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Ample literature has demonstrated that workers in the creative industries are excluded in terms of gender, race and class. Fewer studies, however, have examined the career advancement challenges faced by creators with disabilities. Drawing on insights from the established-outsider theory, this study aims to fill this lacuna.

The participants were 24 creators in the Israeli film and television industries (FTIs) contending with severe forms of mental or physical and sensory impairment. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore practitioners’ conceptions of the challenges they face in making careers in the FTI, as well as how they contend with these challenges.

Intergroup dynamics yield an established-outsider figuration that situates creators with disabilities in a marginal occupational position in the FTI. Creators with disabilities' lack of access to networks of prominent creators place them in a disadvantageous position in the ongoing struggles over scarce resources in the FTI. The structural features of the FTI, which are intertwined with the social mechanisms of stigmatization and exclusion, make it difficult to breach any figuration once established. In defiance of their occupational figuration, creators with disabilities utilize two tactics aimed at professional advancement: hyper-meritocracy and advocacy. These tactics yield only partial success.

This study does not represent the voices of decision-makers in the film and television industries in Israel.

Implications are suggested regarding the role of culture funds as well as policymakers in advancing workforce diversity and opportunity in the film and television industries.

This study addresses covert and unspoken barriers to equality in the creative workforce. The findings also shed light on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on workforce diversity and opportunity in the FTI.

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.

What currently constitutes participation in schools? Who decides what ‘counts’ as engagement and who is excluded by and in those decisions? When and how do those ideas change? How can broadening conceptualizations of voice, agency and participation – driven by the voices of individuals who do not rely solely on verbal speech to communicate – foster inclusivity in schools and community? In this chapter, we draw from our experiences as researchers, scholars, educators, colleagues and friends who live and work alongside non-speaking and unreliably speaking ¹ people who type, point or use other forms of augmentative and alternative communication. We lay out foundational concepts underlying experiences of neurodivergent communicators, followed by illustrative examples and action steps for change. Geared towards educators and support professionals working to sustain spaces more inclusive of a range of voices in schools, this chapter continues a productive conversation within the Disability Studies in Education (DSE) community around inclusivity in research and in practice.

The purpose of this paper is to unpack the tenuous relationship between medical sociology and disability studies, particularly as it relates to the work of Irving Zola.

Many attribute the division between these disciplines to their starkly different and oft competing approaches to disability; however, I argue that a closer examination reveals a number of commonalities between the two.

I use Irving K. Zola’s extensive body of scholarship to demonstrate the connections between these divergent approaches to disability, and imagine what his legacy has to offer to the advancement of a diverse sociology of disability.

Neither focus is more correct than the other, as considering these bodies of work together presents a number of opportunities to advance a more comprehensive sociological theory – not just of disability – but of ableism and its intersections with other forms of oppression as well.

Purpose – This chapter examines the relationship between prenatal testing, Down syndrome identification, and selective termination practices, and it does so by considering whether the selective termination of fetuses with Down syndrome might constitute genocidal practices.

Methodology/approach – Exploratory and speculative in nature, this chapter brings the phenomenon of prenatal testing and selective termination practices together, and explores whether the increasingly widespread termination of fetuses with Down syndrome fits within definitions of genocide.

Findings – Addressing perceptions of Down syndrome and disability, and integrating aspects of crip politics and definitions of genocide, this chapter concludes that the phenomenon of selective termination involving fetuses with Down syndrome can constitute genocide when particular definitions and interpretations are adopted.

Originality/value – This chapter is perhaps the first academic text to critically evaluate the relationship between prenatal testing, selective termination of fetuses with Down syndrome, and criminological genocide scholarship. Importantly, it does not evaluate individual decision-making practices regarding termination, but instead focuses on collective practices and conditions that work to minimize the number of people with Down syndrome in society.

This critical content analysis aims to examine the depiction of oppression in the 2022 Notable Social Studies Trade Books (K-2). From the framework of major types and levels of oppression, this paper sheds light on the rich affordances and problematic representations of oppression.

From the perspectives of an intersectional approach and the framework of oppression, the authors conducted a critical content analysis of the written texts, illustrations and peritexts of the notable books for young readers.

Among the 73 picturebooks, 46 (63%) include representations of oppression in the written texts and/or illustrations. Half of these books depict more than one type of oppression. The most frequently represented oppression is racism, followed by sexism. There are limited depictions of homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, antisemitism and Islamophobia. Nine books (20%) only include the representation of oppression in the peritexts.

This study contributes to anti-oppressive education by offering a theoretical framework of oppression, which emphasizes the interlocking systems of oppression. This framework can help foster a holistic understanding of oppression and dismantle it in a holistic way.

The authors also offer suggestions to help educators curate picturebooks for anti-oppressive social studies education.

This study contributes to anti-oppressive education by offering a theoretical framework of oppression, which emphasizes the interlocking systems of oppression. This framework can help foster a holistic understanding of oppression and dismantle it in a holistic way. The authors also offer suggestions to help educators curate picturebooks for anti-oppressive social studies education.

In this article, we highlight ways in which disability critical race theory (DisCrit) (Annamma et al., 2013), inclusive education and community-based participatory research (CBPR) can be used within professional development schools (PDS) to provide students with disabilities with more access to inclusive classrooms. At a grade 4–6 elementary school, we developed a model of a critical PDS to promote inclusive education and facilitate the transition of students of color with disabilities from self-contained to inclusive classrooms. We conducted semi-structured interviews and used action plan meetings with school administrators, teachers, professionals and students with disabilities and their parents to assess the impact of our critical PDS model. Findings suggest this model had a positive impact on administrators’ and teachers’ critical consciousness, ideological and instructional practices, students of color with disabilities’ social, academic and personal outcomes, as well as a schoolwide culture of inclusion and social justice. This study can inform tailored professional development efforts to improve educators’ inclusive practices.

We conducted semi-structured interviews and used action plan meetings with school administrators, teachers, professionals and students with disabilities and their parents to assess the impact of our critical PDS model.

The findings of this study suggest this model had a positive impact on administrators’ and teachers’ critical consciousness, ideological and instructional practices, students of color with disabilities’ social, academic and personal outcomes, as well as a schoolwide culture of inclusion and social justice.

This study can inform tailored professional development efforts aiming to improve educators’ inclusive practices.

We developed a model of a critical PDS to promote inclusive education and facilitate the transition of students of color with disabilities from self-contained to inclusive classrooms.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990, comprehensively addressing the life needs and civil rights of people with disabilities (PWDs). Although the ADA would prohibit discrimination in the workforce, public services, transportation, and information, therefore spurring efforts by private and public institutions to plan for and adopt accessible environments and practices, the actual voice and experience of PWDs often remains unacknowledged, even on university campuses and in academic programs that purport to have progressive ideals. This chapter examines the efforts made by one midsized, comprehensive, American university not only to remove architectural, social, and academic barriers to student success as required by law, but to establish an academic voice for the disability experience and the disability rights movement through the newly founded Accessibility Studies Program.