Important ideas and terms
The strategies shared on the Accessible Pedagogy webpage are informed by some key frameworks that help us understand why some people’s bodies, minds, identities, and lived experiences tend to be valued over others in a school context. Click on the definitions below for more information about each term.
Able-ism
Talila A. Lewis has developed a working definition of ableism:
“able·ism /ˈābəˌlizəm/ noun
A system of assigning value to people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-Blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism.
This systemic oppression that leads to people and society determining people's value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth or living place, "health/wellness", and/or their ability to satisfactorily re/produce, "excel" and "behave."
You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.”
What Does “Disability Justice” Mean?
Disability Justice is a social movement, a set of strategies, and a way of engaging with the world that centers intersectional and liberatory approaches to disability and access.
- Sometimes, people use the term “disability justice” when they mean “disability rights” or “disability inclusion.” But these are all different frameworks!
- Disability inclusion is a broad term to describe approaches to advance access and inclusion for disabled people.
- Disability rights work focuses on affirming the legal and civil rights of disabled people.
Both paradigms focus on including disabled people into the world as it currently exists. A Disability Justice lens is invested in building a new world together, by dismantling the systems of power that shape our society and centring the wisdom and experiences of Black, Indigenous and racialized queer and trans disabled people.
The Origins of Disability Justice
The term “Disability Justice” was coined out of conversations between disabled queer women of colouractivists in 2005, including Patty Berne of Sins Invalid (and Mia Mingus & Stacy Milbern, who eventually joined with Leroy Moore, Eli Clare, and Sebastian Margaret) seeking to challenge civil rights movements that were fighting to be included in existing structures and spaces.
As Sins Invalid writes, "Disability Justice was built because the Disability Rights Movement and Disability Studies do not inherently centralize the needs and experiences of folks experiencing intersectional oppression, such as disabled people of color, immigrants with disabilities, queers with disabilities, trans and gender non-conforming people with disabilities, people with disabilities who are houseless, people with disabilities who are incarcerated, people with disabilities who have had their ancestral lands stolen, amongst others."
The Disability Justice framework recognizes how white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, and ableism all work together in reproducing the idea that some people's bodies and minds ‘deviant’, ‘unproductive’, ‘disposable’ and/or ‘invalid’.
Read more here about the 10 principles of disability justice10 principles of disability justice.
In order to respect the disruptive spirit of this paradigm, it’s important not to simply add it to an “equity, diversity, and inclusion” checklist. Instead, Disability Justice provokes us to ask: what would post-secondary education look like if it was fundamentally transformed? What would post-secondary education look like if we placed the needs and leadership of Black, Indigenous, racialized queer and trans disabled people at the centre of our vision?
What is Universal Design for Learning (UDL)?
UDL is a framework for teaching and learning, created by CAST. It is based on the principles of Universal Design in architecture, which seek to ensure that built environments can be used to the greatest extent possible by as many people as possible. Just like Universal Design asserts that people with a variety of different access needs can and should fully participate in public space, UDL assumes that learners who are traditionally failed and pushed out of classroom environments – including but not limited to learners with disabilities – are valuable members of a learning community who deserve to be supported.
To learn more about UDL, visit the TLX UDL webpages.
You may also access the open educational resource certificate course: Universal Design for Learning: Inspiring Equity and Inclusion in Higher Education.
For those interested in taking part in GBC’s UDL certification cohort, you can fill out a registration form to sign up for the next offering.
