The Day to Protest: Disability Rights Movement Advocates Inclusive Education in Germany

• In Event: Highlighted Session: The Power of Protest to Improve Inclusive Education

Proposal

On May 5 throughout Germany, disability activists and advocates protest continuing discrimination and barrier-filled environments. Building on earlier sporadic protests in earlier decades, a diverse group of activists and community members now gather annually to demand equality. One key demand has been transformation of the selective, stratified, and segregated education system, including the closure of one of the world’s most differentiated and persistent systems of segregated special schools— to enable inclusive education for all (Author 2016). I focus on inclusive education across the life course as a key demand, since 2009 anchored in the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UN CRPD), locating the case of the activities of Germany’s movement in European and global developments, from passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the U.S. in 1990 to EU directives on equality and antidiscrimination in the late 1990s to 2000s to the incremental but comprehensive global ratification of the UN CRPD from 2006 up to 2023.
Without an established Civil Rights Movement within the country to look to for models, the US became a source of inspiration, via numerous influential advocate-activists studying in the US and bringing knowledge, tactics, and networks back with them. The German case shows that even a small group of committed activists who contribute their diverse skills to meeting a collective goal can be extremely effective. The global force of social models of disability and innovation in disability rights law in the US facilitated the process of change. Responding to that model, one of the largest disability charities transformed its focus, aligning with the DRM. It also facilitated the development of Disability Studies, the academic wing of the movement. Disability Studies researchers have begun catalog the international scholarly development in many regions and languages (Author 2022), to compare the activities of the international disability movement, and to archive the fleeting yet powerful experiences of disability protests.

In the research literature, attention has been paid to the rise of the DRM globally (e.g., Charlton 2000), in the US (Barnartt & Scotch 2001), and also in the German-speaking world (see, e.g., Köbsell & Waldschmidt 2006). However, much of the research literature (even more so, the documents of protest) on German-speaking countries is in German and not easily accessible to scholars elsewhere. The impact of Germany’s DRM results from the interplay of level of mobilization and political opportunity structures. These factors are analyzed using qualitative research methods, especially document and image analysis as well as expert interviews of those influential in the movement.
The transatlantic exchange of ideas, tactics, and strategies could translate in both directions. For this to succeed, cross-national research can support the global DRM by placing national successes into global context and in providing an understanding of cross-national developments. The proposed presentation will encourage discussion of local, national, and global protest movements and the multiple levels and contexts of exchange that facilitate the movement, the spread of Disability Studies, and the potential and power of protest.

Author

• Justin J.W. Powell, University of Luxembourg