The Inaccessible Road Not Taken: The Trials, Tribulations And Successes Of Disability Inclusion Within Social Work Post-Secondary Education (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
Students with disabilities are participating in postsecondary education at increased rates, and social work educators are increasingly involved in improving accessibility for these students. In these roles, social work educators must actively work to challenge social and institutional discrimination against people with disabilities. Using a conceptual framework of stigma, this paper examines the cultural attitudes and beliefs that have marginalized people with disabilities, and explores opportunities and barriers for students with disabilities in postsecondary education. Additionally, this paper examines the role of the social work educator in advocating for greater access and opportunities in postsecondary education for these students by making interventions in practice, policy, and research.
Disability and Social Work Education in the United Kingdom
Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 2014
Social workers come into the lives of disabled persons on a daily basis. Yet, few schools of social work have a strong disability curricular focus. The researchers report on findings of a survey of disability and social work education in the United Kingdom. The findings include data on course offerings, curricula, field experiences, policies, equity policies regarding admission, and the number of disabled faculty and students in each program. Similarities and differences in supporting the unsettling of ableism, as well as advances pertaining to disability inclusion are discussed.
Understanding the Impact of Inclusion in Disability Studies Education
Impact of Diversity on Organization and Career Development, 2015
Educators and practitioners are faced with the transitioning and intersection of two diverse disability studies education models—the medical model and the social model—and the models' effects on career development. This chapter focuses on how individuals with disabilities were transitioned into diversity and inclusion processes and then integrated into the organization and career development structure. Once left out of the measures of performance through education, learners with disabilities, in 1997, clearly became identified in the federal and state answerability systems. This chapter advocates for the social model. Additionally, respondents show how self-identifying as a person with a disability, even anonymously, can be difficult for some people. Readers will better understand the terms diversity, disability, and inclusion through the disability studies lenses, but the question remains, Have we come a long way or are scholars and practitioners floundering in today's soci...
Social work field education: believing in students who are living with a disability
Disability & Society, 2014
This paper is an exploration of social work placements with students who are living with a disability. The paper discusses hurdles including censoring placements and opportunities, equal access, strategies for building a belief in ability and self-esteem. Field education is a significant part of the social work degree internationally. It allows social work students to further develop their social work identity and to apply their knowledge to professional practice through real-life learning. The paper broadens the conversation on social work placements and ability, adding some personal narratives and sharing some insights from an Australian university context.
Disability content has been slowly integrated into social work curricula despite the large proportion of social workers supporting people with disabilities and its requirement in social work education by the Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards. Schools of social work offer disability content to their students in three ways: infused, dedicated (specialization), or a combination of both. A content analysis of 1620 course titles and descriptions from the top schools of social work was conducted to assess the integration of disability content into social work curricula. Eighty percent of the schools included disability content in their curriculum. Disability content was more likely to be integrated using the infused rather than the dedicated model.
Creation of a Canadian Disability Studies Program: A Convergence of Multiple Pathways
Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 2012
This paper reports on the beginnings of the Disability Studies Program, University of Windsor (2011a), by describing the converging pathways of several events. Influential collaborative processes that occurred between major disability organizations and academics with the courage to promote change proceeded program development in disability studies. Choosing a philosophical approach, based on the social model of disability assured a critical approach to studying disability, enabling the program to address the desire to confront existing oppression and to produce graduates with expertise in many areas relevant to this goal. Most importantly, supportive individuals and organizations from the community made the Disability Studies Program, at the University of Windsor, a reality. The authors summarize the developments that preceded and followed the inauguration of the Disability Studies Program and make suggestions about further improvements.
Inclusion of disability issues in teaching and research in higher education
Evidence suggests that the lack of inclusion of disability issues in the curricula of higher education institutions may result in the perpetuation of practices that discriminate against disabled people in the broader society. In light of this claim, this article investigates whether and how disability issues are included in the teaching and research of three faculties at the University of Cape Town (UCT), namely the faculties of Health Sciences, Humanities, and Engineering and the Built Environment. A survey of disability inclusion was conducted across the faculties, followed by interviews with selected participants. The study revealed low levels of disability inclusion, and that disability is not viewed as an issue of social justice and transformation overall. However, there are pockets of inclusion, the nature of which differs for each faculty. In the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, disability is included as an issue of legislation, space and environment, while the Faculty of Humanities focuses on the sociocultural and socio-economic impact of disability, and the Faculty of Health Sciences introduces disability with an emphasis on individual impairment, environmental effects, community-based rehabilitation and inclusive development, as well as the prevention and management of disability. We propose the creation of an institutional system that will build the capacity of lecturers to include disability in teaching and research across faculties, in line with UCT's transformation agenda.
Involvement of Persons with Disability in the Education of Social Work Students
Annual of Social Work, 2009
The article presents the results of a research conducted with the persons with disability included in the teaching process at the Department of Social Work in Zagreb. The participants of the research were persons with disability who, for a number of years, have been participating as exterior collaborators in the education process of social work students as lecturers from the practice or field instructors in associations in which the students complete their placements. The aim of the research was to gain insight into the perception and the experience of participation of the persons with disability in the teaching process in the field of social work. The data were gathered during conversations in the focus group. The analysis of participants' statements reveal four categories related to different themes of user involvement in the education process: (1) Experience of user participation in the teaching process; (2) Importance of personal user experience which the users wish to conve...