How Sub-Saharan African states and subnational actors conceptualize disability: an analysis of the framing and implementation of disability inclusive education policies.

• In Event: Comparative Research on Inclusive Education

Proposal

How Sub-Saharan African states and subnational actors conceptualize disability: an analysis of the framing and implementation of disability inclusive policies.
-----

Maegan Shanks (PhD Student, 3rd Year), School of International Service (SIS), American University
-----

Starting in 1990, the Transnational Education community introduced the Education For All (EFA) policy and accompanying movement (Rousso 2003). The EFA initiative recognized the lack of equitable access to education (specifically primary education) and sparked international organizations and countries’ commitment to education accessible for all children but especially vulnerable and disadvantaged children (Rousso 2003, World Bank 2014). This initiative would spur national and local policies/laws committing and promoting the inclusion of marginalized groups in education policy making and implementation.
The Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) is one of the main international human rights treaties that includes international education policy (article 24). CRPD consists of 39 articles that outline the rights of people with disabilities (education, participation in political life, access to information, and more). With 182 states’ ratifications of CRPD, each state has different policies, different resource allocations, and different outcomes which indicates that there are differences in implementations which could be contributed to what is interpreted from the CRPD into national policies and laws.
Recognizing how contemporary education has evolved into a service provided by the state via governmental and international actors to shape and strengthen societal norms; it is important to show how current national and local policies/laws hold societal norms that reflect deficit orientation on Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard-of-Hearing (DDBHH) people and people with disabilities (PWD). While the commitment to advancing global inclusive education aims to ensure all citizens have the opportunities to participate and to build stronger political and economic systems, the framework of the policies (which were then disseminated through transnational networks), often adopted a problematic deficit orientation towards people with disabilities (Mitchell et al 2014, Evans et al 2017). This deficit orientation risks limiting the effectiveness of these policies and further marginalizing people with disabilities. This paper engages two broad conceptions of disability; 1)Traditional, which I argue is: Deficit-based, Not intersectional, based in Charity models, and uses a Medical frame; the second frame, 2)“New” conceptualization, instead emphasizes: human biodiversity, intersectionality, human rights, and Language justice.
The transnational education community will not be able to achieve its commitment to inclusive education and accessible education while conceptualizing disability in a narrow way with a deficit orientation. To realize an educational system that would allow children with diverse backgrounds to have equitable (not simply parity) access to education requires a dissection of current societal norms then creating policies/laws that forge biodiverse spaces and clear roles for international, national, and local support systems (Baily and Holmarsdottir 2015). Cripistemology postulates that certain bodies are being framed and policed in ways that uphold the existing power structure rather than to dismantle it. Cripistemology acknowledges the existence of disability epistemologies and challenges the idea that students with disabilities should suppress their lived experiences in order to pass as normal, “non-disabled” (Mitchell et al 2014). I contend that the two broad conceptualizations of disability may be reflected in how some Sub-Saharan African states implement disability inclusive education policies in the following ways: justification of services (policies and laws), allocation of resources (funding and human resources), and verification of identification and existence from service providers (administration, teachers, community members, etc). Which conceptualizations of diversity are reflected in the disability education policies in Sub-Saharan African countries?
I will employ mixed methods including data text mining to identify language use by state and subnational actors/implementers, attentive to the body and its role/placement in disability inclusive education in various ways (including financial resources and human resources distributions) and its implications. I will also conduct interviews of government/state officials and subnational actors (administration, teachers, community members, etc) involved in the implementation of disability inclusive education policies, in which we may be able to understand the process including the rationale behind justification of services (policies and laws), allocation of resources (funding and human resources), and verification of identification and existence from service providers (administration, teachers, community members, etc).
Examining the rights of children with disabilities from a human rights perspective begins with disaggregating the definitions of inclusion and reframing national disability inclusive education policies based on Article 24 of the CRPD with a clear understanding of traditional and new conceptualization of disability. Scaffolding on literature on human rights regimes (transnationalism), cultural factors, economic factors, and political factors, there is a need to understand the implications of how the current frame of disability has an impact on how African states implement disability inclusive education policies.While development studies consider the way of being (ontology) through lenses of race, gender, class, age, disability, sexuality etc, it is further exacerbated by the reproduction of knowledge (epistemology). An educational system that would allow children with diverse backgrounds to have equitable access to education requires a clear strategy, which must start with policies that forge spaces and add necessity for international, national, and local support systems. If said policies are skewed by the traditional frames of disability and language colonization, then the appropriate forms of curriculum and assessment are at risk of perpetuating the existing system that has inherently devalued and marginalized children who are at the intersections of multiple identities.

Author

• Maegan Shanks, American University