When we talk about removing barriers, we cannot not mention how the different identities of an individual intersect with each other. We can’t just acknowledge one by ignoring the other because it’s easier.
“What makes people disabled is not their disability, is society” (ParalympicsGB, 2020). Society tends to see disability as a sole entity, as a problem to be solved and fix, looking mainly through the medical model lens. The social model of disability helps us understand and recognise the barriers that interfere and make life difficult. The barriers could be from the physical environment to how organisations run, how we communicate with each other but also people’s behaviours.
Christine Sun Kim in “Friends and Strangers” (Art21, 2023) talks about when she was not able to access classes in university when she was studying as they would not provide an interpreter. It was an instant reject with no consideration to support one of their students. She also also mentions how people would ask her why she doesn’t read lips (Art21, 2023). There’s this constant expectation that disabled people should fit in and adapt, conform in the able-bodied, neurotypical world instead.
Ade Adepitan (ParalympicsGB, 2020) talks about how the Paralympics is a good example of what happens when you remove barriers and “give people opportunities to shine” (ParalympicsGB, 2020). When we create inclusive and accessible environments, we create spaces for everyone where they can grow, create and flourish. However, we can’t ignore the intersectionality of an individual and how it shapes their life. Adepitan (ParalympicsGB, 2020) also notes how there’s an inbuilt racism within society systems which gives opportunities and remove barriers for certain people without creating a safe and inclusive society for all.
Accessibility can’t only focus on access certain parts such as having step free access or accessible toilets or focusing only creating policies and initiatives. It can’t only be a tick box exercise. We need a safe space and a community that understands that people are multidimensional. Include people that understand what accessibility and inclusion means who are coming from lived experiencem, in the conversation. “If you don’t see us, we have no place to be” (Art21, 2023)
I still remember vividly when I supported a colleague running workshop and there was a deaf student. The workshop included collaboration between the students. The immediate reaction from my colleague was to separate the student and to let them know that they can work with their interpreter instead of collaborating with the other students. I could see the disappointment on both the student and the interpreter. My colleague had made an assumption on what is best for the student without considering what the student actually wanted. I subtly intervene and included the student in one of the groups where they collaborated with the other students, and they all produce some really good work together.
Creating a safe space and a community is really important in education. Listening to the student needs is a key element to create a space that is inclusive and accessible and sees and understands intersectionality.
Society tends to hide, remove or fix anything that is not under its understanding of ‘normal’. Disability is one of them where society thinks by ‘tick-boxing’ they create an accessible and inclusive environment where instead are putting more barriers rather than removing them.
References
Art21 (2023) Christine Sun Kim in “Friends & Strangers” – Season 11 | Art21, 1 November, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI (Accessed: 25 May 2024)
Buder, S. & Perry, R. (2024) The Social Model of Disability Explained, Available at: https://www.thesocialcreatures.org/thecreaturetimes/the-social-model-of-disability (Accessed: 1 June 2024)
ParalympicsGB (2020) Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism, 16 October, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU&t=23s (Accessed: 25 May 2024)
ParalympicsGB (2023) Paralympian Karé Adenegan breaks down the intersectionality of race, disability and gender, 25 April, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRmi7-SiuTs (Accessed: 25 May 2024)
Parapride (2023) Intersectionality in Focus: Empowering Voices during UK Disability History Month 2023, 13 December, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yID8_s5tjc (Accessed: 25 May 2024)
TEDx Talks (2016) The Importance of Intersectional Accessibility in Activism | Hayden Kristal | TEDxMU, 2 June, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0I9kXwxIu0 (Accessed: 28 May 2024)
I strongly agree with your thoughts and sentiments in this post around the social model of disability and respect for disabled people’s autonomy. Referring to the interview with Ade Adepitan (2020), you point out the societal, systemic and structural discrimination of disabled people, which makes it more difficult for them to achieve their full potential.
Later in the post, you refer to your own experience of intervening during a workshop, when your colleague made an assumption about a deaf student and decided for them about their mode of class participation, leading to exclusion form a group exercise. You comment on the situation:
“Creating a safe space and a community is really important in education. Listening to the student needs is a key element to create a space that is inclusive and accessible and sees and understands intersectionality.”
‘Nothing about us without us’ is a slogan used by the disability rights community since the 1980s (Costanza-Chock, 2019), which was adapted by many other communities. Good intentions often aren’t enough and true equity and freedom can only be achieved while everyone’s respectful of other people’s autonomy and if there’s mutual trust that everyone knows best what they need. This should not be a reason for exclusion, but rather for a promoting plurality of voices, and celebrating diversity as a community. In the fields I work in, design and technology, this has produced community-oriented design approaches such as co-design (Cizek and Uricchio, 2022), which treat the co-designers as experts in their needs, demanding respect, acknowledgement and credits for their contribution. In a pedagogical context, I can see a parallel to bell hooks’s “Teaching to transgress” and in-class exchange of experiential knowledge (1994). Perhaps that is the way the way to introduce co-design to classroom environments not just in terms of knowledge sharing, but also creating inclusive environments?
References
Adepitan, A. (2020). Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism. Interviewed by Webborn, N. for ParalympicsGB. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU (accessed: 19.01.2025).
Cizek, K. and Uricchio, W. (2022). Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media for Equity and Justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Costanza-Chock, S. (2019). ‘Design Practices: “Nothing about Us without Us”‘. In: Design Justice. Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge.