Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Autism And The Body Of Christ: Understanding, Accommodating, And Accepting Autistic Believers In The Church, Kaitlyn Cook

Senior Honors Theses

Autism is a neurotype that causes a different set of strengths and weaknesses and thus should be embraced and accommodated within the church. Not only are autistic believers able to grasp Christian concepts, but they also have different perspectives and skills that can be instrumental in building up the church. Promoting a correct view of autism and accommodating neurodiversity within the church will allow autistic believers to follow God’s command to be part of a body and build up the church. The church can employ several strategies to create an accessible environment for believers on the spectrum, including creating sensory-safe …

Disclosing A Disability At Work: Respect, Discrimination, And The Ethics Of Informal Attitudes, Honors College, Department Of Philosophy

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Adam Cureton is an internationally recognized disability scholar and activist who specializes in ethics and the philosophy of disability. His books, which draw on his own experiences as a legally blind person, include Disability and Disadvantage, Disability in Practice, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability, and the forthcoming Respecting Disability. He founded and served as president of the Society for Philosophy and Disability and helped to create the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Disabled People. He is a Rhodes Scholar and currently serves as the Lindsay Young Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee.

The Impact Of Preaching The Image Of God As Disability-Inclusive, Laurie E. Thompson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

According to Howard (2010), the North American Mission Board (NAMB) considers the disabled community in America to be unreached by the church. Hardwick (2021) also writes, “The disability community is the most unique community, the largest minority group in the world” (p. 12). This quantitative descriptive research study explored the frequency of preaching the biblical principle imago Dei, found in Genesis 1:27, in a way that includes the disabled, and how this preaching may impact disability-inclusivity in the church. The Word of God states, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them” …

Spatial Disaggregation Of Poverty And Disability: Application To Tanzania, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Estimating poverty measures for disabled people in developing countries is often difficult, partly because relevant data are not readily available. We extend the small-area estimation developed by Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2002, 2003) to estimate poverty by the disability status of the household head, when the disability status is unavailable in the survey. We propose two alternative approaches to this extension: Aggregation and Instrumental Variables Approaches. We apply these approaches to data from Tanzania and show that both approaches work. Our estimation results show that disability is indeed positively associated with poverty in every region of mainland Tanzania.

Hailey's Hearing Aids, Hailey Marie Garcia

Whittier Scholars Program

Individuals from the deaf and hard-of-hearing community are likely to experience more anxiety and depression due to defective cognitive, social, communicational, and emotional skills (Azizi et al., 2019). The word “disability” is embedded with historical negative connotations with phrases such as “deaf and dumb” because if they were deaf or mute then they were automatically labeled as inferior (Horovitz, 2007). Since the 18th century, the DHH community has been seen as incapable, even inhuman, hence the development of emotional deficiencies that bleed into one’s perception of society and their self esteem (Gallaudet, 1886).

How do you navigate a hearing world …

Inhabiting "Sore Butt Cracks": Queering The U.S. Long-Term Care System, Alison Lawrence

Women's and Gender Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

In the face of a failing long-term care system, the author positions a queer theoretical lens as a potential source of creativity and empathy to help us build a care system that supports the dignity and personhood of all patients. The comedic work of a long-term care patient, Youtuber Clay-The-Comedian, is analyzed through a queer-theories lens as a new approach to long-term care that celebrates the personhood of all types of bodies, while also never diminishing the often difficult reality that folks in need of care face. This queer rhetoric engages with the messy, embodied experiences of patients to develop …

Cognitive Difficulty In The Five Boroughs Of New York City, 2000-2019, Marjorine Henriquez-Castillo

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

the percentage of people with cognitive difficulty reported in 2000, 2010, and 2019 among residents in New York City. Specifically, residents from the five boroughs in New York City—Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island—were included in this analysis.

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use …

Latinos With Disability In Massachusetts, Phillip Granberry, Vishakha Agarwal

Gastón Institute Publications

A disability, as defined by the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), is an individual’s physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Data from the 2016-2020 American Community Survey identify six disability types: hearing, vision, cognitive, ambulatory, self-care, and independent living difficulty. In Massachusetts, approximately 108,000 Latinos have one or more of these disabilities compared to 738,000 Non-Latinos. This report examines demographic and economic characteristics of Latinos and Non-Latinos with disabilities in Massachusetts.

Are Hispanics Less Likely To Receive Vocational Rehabilitation Services?, Alberto Migliore, John Shepard

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

In the US, 16% of people with cognitive disabilities self-report to be of Hispanic ethnicity (US Census Bureau, FY 2020). However, among people with intellectual disabilities who received vocational rehabilitation services, only 11% (-5%) are Hispanic (N = 32,823, RSA911, FY2020).

Disability And Healthcare Access In Morocco: Social And Cultural Influences, Christa Shipman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

I stepped into the SIT Multiculturalism and Human Rights program as a pre-physical therapy student with experience working and volunteering in the disability rights arena. Striking personal encounters with Moroccans combined with these past experiences drew me to investigate how social and cultural factors influence access to healthcare for people with disabilities. I hypothesized that access to medical care is limited by social or cultural mindsets, perceptions, or beliefs for those in my target population. This subject is relevant to Morocco as a developing country and as a society with, in some cases, fixed social dynamics, while in other areas …

A Silent Voice (Koe No Katachi): The Intersection Of Gender And Disability In Japanese Society, Amanda Weber

East Asian Studies Summer Fellows

Nishimiya Shōko is the female protagonist in the hit Japanese manga and anime film adaptation, A Silent Voice. She is introduced as a transfer student to a sixth-grade classroom and is immediately ‘othered’ for her deafness. Nishimiya goes on to suffer from relentless bullying at the hands of classmates she tries to befriend with little to no intervention from the homeroom teacher. Doing her best to participate in everyday classroom and extra-curricular activities proves fruitless, and her mother pulls her from school. Seven years later, several former classmates attempt to reconcile with Nishimiya and seek redemption and forgiveness for their …

The Issue Of Unemployment Among People With Disabilities, Angelina C. Pagano

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

The rate of unemployment for people with disabilities continues to rise greatly above that of people without disabilities. The issue seems to be exacerbated by employer biases and concerns which are not supported in the face of evidence. A lack of employer education on disability related subjects causes this misconception among both employers and the public as a whole. To resolve the underlying problem of miseducation, an increase in the self-identification of people with disabilities is necessary to provide researchers with data to assist in the formation of a revised curriculum.

Reckoning With Race And Disability, Jasmine E. Harris

All Faculty Scholarship

Our national reckoning with race and inequality must include disability. Race and disability have a complicated but interconnected history. Yet discussions of our most salient socio-political issues such as police violence, prison abolition, healthcare, poverty, and education continue to treat race and disability as distinct, largely biologically based distinctions justifying differential treatment in law and policy. This approach has ignored the ways in which states have relied on disability as a tool of subordination, leading to the invisibility of disabled people of color in civil rights movements and an incomplete theoretical and remedial framework for contemporary justice initiatives. Legal scholars …

The Problem With The School System, Julianna Vanvalin

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

From the beginning of America, schools have existed in some shape or form. However, once the school system became standardized its failings started to show through. The modern school system is discriminatory against disabled students and students of a low socioeconomic status. It also does not properly prepare students for their future, and promotes poor mental health. In order to fix the school system, it is important to recognize the current failings in regards to students and aim to improve them.

Fighting For 504: Negotiating Hegemonic Ability Through Verbal Advocacy And Disabled Embodiment, Drew Finney

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In my thesis, I look at San Francisco’s 504 sit-in for disability rights. I argue that both the verbal advocacy and the embodied actions of protestors demonstrate that dis/ability is constructed through a hegemonic process. I contend that combating hegemonic understandings of disability creates a tension between being a counter hegemonic movement and desiring the benefits of hegemonic legibility. To make these arguments, my thesis draws several conclusions. I argue that activists enacted a civil- rights framework to communicate the need for Section 504 to the public. I explain that activists adopted the role of educator to address problematic ideas …

Please, Hold Your Toothpicks: An Analysis Of Autism On Contemporary Television, Kellie N. Veltri

Haslam Scholars Projects

In the past decade, there has been a boom in representations of varied identities on entertainment television, including characters with mental illness and disabilities. There has particularly been an increase in television representations of autism spectrum disorders, which has coincided with the reframing of autism in the DSM-5. Exposure to these characters has increased public awareness of what autism actually looks like, but their characteristics are still very narrow and do not represent the full range of people with autism and what their experiences with the condition are actually like. In this thesis, I will explore historic representations of autism …

Blackness And Disability And How Disability Is Too Often Forgotten, Abel C. Rose

Student Publications

Disability is commonly left out of discussions on intersectional oppression, and this omission and stigmatization of disability does us all a disservice. Black people are more likely to be disabled due to the continuous violence of racism, and black people and disabled people in their status as “other” often find themselves needing to prove their worth in a society that does not see their lives as unconditionally valuable. We cannot see the full picture on issues of oppression such as racism and sexism without considering disability.

Disability And Migration: How Systems Of Violence Intersect With The Production And Experience Of Disability For Migrants In Morocco, Frances Condon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project investigates the perspectives and experiences of physically disabled, chronically ill, or bodily-impaired migrants from south of the Sahara living in Rabat, Morocco. Increasing interest in disabled migrants’ rights from international organizations risks erasing those being ‘protected’ if it does not attend to the intersections of race, class, citizenship, and gender as they relate to the production and experience of disability for migrants. Produced by and for the (white) global North, I argue that traditional Euro-American disability studies scholarship is ill-equipped to address the issues faced by disabled migrants in post-colonial contexts. In addition to being ineffective, the uncritical …

Social Practice Artist And Disability Inclusion, Renee Stronach

Student and Trainee Scholarship

The power of the “image” has been well documented over the course of history. In the 21 st century, visual culture, image is further empowered as it both sustains and subverts cultural norms and meanings. Socially engaged or social practice artists are an important yet diverse group who are creating and displaying image to disrupt injustice, truncated rights, devaluation, and inequality. Typically, these artists define a social problem and a desired outcome that will result from the creation and dissemination of their imagery. Because this contemporary-relevant strategy is becoming increasingly powerful as image and visuality are omnipotent in all aspects …

Designing For Human-Machine Collaboration: Smart Hearing Aids As Wearable Technologies, Krista Kennedy

Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition - All Scholarship

This study examines design aspects that shape human/machine collaboration between wearers of smart hearing aids and their networked aids. The Starkey Halo hearing aid and the TruLink iPhone app that facilitates real-time adjustments by the wearer offer a case study in designing for this sort of collaboration and for the wearer’s rhetorical management of disability disclosure in social contexts. Through close textual analysis of the company’s promotional materials for patient and professional audiences as well as interface analysis and autoethnography, I examine the ways that close integration between the wearer, onboard algorithms and hardware, and geolocative telemetry shape everyday interactions …

No Player Is Ideal: Why Video Game Designers Cannot Ethically Ignore Players’ Real-World Identities, Erica L. Neely

Philosophy and Religion Faculty Scholarship

As video games flourish, designers have a responsibility to treat players and potential players justly. In deontological terms, designers are obliged to treat all of them as having intrinsic worth. Since players are a diverse group, designers must not simply focus on an idealized gamer, who is typically a straight white male. This creates a duty to consider whether design choices place unnecessary barriers to the ability of certain groups of players to achieve their ends in playing a game. I examine the design implication of this for the gameworld, avatar design, and accessibility to players with disabilities. I also …

Support Experiences Of Church-Going Christian Foster And Adoptive Families Of Children With Special Needs, Taylor Weaver

Senior Honors Theses

Much research is done on the populations of families of children with special needs, church-going Christian families, and foster and adoptive families, but little exists on the families who fall into all three categories. This thesis seeks to help remedy this problem by studying the support experiences of these families. Existing research on foster and adoptive families, families with special needs, and disability in the church is reviewed. A phenomenological study of five parents’ lived experiences was completed through interviews, where three main themes emerged: the importance of informal support, the need for formal support, and the integral role of …

The Biopolitical Critique Of The Notion Of Being Human And An Affirmation Of Lives, Ramanpreet Bahra

Sociology Major Research Papers

This major research paper (MRP) interrogates the discourse of ableism and disableism and its impact on disabled and fat bodies. The general theme of this MRP is the division of life through the dichotomy of human and non-human, and nondisabled and disabled. Humanism, overall is the benchmark from which other life forms, the animate and non-animate, are disaffirmed and looked at as being a deficit. With the use of DisCrit and Fat studies, in particular, an autoethnographic methodology will be used to situate how the writer embodies racism, ableism and sizeism and the ways theory is carried through the body. …

Listening For Policy Change: How The Voices Of Disabled People Shaped Australia’S National Disability Insurance Scheme, Cate Thill

Arts Papers and Journal Articles

Voice has become an important yet ambivalent tool for the recognition of disability. The transformative potential of voice is dependent on a political commitment to listening to disabled people. To focus on listening redirects accountability for social change from disabled people to the ableist norms, institutions and practices that structure which voices can be heard in policy debates. In this paper, I use disability theory on voice and political theory on listening to examine policy documents for the National Disability Insurance Scheme in light of claims made by the disability movement. Although my study finds some evidence of openness in …

Serving God In The Midst Of Multiple Sclerosis: A Holistic And Spiritual Model For Physical Sustainment, Timothy Harville

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Multiple Sclerosis is a devastating disease that affects not only the one who suffers with MS, but also their family and relationships leaving the patient feeling depressed and without hope. If the disease is disclosed, many churches and the International Mission Board will reject the person's application because of the potential cost and medical care needed. This author was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis in 2008. This writer has experienced the obstacles described above. This model will serve as a motivational tool to help all of us who suffer with MS to use the disability for …

Unprotected Sex: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act At 35, Deborah L. Brake, Joanna L. Grossman

Articles

Thirty-five years ago, Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to overturn a Supreme Court decision refusing to recognize pregnancy discrimination as a form of discrimination based on sex. Now, three and a half decades later, women whose work lives are impacted by pregnancy are again finding themselves unprotected from discrimination. Lower court rulings have eviscerated the Act’s protections at the same time that an expansion of worker rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act should redound to the benefit of pregnant women by expanding the pool of comparators who receive accommodations. By following trends in discrimination law generally - equating …

The Status Of Students With Special Needs In The Instrumental Musical Ensemble And The Effect Of Selected Educator And Institutional Variables On Rates Of Inclusion, Edward C. Hoffman Iii

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of students with special needs in the instrumental musical ensemble and to examine the effect of selected educator and institutional variables on rates of inclusion. An online survey was designed by the researcher and distributed electronically to 600 practicing K-12 instrumental music educators in the states of Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. While 13.6% of the total school-aged population nationwide received special education services, demographic data provided by respondents revealed that students with special needs accounted for 6.8% of all students participating in bands, orchestras, …

A Quest Through Chaos: My Narrative Of Illness And Recovery, Katie Ellis

Research outputs pre 2011

Narrative is vital, as the ill person works out their changing identity, and position in the world of health, continuing when they are no longer ill, but remain marked by their experience. 2 Following the tradition of illness auto ethnographers (Frank, The Wounded Storyteller; Ettore; Rier), this article critically examines the role of narrative throughout recovery from serious illness or trauma by connecting the (my) autobiographical to the social, political and cultural. The focus then shifts to the recent emergence of illness narrative blogging to consider their cultural significance before exploring stigma and resistance to the telling of illness narratives …

Critical Tax Theory: An Introduction, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Book Chapters

Our book Critical Tax Theory: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press 2009) highlights and explains the major themes and methodologies of a group of scholars who challenge the traditional claim that tax law is neutral and unbiased. The contributors to this volume include pioneers in the field of critical tax theory, as well as key thinkers who have sustained and expanded the investigation into why the tax laws are the way they are and what impact tax laws have on historically disempowered groups. This volume will provide an accessible introduction to this new and growing body of scholarship. It will be …

Aboriginal Ageing And Disability Issues In South West And Inner West Sydney, Terri Farrelly, Bronwyn Lumby

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The Department of Ageing, Disability & Home Care (DADHC) recently sought to conduct a needs analysis and develop resources that would provide the Sydney Metro South region with tools to assist in planning for service development activities, Home and Community Care (HACC) planning processes, and project development around access issues in Aboriginal communities. The Echidna Group Indigenous Research & Development Consultancy was externally contracted by Campbelltown City Council, and by Inner West Aboriginal Community Company, to complete the project objectives for the DADHC South West and Inner West Sydney Local Planning Areas. This article reports the results of community consultation …