College-Going and Intellectual Disability: Varied Perspectives on Purposes for Postsecondary Education

• In Event: The Halls of Higher (Mis)Education: Ableism in the Academy

Abstract

We present varied perspectives on purposes forwarded for students deemed intellectually or developmentally disabled (IDD) to participate in postsecondary education (PSE). Data was gathered on the Increasing Access to College project (IAC), a PSE program in the northeastern US that develops partnerships between college students and early adults identified as IDD as a means of providing on-campus experiences to individuals who are not often thought about as potentially college-going. We highlight goals and benefits that participants in the IAC, affiliated transition and day habilitation program staff, and community stakeholders—many who are parents of young adults with disabilities—communicated during ongoing collaborative evaluation and program development.
Two tenets of disability studies (DS) that inform our work are: 1) Disablement—being or becoming dis-abled—is an experience that reflects inaccessible or hostile social, economic, and political environments in relation to individual impairment. 2) Persistence and commonality of inaccessible environments may be understood as oppressive, therefore necessitating critical perspectives and action to understand ableism/disableism, and work against it. Commitment to DS shapes our rejection of deficit framings of disabled people, as well as our skepticism toward deficit-oriented “special education” discourses that have been described by DS scholars as oppressive (Connor, Gabel, Gallagher, & Morton, 2008). Through participant observation, four researchers gathered audio, video, field notes, artifacts, and in situ interviews related to IAC planning, implementation, and development activity over nine months. Approximately 80 research participants include partner program directors, support staff, family members, campus staff and faculty, other community member stakeholders, and 64 program participants.
We explore the questions: (1) What do IAC participants express as benefits and aims of higher education?; (2) How are special education and adult disability service discourses present in stakeholder perspectives of the IAC?; and (3) How might aims and purposes expressed in higher education and DS in education literature inform the continued development of the IAC and programs with similar stakeholder groups?
Think College, a national coordinating center that supports the development of Post-Secondary Education options for people deemed IDD currently identifies 266 programs across the United States. Relevant literature describes academic, social, independent living and vocational program purposes, which are divided into domains and then typically separated and measured by employment or “skill-development” (e.g. McEathron, M. & Beuhring, 2011; Thoma, et. Al, 2012). Analysis draws from higher education literature to summarize purposes and outcomes posed for college-going alongside aims promoted in programs specific to students labeled IDD. Both the literature and IAC stakeholders tend to reflect deficit-oriented, dis/ableist discourses apparent in adult services and special education structures in K-12.
Thinking across varying literatures on college-going in concert with stakeholder aims gathered through qualitative research methods provides multiple contexts in which to examine conflicting ideas about college-going as they reflect discourses informed by ableism. We pose ways that the field may strive for different possibilities enabled through vigilant crafting of postsecondary contexts informed by the desires of participants, which may be diligently honored and attended to through DS perspectives.

Authors

• Jessica K. Bacon, Montclair State University

• Susan E. Baglieri, Montclair State University