Faculty

Anthropology

Supervisor Name

Kim Clark, Andrew Walsh

Keywords

Disability, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Access Fatigue, Accessible Teaching, Pandemic, Flexible assignment deadlines, lived experience, class delivery

Description

In the context of the "return to normal" on university campuses in the ongoing pandemic, our research team wondered what students with disabilities could tell us about what makes university classes and services more and less accessible to them, and in that broader context, what pandemic modifications they hope continue. After two years of innovation, if we rush back to normal, we are at risk of squandering hard-won new skills, technology, and insights that are of broad value for all students. Disabled students' experiences and perspectives, as reported in 80 survey responses and 16 interviews, disrupt common assumptions about accessibility and the disabled population at universities and in Canada.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Western's USRI program, and faculty advisors Kim Clark and Andrew Walsh of the Anthropology department for their ongoing dedication and support.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Document Type

Paper

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University Students With Disabilities, Accessibility, and the "Return to Normal"

In the context of the "return to normal" on university campuses in the ongoing pandemic, our research team wondered what students with disabilities could tell us about what makes university classes and services more and less accessible to them, and in that broader context, what pandemic modifications they hope continue. After two years of innovation, if we rush back to normal, we are at risk of squandering hard-won new skills, technology, and insights that are of broad value for all students. Disabled students' experiences and perspectives, as reported in 80 survey responses and 16 interviews, disrupt common assumptions about accessibility and the disabled population at universities and in Canada.

 

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