When I completed my undergraduate social studies teaching program, the job market appeared bleak in the coalfields of southwest Virginia. Coal, no longer king, had driven the economy for years. With its decline, my community barely managed to survive. My advisor at the time, honest and plain-spoken, told me that unless I obtained a license in special education, I would most likely not obtain a teaching job. Unlike many other areas of the country, in my hometown unless you could do other things like coach or drive a bus, a license to teach social studies was of little value. There was not much money and a new hire had to be willing to do many different jobs to prove his or her worth. Luckily, I had gotten my Commercial Driver License (CDLs) through a training program offered by the county school board, and I was consequently able to obtain a position, although not as a social studies teacher. I started my career in education as a special educator and substitute school bus driver. In this position I worked in an alternative education setting and taught vocational skills to secondary students with significant disabilities (in the institutional meaning of the word). From the start of my career, I aspired to become an administrator, so I enrolled in and completed a degree in Administration and Supervision. As I was working on that degree, I moved to the general education high school level, where I held a position teaching social studies and special education in an inclusive setting. Shortly thereafter, I obtained a job as an assistant principal. The part I enjoyed most about this position was working with and thinking about how to help teachers become better at their craft. At this point is when I decided to pursue a PhD in social studies education, so I could develop my interest into a body of research and eventually a career. Two years into my PhD program I was still grappling with who I was as a scholar. As I familiarized myself with social studies scholarship, I discovered that in my first position as an alternative education special educator, I was essentially preparing my students for the responsibilities of citizenship, which is the mission of the field of social studies (NCSS, 2013). Nevertheless, it was not until I started reading the work of John Dewey that I truly realized the complexity of what I experienced when I taught in the alternative education setting. That position allowed me to examine an element that I otherwise, would not have had the privilege to see; the complexity and intellect required for physical labor (Rose, 2004) and the inter-workings of true, vibrant, Deweyan democracy. Dewey’s work sparked a new interest in me and I started developing a deep-seated curiosity about how his theoretical underpinnings related to disability and democratic education. My interest in disability then caused me to ask other questions about social studies in relation to special education, which made me reflect on my prior experiences as a social studies educator. Although I had a license in special education, there were many instances in which I felt unprepared and unsupported in addressing the needs of all students in my classes which included general education students, students with disabilities (SWDs), and emergent bilingual learners (EBLs). I began to wonder if my feelings of unpreparedness and lack of support were in isolation. As I parsed the literature, I found that there was not a significant amount of research focused specifically on the extent to which social studies teachers felt they were prepared and supported to address the needs of all learners in their classroom. Additionally, my experience in both public education and teacher education gave me insight to realize that school systems do not have funding to provide specialized professional development and similarly, teacher education is under financial constraints as well. Therefore, I began examining what informal spaces such as Twitter offer educators in terms of professional support and development. My interests and curiosity fueled my scholarly work and eventually culminated into three distinct, but interconnected manuscripts. The three manuscripts that follow coalesce around my interests in Dewey, Disability, and Democratic Education.

Yes / Since the UK’s 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA, 2001), academic libraries have had a legal duty to provide all students with information in a form accessible to them, an obligation strengthened by the 2010 Equality Act (c15). Crucially, the latter duty covered readers with all kinds of impairments, not just visual impairment, and thus covers a huge range of needs for an enormous number of individuals. Libraries have put a huge amount of time and effort into providing documents in accessible format (alt-format) but obviously it is preferable for both libraries and readers if the documents are accessible as supplied from the publisher. Electronic resources have the potential to address many of the accessibility needs of our readers, but concerns have been growing in the HE sector (see, for instance, JISCTechdis, 2013) that the way in which e-resources are delivered actually renders them, in some cases, less accessible. This paper describes a project undertaken by the University of Bradford library to systematically assess the accessibility of our electronic resources, and gives recommendations for others wishing to do the same.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been hailed as a landmark piece of civil rights legislation and a boon to people with disabilities in the United States. Title I of the ADA specifically addresses employment discrimination toward persons with disabilities. Congressional proponents of the ADA anticipated that the statute would bring about a reversal of the high unemployment numbers among the disabled. This thesis examines the unemployment data for persons with disabilities 10 years following enactment of the ADA. It shows that the ADA has not reversed unemployment trends among persons with disabilities. This work compares the expectations of the bill's sponsors and/or advocates for improvements in employment opportunities for working aged adults with disabilities, provided for by Title I of the ADA, with the actual outcomes. This thesis highlights some the principal problems inherent with the law itself, problems that may be contributing to the ADA's inability to reverse high unemployment numbers among the disabled. This paper also addresses concerns within the US business community regarding implementation of the law. The results presented show that the ADA has not brought about the flood of litigation originally anticipated by American business, neither has it increased frivolous litigation. Data are also offered which demonstrate that compliance with the law in the form of accommodation expenses for persons with disabilities is not onerous. Finally, this study presents some of the ongoing problems with regard to discrimination against persons with disabilities in the workplace. / Master of Arts

People with intellectual disabilities (ID) face a high risk of experiencing adverse events including abuse, neglect, and serious medical issues. Access to effective interventions for people with moderate to severe ID is limited because of communication deficits that are characteristic of this population. Some of the negative effects of exposure to trauma for people with ID can include increases in problem behaviors. Behavior analysts have developed robust assessments and treatments to address these problem behaviors for people with ID; however, when these behaviors arise after a traumatic event, specialized assessments may be necessary to ensure effective treatment and decreased risk of re-traumatization. Specifically, if trauma-related stimuli (TRS) differentially affect preferences and functions of behavior, assessments of the effects of these stimuli may be critical to mitigate those effects. In my first experiment I found that TRS differentially affected behavior (including heartrate) during preferences assessments. In my second experiment I found that TRS differentially affected heartrate and the function of problem behavior for two of three participants. I discuss implications of these findings, including 1) that measuring some of the physiological effects of TRS using commercially available heart rate monitors could improve behavior analytic assessments for people with potential trauma histories; and 2) the presence of TRS can differentially affect the function of problem behavior in such a way that treatment plans developed and evaluated in either the presence or absence of TRS may be ineffective in the alternate setting.

Yes / This chapter considers the adaptations which may need to be made to participatory video in order for it to be accessible to people whose marginalized status stems from a label of 'disability', whether this is physical, sensory or cognitive. To date there has been an ill fit between the emancipatory principles of participatory video, and the technical rationality (Schön, 1996) and hypercognitivity (Post, 2000) of its methods. Because participatory video is intended to enable marginalized, socially excluded and unheard groups of people to make films which reflect their own interests and concerns (Robertson & Shaw, 1997), adaptations to allow people with disabilities to take part would appear vital from an ethical point of view. Yet ethical issues in general do not appear to have been given sufficient consideration in the participatory video literature to date, and there is little evidence of engagement with emergent areas of debate such as the ethics of visual research (Prosser, 2008) and the importance of working in solidarity with people with reduced or fluctuating mental capacity (Nuffield Council for Bioethics, 2009).

No / To investigate the cross-cultural validity of international Dutch-English comparisons when using the Dutch Rivermead Mobility Index (RMI), and the intra-test reliability and construct validity of the Dutch RMI. METHODS: Cross-cultural validity was studied in a combined data-set of Dutch and English patients undergoing rehabilitation after stroke, who were assessed with the Dutch version of the RMI and the original English RMI, respectively. Mokken scale analysis was used to investigate unidimensionality, monotone homogeneity model fit, and differential item functioning between the Dutch and the English RMI. Intra-test reliability and construct validity were studied in the Dutch patients by calculating the reliability coefficient and correlating the Dutch RMI and the Dutch Barthel Index. RESULTS: The RMI was completed for Dutch (n = 200) and English (n = 420) patients after stroke. The unidimensionality and monotone homogeneity model fit of the RMI were excellent: combined Dutch-English data-set (coefficient H = 0.91); Dutch data-set (coefficient H = 0.93); English data-set (coefficient H = 0.89). No differential item functioning was found between the Dutch and the English RMI. The intra-test reliability of the Dutch RMI was excellent (coefficient rho = 0.97). In a sub-sample of patients (n = 91), the Dutch RMI correlated strongly with the Dutch Barthel Index (Spearman's correlation coefficient rho = 0.84). CONCLUSION: The Dutch RMI allows valid international Dutch-English comparisons, and has excellent intra-test reliability and construct validity.

Yes / People experience dementia in different ways, not just in terms of the type and severity of symptoms, but also in terms of how they react to and manage living with dementia. Increasingly, people with dementia are expressing a desire to get on with their everyday lives. They want to avoid being defined solely in relation to dementia and to continue to be considered as valued members of society. This is particularly important as the term dementia often has negative connotations. It is widely considered as a stigma. Neurological impairment may interfere with people’s ability to get on with their lives, as may differences in coping skills, financial resources, the emotional and psychological impact of dementia, and access to timely and good quality support. Reactions of relatives, friends and fellow citizens are also important, as well as society’s response to dementia. This was highlighted by Kitwood in the 1990s when he outlined what came to be known as the biopsychosocial model of dementia . There are also differences at the level of society, reflected in practices, attitudes and structures. These may, on the surface, seem fair or neutral (i.e. “that’s just the way it is”). In many cases, however, they reflect a lack of consideration and failure to act in a responsible, ethical and even legal way towards people with dementia... In this report, we focus on the possible implications for ethics, policy and practice of raising awareness about the potential of framing dementia as a potential disability.

Yes / To review the longitudinal trajectories – and the factors influencing their development – of mental health problems in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. Systematic review methods were employed. Searches of six databases used keywords and MeSH terms related to children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, mental health problems, and longitudinal research. After the removal of duplicates, reviewers independently screened records for inclusion, extracted data (outcomes and influencing factors), and evaluated the risk of bias. Findings were tabulated and synthesized using graphs and a narrative. Searches identified 94,662 unique records, from which 49 publications were included. The median publication year was 2015. Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were the most commonly included population in retrieved studies. In almost 50% of studies, trajectories of mental health problems changed by / Swedish Research Council (2018-05824_VR)

This study aims to investigate the field where law, sexuality and disability meet, with a particular focus on constitutional law. Through the use of comparative law and an interdisciplinary approach, the study will try to understand whether the law might have a role in overcoming social barriers affecting people with disabilities in the sphere of sexuality, and which are the criteria the State should follow when intervening in this complex field. Drawing on different notions of disability, we will sketch how law itself is slowly enacting a paradigm shift in disability law, while leaving outside some of the ultimate inquiries elaborated by disability theorists. It is the case of the issue of sexuality, which still remains a "silenced discourse" both on the international and domestic level. In spite of its relevant legal implications (e.g. forced sterilization and legal denial of sexual agency) and recent efforts to secure its negative aspects, the right to sexuality for people with disabilities has not been the object of positive measures, with few exceptions (e.g. Denmark). One of the most debated instruments in this field is currently sexual assistance: a controversial praxis, even in its definition and boundaries. It was observed, both at the domestic level and by comparative analysis, that the legal status and the factual development of this tool is strictly linked to the regulation on sex working. An alternative solution, namely framing sexual assistance as a form of personal assistance in Italy, will be theorized. Sexual assistance, however, is condemned to be ineffective if not surrounded by other tools (such as inclusive sexual education, sexual counselling etc.) aimed at fostering self-determination in the sexual sphere for people with disabilities. These policies need to be developed down the constitutional path already traced by the jurisprudence, starting from the experience and questions of people with disabilities and using flexible sources of law rather than hard law. In this way law could contribute to the social change needed to dismantle social barriers and discrimination experienced by people with disabilities in the field of sexuality and grant them full participation in all areas of life

A collection of poems that explores notions of disability, family, and belief, with a preface that meditates on questions related to the ethical ramifications of various approaches to the making of poetry and art that takes up the suffering of others as subject matter.