Understanding Disability Frameworks in Higher Education Research

Abstract

We seek to expand the disability theoretical toolkits of higher education scholars to include frameworks that view disability as multivalent. We start by describing limitations scholars can encounter when employing traditional medical, social, and minority frameworks. Then, we draw upon: (1) the temporal and fluid understandings of disability in critical disability theory, (2) the value critical realism gives to the body, impairment, and the environment, and (3) the work of Deaf epistemologies to call attention to the varied communication methods disabled college students use to encourage the use of frameworks that promote intersectional understandings that are authentic to lived experiences. We extend scholars’ toolkits by encouraging the use of frameworks that value diverse human neurology and draw attention to the hegemonic dominance of Western thought. We conclude by discussing four implications and two limitations for higher education scholars.

Citation

Brown, K., Peña, E., Broido, E., Stapleton, L. and Evans, N. (2019), "Understanding Disability Frameworks in Higher Education Research", Theory and Method in Higher Education Research (Theory and Method in Higher Education Research, Vol. 5), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 19-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2056-375220190000005003