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In this chapter, we explore perceptions of exclusion and inclusion among students registered with the office of disability services at a large urban university in the United States. Our goal is to extend the current discourse on inclusion in higher education settings by drawing attention to social and cultural participation as an underemphasized aspect of educational inclusion and by bringing the perspectives of university students themselves into the discourse. While the general consensus among our interviewees seemed to be that schools and universities do a reasonably good job of developing classroom accommodations to meet their individual academic needs, stigma and social exclusion persist in damaging ways, in and outside of the classroom. A number of participants found solace and empowerment in interactions with other students with disabilities and suggested that until the forces of exclusion and stigmatization can be entirely eradicated, disability-friendly social and cultural activities and spaces designed by and for students with disabilities might provide an oasis of relief in a disabling world. Thus, we conclude that in addition to working towards the ultimate goal of making all aspects of university life disability-friendly, universities might better serve needs of current students by providing social spaces in which students with disabilities can socialize with each other and through which they might co-create and promote their own agendas for future institutional change.

In this chapter, we examine narratives of inclusion and exclusion told by professional performers with lifelong impairments who are successfully leading “inclusive” lives in order to bring their voices and experiences to the attention of academics, educators, policy makers, and service providers. We draw on stories told during in-depth interviews with 10 disabled comedians conducted as part of a larger project on the complex seemingly paradoxical relationship between disability and humor. We take an interpretive approach to our data collection and analysis consistent with principles of the emancipatory tradition in disability studies. These performers clearly value the inclusive childhoods their families provided. As children, they were educated in inclusive settings and participated in a wide variety of activities – often centering on the performing arts. Their rich and varied experiences (even the negative ones) have provided both fuel for performance and confidence to push back against attempts by others to exclude them from social and professional life in the everyday world. Their inclusive childhoods, however, are not entirely without a downside. In many cases, they did not develop a sense of disability pride, or even a disability identity, until they had opportunities to interact with others who have impairments during the transition to adulthood. For children raised in more inclusive settings, a conscious effort to provide opportunities to engage with other children and adults with impairments may be an important adjunct to inclusion.