Disability and Equity in Education Commons^™

Eighteen Blind Library Users’ Experiences With Library Websites And Search Tools In U.S. Academic Libraries: A Qualitative Study, Adina Mulliken

Publications and Research

Telephone interviews were conducted with 18 blind academic library users around the U.S. about their experiences using their library and its website. The study uses the perspective that blind users’ insights are fundamental. A common theme was that navigating a webpage is time consuming on the first visit. Issues identified include the need for “databases” to be defined on the homepage, accessibly coded search boxes, logical heading structure, and several problems to be resolved on result pages. Variations in needs depending on users’ screen reader expertise were also raised. Suggestions for libraries to address these issues are offered.

The Demon Of Hope: Race, Disability And The White Researcher’S Complicity With Injustice, Gene Fellner

Publications and Research

My ethical stance demands that my research mutually benefit all research

participants and that it should serve to reverse systemic policies of anti-blackness that

permeate the educational system in the United States. Through publications and similar

academic activities, however, my research advances my own career, but it is doubtful

that it significantly advances the trajectories of the students with whom I work. Indeed, it

could be argued that this imbalance in benefits advances the very system of white

dominance that I claim to contest. In this arts-based, auto-ethnographic study, I

document how, through the creation of pastel drawings and digital …

You Get Tenure, What Do I Get?: Using Art To Interrogate A Researcher’S Dilemma, Gene Fellner

Publications and Research

White researcher-advocates whose explorations are situated in schools serving

predominantly African American students hope that their research will improve the

academic possibilities for those students and reverse systemic injustice. While racial

oppression continues as a central thread in the fabric of American educational institutions,

white scholars continue to benefit from their research. Through arts-based

methods, I explore this issue as it relates to my own research identity and question

whether, despite my goals, I am complicit with hegemonic practices that oppress

communities of colour within educational contexts.