Disability and Diversity on California State University Web Sites: A Critical Discourse Study

• In Event: 14.033 - Disability Studies in Education: Promoting Justice in the Postsecondary World

Abstract

Increasingly, universities use the website as a tool for recruiting diverse students. The Association for Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) defines diversity as “encompass[ing] the variety of qualities, traits and characteristics…inherent to humans” but disability often is not associated with diversity on campus. With over 325,000 students, the California State University (CSU) system is one of the largest in the United States, making it a useful unit of analysis for studying disability and diversity in higher education. Using a critical discourse theoretical framework and qualitative methods for analyzing website discourse, we demonstrate how disability is constituted in CSU website discourse and offer recommendations for more inclusive website discourse as one step toward social justice in higher education.

Authors

• Susan L. Gabel, Wayne State University

• Denise P. Reid, Biola University

• Holly Pearson, Chapman University

• Litzy Z. Ruiz, Azusa Pacific University

• Rodney Hume-Dawson, Chapman University