General education teachers are critical contributors to the successful inclusion of students labeled with learning disabilities in general education classrooms. Similarly, teacher beliefs about disability labels significantly influence how teachers include or exclude students labeled with a learning disability in their classrooms. This qualitative study investigated eight secondary general education teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion and their experiences teaching students labeled with a learning disability from a Critical Disabilities Studies perspective. Data were collected using an innovative qualitative method, Q methodology, in order to surface distinct perspectives within the group about inclusion and the experience of teaching students labeled with a learning disability in their classes. The data bore that while teachers agree with the aspirations of inclusive education, they insist they are not capable of teaching students labeled with a learning disability. These findings support the need for systemic change within teacher preparation programs and schools that can disrupt deficit notions of disability.

<p> The purpose of this study is to use close textual analysis, informed by the neurodiversity paradigm and critical disability theories, to explore the coverage of CA in an introductory public speaking collegiate textbook to see how the experience is depicted and what thematic narratives about dis/ability are included in its coverage. This research is required to comprehend the phenomena more holistically and aid communication educators in creating curricula attentive to the needs of the high CA student, embodying best practice for a diverse set of students.  Incorporating dis/ability perspectives into public speaking pedagogy signals an opportunity to advance interdisciplinary knowledge about CA, mental health, dis/ability, neurodiversity, and education accessibility at large. By analyzing literary representations of CA, this research furthers the goals of critical dis/ability studies by de-naturalizing ideas about the binaries in which “ableness”/“disability” and “normality”/abnormality, are typically read and related to “success”. The overarching goal of this project is to demonstrate that these rhetorical representations of communication/performance bound anxiety are not only relevant, but of central importance for contemporary discussions on dis/ability within education.</p>

abstract: Medical policies, practices, and definitions do not exist solely in the clinical realm; they show up in the lived experiences of patients. This research examines how people with the chronic illness called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) define their own illness experiences. They have situated knowledge about their illness onset, search for care, and clinical encounters. Their knowledge complicates and challenges the existing norms in clinical practice and medical discourse, as the experience of searching for care with ME reveals weaknesses in a system that is focused on acute care. Patient narratives reveal institutional patterns that obstruct access to medical care, such as disbelief from clinicians and lack of training in chronic illness protocols. They also reveal patterns in physician behavior that indicate the likelihood of receiving effective care. These patient narratives serve as a basis for continued examination of ME as well as further reconstruction of medical practice and procedure. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Social Justice and Human Rights 2019

This dissertation addresses the university student as a figure of mental health and illness. Drawing on the methods and theories of disability studies, interpretive sociology, critical, feminist and queer theory, as well as hermeneutically oriented phenomenology, my work explores the social production of this student figure or type – variously depicted as ‘ invisible’, ‘maladjusted’, ‘stressed’, ‘difficult’, sensitive’, ‘resilient’, ‘narcissistic’, and extraordinarily ‘ordinary’. This figure is addressed as a means of revealing contradictory understandings of the relationship between success and survival, as this relationship appears in the ordinary daily life of the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The social and historical significance of the contemporary University’s Student Life Programs and Services is analyzed with a view to reveal the Western cultural values and practices which organize consciousness of success as a necessary condition of contemporary existence. Special attention is paid to the cultural production of knowledge concerning university student ‘mental life’, the appearance of which is located at the interstices of colonialism, global health policy, institutional ‘best practices’, cultural mores and folkways, and embodied experiences. I dwell with this appearance as an occasion to engage the materiality of Western mythologies of resilience, and with them the meaning of human agency under neoliberal governance. This engagement examines the productive power of the disciplinary and institutionalized ‘language of mental illness’ through a genealogy of the University of Toronto, a textual analyses of the University’s Student Life Programs and Services literature, and a discursive analysis of open-ended interviews with student services representatives which seeks both to understand and transgress conventional interpretations of the structure of Student Life. I demonstrate how University presentations of student bodies, minds and senses perceived to be lacking in ‘ordinary order’, can be reconceived as sites to reflect on the paramount presence of psychiatric knowledge in interpretations and responses to embodied difference within the university setting. Overall, this dissertation seeks to disrupt unexamined relations to the meaning of student types; and in the process, display how normative relations to the student as a figure of mental health and illness needs is currently and historically organized and socially achieved.

This dissertation addresses the university student as a figure of mental health and illness. Drawing on the methods and theories of disability studies, interpretive sociology, critical, feminist and queer theory, as well as hermeneutically oriented phenomenology, my work explores the social production of this student figure or type – variously depicted as ‘ invisible’, ‘maladjusted’, ‘stressed’, ‘difficult’, sensitive’, ‘resilient’, ‘narcissistic’, and extraordinarily ‘ordinary’. This figure is addressed as a means of revealing contradictory understandings of the relationship between success and survival, as this relationship appears in the ordinary daily life of the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The social and historical significance of the contemporary University’s Student Life Programs and Services is analyzed with a view to reveal the Western cultural values and practices which organize consciousness of success as a necessary condition of contemporary existence. Special attention is paid to the cultural production of knowledge concerning university student ‘mental life’, the appearance of which is located at the interstices of colonialism, global health policy, institutional ‘best practices’, cultural mores and folkways, and embodied experiences. I dwell with this appearance as an occasion to engage the materiality of Western mythologies of resilience, and with them the meaning of human agency under neoliberal governance. This engagement examines the productive power of the disciplinary and institutionalized ‘language of mental illness’ through a genealogy of the University of Toronto, a textual analyses of the University’s Student Life Programs and Services literature, and a discursive analysis of open-ended interviews with student services representatives which seeks both to understand and transgress conventional interpretations of the structure of Student Life. I demonstrate how University presentations of student bodies, minds and senses perceived to be lacking in ‘ordinary order’, can be reconceived as sites to reflect on the paramount presence of psychiatric knowledge in interpretations and responses to embodied difference within the university setting. Overall, this dissertation seeks to disrupt unexamined relations to the meaning of student types; and in the process, display how normative relations to the student as a figure of mental health and illness needs is currently and historically organized and socially achieved.

abstract: According to national data, there continues to be an ongoing achievement gap between students with disabilities and their non-disabled peers (USDE, n.d.b). This data is representative of a continued disparity in academic performance for students in local Arizona school districts. To address this gap, many districts have implemented inclusion models in which students with disabilities spend increasing amounts of time in general education classrooms, in some cases for the majority of or all of their school day. However, the persistence of the achievement gap suggests that general education teachers working in inclusion models may be lacking systematic instructional methods for ensuring access to the curriculum for those with disabilities and other diverse learning needs. The purpose of this action research study was to examine the impact that a series of professional development workshops had on teacher beliefs and understanding of disability, intelligence, and accessible pedagogy. The study was conducted over the course of a school semester at a kindergarten through 8th grade school in a large, semi-rural school district in southeastern Arizona. Ten teachers from a variety of grade levels and subject areas participated in the study along with a school psychologist and two school administrators. Theoretical frameworks guiding this project included critical disability theory, growth mindset, universal design for learning, and transformative learning theory. A mixed-methods action research approach was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data in the form of surveys, interviews, and written reflections. The workshop series included five modules that began with activities fostering critical reflection of assumptions regarding disability and intelligence and ended with pedagogical strategies in the form of universal design for learning. The results indicate that the innovation was successful in reshaping participant views of disability, intelligence, and pedagogy; however, changes in classroom instruction were small. Implications for future research and practice include more extended sessions on universal design for learning and a more diverse sample of participants. Workshop sessions utilized a variety of active learning activities that were well received by participants and will be included in future professional learning plans across the district. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2018

Students attending charter schools, including those with learning disabilities, are subject to policies set by individual charter management organizations. One practice used within some charter schools is grade-level retention, or having students repeat a grade level. Literature overwhelmingly indicates that retention is associated with negative outcomes, yet the practice continues to be used. One particular charter school that uses a strict retention policy and retains students with learning disabilities was studied to understand how the process unfolds. Using the conceptual frameworks of critical disability theory and critical pedagogy, the study draws inferences regarding how this phenomenon blends with ableism and power imbalances. Six teachers (four general education and two special education teachers) participated in interviews for this qualitative case study. Through triangulation of findings from individual and group interviews, trends were identified. A major finding showed that although retention is conceptualized as beneficial for the school to threat unmotivated students, for students with learning disabilities, retention is still regarded as highly ineffective and harmful. Decision making factors used with students with disabilities include particular individual characteristics, such as abilities and parental support. Discussion into participants’ perception of students with disabilities as inferior, and how retention as punishment asserts the school’s power, follows a review of concepts, effectiveness, and decision-making factors related to retention. Implications for educators to improve inclusive and fair school policies, in addition to rethinking traditional methods of analyzing school practices are discussed. Further research in various educational initiatives and areas of study are summarized.

The western world has long viewed ‘mental illness’ from a biomedical perspective; treating the brain the same way it treats physical issues, through diagnosis, medication and clinical intervention. We however tend to forget that a person is interdependent on her or his environment, and resultantly we frame the person as ill or weak rather than the environment as sick, or ‘mad’. With this thesis I assess how mental health and ‘mental illness’ are being framed within secondary schools in the province of Ontario (Canada). I achieve this by analyzing mental health strategies using a theoretical lens developed from Critical Disability Theory and Mad Studies. Through use of a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) I analyzed a total of 4 mental health strategies from the federal government, the Ontario government and 2 Ontario school boards. My findings indicated that these mental health strategies generally subscribe to a medical or individualized understandings of mental health, and overlook the disabling influence that the school environment can have on the student. By minimizing the role of the social and physical environment on student mental health schools are reinforcing the dominant discourse, which is that distresses in mental health are the result of an individual deficit caused by a brain defect or personal weakness. This discourse has far reaching consequences that may contribute to many Ontario students not receiving the support they desire. I contend that social workers employed by school boards can be influential in challenging these dominant framings of mental health and carry forward the standpoint that the school environment and its social structures play a principal role in the mental health of students. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

Background: Fat people are subjected to oppression including medical “obesity” rhetoric and fat discrimination which may affect their ability to experience an embodied relationship with their bodies. Aims: The aim of this study was to discover how self-identified fat female-bodied people understand their relationship with their bodies. Methods: Six participants were recruited for semi-structured interviews which were then analyzed in a constant comparative method. Findings: Five themes emerged from the data: dehumanization, acceptance of (the fat) body, empowerment, resistance, and dis<-->embodiment. Relationship with (the fat) body was identified by the participants as fraught with tension in a context that involves considering the positionality of “non-normative’ bodies, the value and importance of community, and a high degree of effort. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

Picturebooks with characters that have an intellectual disability provides an opportunity for children with and without disabilities of their own to identify with the story. The study examines a selection of five contemporary Swedish picturebooks for children that features characters with an intellectual disability. This study explores how ideologies of normalisation and inclusion influence the way these characters are presented and represented in text and imagery. Drawing from critical discourse analysis the aim of this text is to show if power relations in the story can provide different subject positions for the reading child to take. The results of the analysis show authentic and varied portrayals of characters with intellectual disability. There were two different kind of discourses on normality evident in the picture books: A child like everyone else and different like everyone else. The discourse of a child like everyone else means a perspective where the character with an intellectual disability is portrayed without a focus on the disability. This results in a normalization of the presence of a person with an intellectual disability but neglects to portray the specific experiences that character may have when it comes to their disability. The discourse of being different like everyone else gives a perspective on intellectual disability where difference is normal and part of everyday life. This perspective portrays disability and diversity as part of a normality.