Deaf and hard of hearing faculty in higher education: enhancing access,equity, policy,and practice

Higher education institutions are often well prepared in terms of accommodation policies and practices for disabled students. Ironically, campuses are often not prepared once disabled academics return as faculty. Most are particularly unfamiliar with the unique access needs of deaf or hard of hearing academics. This can result in career hindrances to employment and tenure, as well as potential losses to campuses in terms of diversity. Background and substantiation on this access issue is provided along with recommendations for policy-making and practices for campuses that are geared to ensuring career success for deaf and hard of hearing faculty.     

Challenges,Barriers, and Opportunities: Social Workers With Disabilities and Experiences in Field Education

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of social work students with disabilities in field education. This qualitative inquiry used semistructured interviews exploring inclusion and accommodations in field education. The 15 participants were graduates of accredited BSW or MSW programs and reported one to five disabilities each. Four themes emerged: different experiences with visible versus invisible disability, confusion about accommodation, field as a learning opportunity regarding disability, and a sense of isolation being a social worker with a disability. This study provides information valuable to social work educators and field instructors regarding strategies for improving opportunities for students with disabilities as future social workers, aligning with the mission and values of the social work profession.     

Children in Foster Care: A Longitudinal Investigation,by David Fanshel and Eugene B. Shinn. Columbia University Press,New York, 1978. $25. 520 Pp.

This article presents findings of an exploratory study addressing social work program practices regarding psychiatric disabilities among social work students. An e-mail invitation to participate in an online survey was sent to approximately 875 social work educators, with 71 individuals choosing to participate. The findings indicated that 88% of respondents were in programs that had made accommodations and slightly less than 33% were in programs that had psychiatric disability policies. A positive relationship between ratings of the effectiveness of the accommodations and ratings of employability of students with psychiatric disabilities was found. These findings suggest that additional studies are needed to identify effective ways to deal with the complex legal and educational issues involved with accommodations and support.     

Backlash against the inclusion of students with learning disabilities in higher education: Implications for transition from post-secondary environments to work

Individuals with learning disabilities (LD), the largest group of people with disabilities in the United States, are attending college in greater numbers than ever before. Post-secondary training is critical for individuals with LD to make successful transitions into a changing and ever more demanding world of work. Research indicating that college faculty are willing to provide requested accommodations to students with LD suggests that they are increasingly likely to experience successful post-secondary outcomes, and therefore improve their vocational prospects. However, college students with LD and the accommodations they receive have recently garnered some highly critical press. These portrayals may portend problems in higher education for students with LD, who must self-identify and make specific accommodation requests to faculty in order to receive the instruction and testing environments that they require to succeed. Efforts to ensure that the LD label is not ubiquitously applied and that college faculty attempt to separate the idea of merit from achievement and implement instructional practices to better meet the educational needs of students with and without LD are recommended.     

User needs evaluation of workplace accommodations

This study examined the multi-faceted issues surrounding workplace accommodation for workers with disabilities. A user needs survey of 510 disabled individuals examined the types of technology and accommodations needed to perform work and employment-related activities. Workers with disabilities used a variety of workplace accommodations to overcome difficulties with functional limitations. Some differences existed in the types of accommodations used by older and younger workers who had the same functional limitation. Workers of all ages were not likely to report mental limitations, and those who did were not likely to utilize workplace accommodations, with the exception of some memory strategies. For those with hearing loss, younger workers used sign language more frequently, while pre-retirement and retirement age workers used more hearing aids. Working age adults with vision impairments used electronic documents, Braille, and CCTVs more than pre-retirement or retirement age workers. Regardless of age, workers reporting functional limitations often received no workplace accommodations.     

Disability Services and College Students with Psychiatric Disabilities

Abstract

Weiner (1999) has suggested that the process of accepting a disability and its associated limitations is often protracted for students with psychiatric disabilities, thus leaving many students unable to fully participate in services or in the design of academic accommodations. This research examines the relationship between psychiatric disability identity and use of academic accommodation services for 57 undergraduates with psychiatric impairments who are experiencing problems in their academic functioning. Willingness to utilize services was related to students' identification as having a psychiatric disability. Social work interventions are needed to support students in accepting psychiatric disabilities while concurrently crafting necessary accommodations.     

Incorporating disabled students within an inclusive higher education environment

This study investigated disabled students' perceptions and experiences of learning in a single university. The paper reports the views of disabled student volunteers with a range of impairments who were selected to discuss experiences of teaching and assessment that they commonly encountered. Four group interviews were organized in 2002, before the Disability Discriminants Act (DDA) part IV came on stream, in which disabled students were invited to reflect together on their experiences as learners at the case study university. In addition to teaching and assessment, the students also identified issues to do with access to, and the use of, information as important in their learning experience. We conclude that further studies will need to adopt a more integrated approach to understanding disabled students' experiences as learners.     

Housing and transport: access issues for disabled international students in British universities

This article explores two disabled people’s ‘Seven Needs’ to independent living, those of ‘housing’ and ‘transport’ issues, in relation to disabled international students in British universities. Firstly, students’ living arrangements, including issues related to the suitability of university accommodation to their disability-related needs, have been identified. Secondly, the choice and accessibility of transport used is examined. A range of barriers that this group of students encounter based on their double or multiple identities as ‘disabled’, ‘international’ and sometimes ‘mature’ or ‘postgraduate’ students has thus been identified and discussed. The article highlights the barriers that are reinforced and exacerbated by the interplay of students’ different identities, proposing ways of removing these difficulties.     

Transition and the community college: a Career Keys model for students with disabilities

Transition models are needed that address multiple phases in the postsecondary education of students with disabilities. These models must first address the recruitment of high school students with disabilities for community colleges through career exploration experiences that help students clarify their educational and vocational interests and relate those interests to a two-year postsecondary program. Students with disabilities then need a comprehensive service program while attending community college to help them identify accommodation needs in classroom and workplace environments and develop the skills to request such accommodations from their instructors and employers. With this skill base, they are well prepared to initiate the next transition in their lives, that is, the movement from the community college to a four-year educational institution or to employment. Programs are needed to facilitate this transition, such as a placement planning seminar involving rehabilitation professionals and employers and an accommodation follow-up assessment with students in their new educational and employment settings. The "Career Keys" model describes how to deliver the services needed in each of these critical transition phases.     

Disabling Environments and the Geography of Access Policies and Practices

Writings about disabled people are usually aspatial or lack geographical frames of reference. This is curious because geography is fundamental to an understanding of the social, economic, and political opportunities and/or constraints underpinning the lives of disabled people. This paper develops the contention that geographical and/or spatial terms of reference are important in understanding disabled people's lives. In developing this point, the paper seeks to describe and account for geographical variations in local authority policies and practices in addressing disabled people's access needs in the built environment. The paper adopts and develops, after Mark-Lawson & Warde (1987), the concept of 'local political environment' as a basis for understanding spatial variations in local authority policies and practices. Such ideas, in turn, are deployed with reference to postal survey and case study data, where I describe and explain aspects of the geography of access policies and practices in the United Kingdom. I conclude by noting that geographical frameworks and/or perspectives ought to be incorporated, where appropriate, into studies of disabled people and public policy processes.     

Learning Disability and the New Poor Law in England, 1834-1867

Scholars have paid surprisingly little attention to the role of the state in the provision of accommodation for the learning disabled before the twentieth century. This paper will address this lacuna by investigating the fate of pauper 'idiots' in Victorian England. As this paper will illustrate, 'idiots' and 'imbeciles' fell under two overlapping jurisdictions-the Poor Law Board and the Lunacy Commission. The tension between the two systems led to a call for a different type of asylum-a hybrid of the county asylums and pauper workhouses-that was eventually constituted under the authority of the Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1867. This paper illuminates the local negotiations which resulted in the congregation of 'idiots' and 'imbeciles' in Poor Law Union workhouses, and explores the nineteenth-century ideology of 'moral treatment', which devalued the learning disabled as 'incurable' and thus unworthy of expensive, specialised state provision.     

The Role of Access Groups in Facilitating Accessible Environments for Disabled People

This paper considers the contrasting ways in which disabled people seek to overturn socio-attitudinal, political and physical barriers to their mobility and access requirements in the built environment. In particular, the paper documents how disabled people are attempting to influence the form and content of local authority access practices and policies in the UK, through the context and contours of access groups. I begin by briefly outlining some of the key factors inhibiting and facilitating disabled people organising as effective political groupings, relating the material to access issues in the built environment. Then, using case studies of two contrasting access groups, the paper explores some of the practical barriers, problems and opportunities connected to disabled people's activities in seeking to influence local authority access policies and practices. I conclude by discussing how some of the wider structural and agency-level constraints on disabled people's political and policy interventions in access issues might be removed.     

Editorial

Abstract

This comprehensive research study examined how schools of social work in Canada have responded to disability issues. The study focused upon specific policies and practices ofthe Canadian schools of social work which have been developed to create a more inclusive environment for students, staff, and faculty members with disabilities and to prepare students for practice in dealing with individuals who are disabled. A ten page survey consisting of closed and opened-ended questions was sent to the deans and directors of the thirty-five schools of social work in Canada. This study found that although there have been significant changes in these schools over the last ten years, there are many barriers to disability inclusion from recruitment and admissions; accommodations; retention, graduation, and employment; curriculum; hiring faculty and staff with disabilities; and university relations/resources. It concludes with recommendations for schools of social work.     

Access to higher education for disabled students in South Africa: a contradictory conjuncture of benevolence, rights and the social model of disability

The structures of support services for disabled students in the South African higher education system find themselves in a contradictory conjuncture of rights, benevolence and the social model of disability. To elucidate this argument, this paper (a) outlines the status of support provisions for disabled students in South Africa; (b) compares the state of these support provisions with those of the UK and the USA; (c) compares the different paths taken by South Africa and the developed countries in general towards disability rights. It concludes that South Africa seems to be moving along a contradictory path and that it should make a commitment to prioritize equal access to higher education for disabled students.     

Career Maturity in College Students With Learning Disabilities

This study compared levels of career maturity between college students with and without learning disabilities and investigated factors associated with career maturity. Few differences in career maturity were found. However, different predictors of career maturity for the two groups emerged. For students with learning disabilities, number of accommodations and quantity of work experience accounted for 22% of the variance in career maturity. For students without disabilities, academic achievement and type of work experience accounted for 21% of the variance in career maturity. Students with learning disabilities who received more instructional accommodations had lower levels of career maturity.     

Focusing on Disability and Access in the Built Environment

This paper provides a documentation and discussion of the diverse experiences that different disabled people have with regards to access in the built environment. It begins by outlining the various ways in which disabled people's access needs and requirements are articulated in public policies and practices towards the development and regulation of the built environment. As the material indicates, disabled people's needs are poorly articulated and/or represented in the design and development of the built environment while the regulatory controls which oversee disabled people's access are weak. In the second part of the paper, disabled people's values, attitudes and practices towards access in the built environment are discussed by referring to the findings of focus group research. The material shows that many disabled people feel estranged and oppressed by facets of the built environment and generally feel powerless to do anything about it. We conclude by suggesting a number of ways of interconnecting the design and implementation of public policy towards the built environment with the daily lived experiences of disabled people.     

'Because they have all the power and I have none': state restructuring of income and employment supports and disabled women's lives in Ontario, Canada

We examine the connections between neo-liberal forms of state restructuring and intervention in disabled people's lives, looking in particular at how these have affected disabled women's experiences of an income support program, the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), in Ontario, Canada. We first outline why and how state programs have been re-designed and implemented in increasingly harsh ways as a result of such neo-liberal forms of state restructuring. Even groups formerly considered among the 'deserving poor' have found their access to social assistance diminished. We then argue that this is an outcome of state programs, policies and practices which are re-asserting and more deeply entrenching 'ableness' as a necessary condition of citizenship, inclusion and access to justice. Finally, we illustrate how disabled women's lives and well-being have been altered as a result of changes in the provision of these forms of state assistance using in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 women in Ontario.     

Social work Education and Students with Disabilities: Implications of Section 504 and the ADA

Abstract

This article addresses major educational issues related to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Because students with disabilities are entering higher education in ever larger numbers, and with greater expectations for accommodation than those of a generation ago, social work educators and administrators should be aware of the implications of these two statutes and relevant case law for admissions, classroom accommodations, and field placements.     

Workplace accommodations: evidence based outcomes

One central component to meaningful employment for people with disabilities is the ADA's workplace accommodation provision that allows qualified individuals to perform essential job functions. Little empirical evidence is available to evaluate the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of accommodations. Previous research has focused on direct costs. This article advocates an inclusive accommodation cost/benefit analysis to include direct and indirect costs and benefits and to differentiate disability-related accommodation costs from typical employee costs. The inclusive cost/benefit analysis is applied to preliminary data from interviews with employers who contacted the Job Accommodation Network (JAN). Results suggest that accommodations are low cost, beneficial and effective.     

The experience of disabled and non-disabled students on professional practice placements in the United Kingdom

There are limited comparisons between the experience of disabled students in higher education and their non-disabled peers, particularly on practice placements. This article presents the results of such a comparison, across six professional disciplines in one UK university. The results revealed that both disabled and non-disabled students reported positive placement experiences and also similar difficulties. Such difficulties were exacerbated for some disabled students, however, including as a consequence of the attitudes of others to disability. Recommendations for practice are identified that aim to enhance the placement experience of all students and to remove barriers to access.