Disabled Graduate Students' Experiences and Vision of Change for Higher Education: A Participatory Action Research Study

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research-in-Progress Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Examining the Experiences of Students With Disabilities Across Sectors: Discipline, Pedagogy, and Sense of Belonging (Table 1)

Abstract

Disabled students are underrepresented in graduate-level degree enrollment and completion. In 2015, the US Department of Education estimated that 3% of graduate-level recipients were disabled. This study rejects the deficit research approach to instead adopt an asset-based, embodied disability approach using the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy. This study is one of few, if not the first, to center solely DGS' lived understanding using a Participatory Action Research (PAR) epistemology. With a PAR paradigm, participants and investigators work as a research team democratically throughout the research process, resulting in local change. The PAR's process will generate participant-researchers' individual outcomes. The dissemination of PAR recommendations will hopefully aid researchers to conduct PAR with the disabled community to drive social sustainability.

Author

• Emily Simone Doffing, California State University - Long Beach