Abstract: This article contains information on how to develop DS activities on the university level with particular attention to teaching DS in the health sciences. The author discusses: (1) creating an on-campus DS community through interdisciplinary discussion groups for faculty and staff; (2) navigating the course approval process; (3) building course content; (4) teaching and grading strategies, and; (5) developing an undergraduate DS concentration as part of a bachelor's degree in health science.

"...it is time for courses in disability studies, from a liberal arts perspective, to be introduced into the applied fields." (Linton 1998b, p. 83)

Background

One of my favorite professors in graduate school, a social historian, used to say "social knowledge is experiential," (Goodwyn 1978). In the context of movements for social change, this suggests that the experience of oppression results in a shared perspective and a connection to others who have been through the same experience. This assertion is well matched to the "nothing about us without us" message of the disability rights movement. However it also implies that people in positions of power learn to manage their authority from the experience and example of others in power. Employees in prisons, institutions, nursing homes, and hospitals learn how to treat the inmates, patients, clients, and consumers from other workers and from those in authority. Can people in positions of such power be educated to give it away? What if they become so accustomed to it they fail to recognize that the power relationship exists at all?

Experiential knowledge informs my decision to focus on DS for research, teaching, and scholarship. I grew up watching my autistic older sister make her way, first through special education and later through the vocational and residential service systems. When we were children, I both observed and participated in my sister's experience of oppression as she was patronized, babied, and relegated to the margins of family and neighborhood life. At age 21, my sister "graduated" from her segregated school and was placed with the "nonverbal" group in the "back room" at the sheltered workshop. She existed at the bottom of that social hierarchy and I observed how she was (and still is) patronized or scorned by other people with disabilities from that workshop. Now in her mid-thirties, Hope lives in a house with two roommates and a support staff. For her, the disability service system is a way of life. For me, employment in disability services was a means to cover graduate school expenses. Hope eventually "escaped" the workshop and moved away from home. I eventually "escaped" to academia. Now I wonder how state budget-cuts will affect salary increases and contract renewals at my university. She wonders if they will cause her to lose her ability to choose where she lives and works.

As I completed my doctoral program and prepared for professional life, flexible jobs as a direct-care support person provided me with something of a safety net and also provided an extension of fieldwork. Once again I was witnessing and participating in oppression experienced by people with disabilities. Both aware and unaware, I engaged in power struggles, navigating between organizational imperative and individual preference. I observed my sister and others being moved around like chess pieces in ways that profoundly and negatively affected their quality of life. Homes and jobs were lost and gained based on budgetary constraints and bureaucratic determinations about appropriate levels of care. One mother wanted her adult child put in a nursing home when she, the mother, died because she did not trust community-based organizations. Two people with developmental disabilities remained engaged to be married for over a decade, because their parents prevented them from marrying.

As a staff person, I remember being annoyed when families disrupted our streamlined system of care-giving. Now that my sister has moved away from home, I experience the other side of this exchange. My sister sometimes communicates through facilitated communication, laboriously typing on a computer with support. Several years ago, one of her residential staff "facilitated" with her by holding a pen in her hand and forming the words. Others merely decide what Hope is going to say and tell her what letters to type. The residential staff members cover my Jewish sister's living space with Christmas and Easter decorations and give her Christian jewelry. Despite her impeccable sense of direction, Hope was once 45 minutes late to meet me, because her staff person got lost and never considered asking her for directions. Of course my sister finds ways to get her revenge. She might "accidentally" use the toothbrush of a patronizing roommate who happens to have a passion for neatness and hygiene, or kick out the dashboard of a particularly despised staff person.

On the assumption that social knowledge is experiential, my sister and I can interpret these experiences as intricate relations of power, oppression and resistance. Through these years of observing and participating in these systemic relations, I'm left wondering, is it possible to reform interpretations of such daily interactions? Can caregivers be educated, their perceptions and practices changed? What might happen if they become more aware of the politics and the significance of power in their relationships with the people with disabilities whom they (supposedly) serve? Is it possible to create some kind of scholarly intervention to counteract a system that "perpetually casts people with disabilities in the role of patient, student, or client," (Linton 1998b:80)? Naïve? Maybe. Worth a try? I think so.

I began to consider how it might be possible to circumvent some of these negative experiences, to try to find some way to get past the patronizing arrogance, the apathy, the burn-out, and the assumption that family and caregivers know everything there is to know about the people they support. Is it possible to educate people away from familiar patterns of thoughtless segregation and regressive internalized hierarchies? A cultural anthropologist by training and an activist by nature, I considered how to use my field of employment in academia as a site for social change. My thought was to catch future caregivers, health professionals, and family members early, try to introduce a DS perspective and, if possible, to inoculate them against the medical model that considers disability as something broken that must be fixed or requires life-long protection and specialized services. In an April 17, 2004 e-mail posted on the Society for Disability Studies discussion list, Carol Gill distinguishes between medical practice and the medical model:

The medical model is not synonymous with the medical system or medical practice. I still maintain (cordially!) that the medical system can be very helpful and, indeed, valuable--despite its hazards. But the medical model is not useful or valuable to disabled people, if "medical model" refers to a set of beliefs that conclude that disability is simply a defect located in individuals and that the best response to disability is the restoration of normality. The medical model refers to those beliefs, not to medical practice. Why do we need the medical model in order to have access to technology and medical services? We don't. Unfortunately, they are still too often yoked and, therefore, we must often suffer the former to receive the latter. Disability Studies should challenge the connection between the medical model and medical practice. (Gill 2004. For more on this discussion see Chen 2004).

I suggest that this definition can be generalized to apply to rehabilitation and special education models as well.

Critiques of rehabilitation and special education ideology and practice have been discussed at length by DS, Rehabilitation and Special Education theorists. Linton (1998a, 1998b) draws the line between DS and rehabilitation paradigms. McCarthy (2002) discusses the importance of having rehabilitation professionals engage DS theorists in meaningful dialogue, even when the experience might be uncomfortable. Gallagher (1998) and Gabel (in press) challenge special education professionals to question what they "know" about disability. Cassuto (1999) questions the status and role of non-disabled theorists within DS. Ware (2002) challenges special educators to consider how their attitudes and beliefs shape school culture and influence perceptions of disability. Baker (2002) analyzes the contradictory "disorganizing educational tropes" that muddle the special education curriculum. Erevelles (in press), states that, within curriculum theory, even radical theories of difference contain "normalizing ideologies" and calls for "the reorganization of the curriculum so as to include the history, experiences, and scholarship of persons with disabilities." DS theorists have discussed how to transform existing secondary and post-secondary education curricula to include DS and offer practical suggestions for doing so (Bauman & Drake 1997, Block 2002, Ferguson 2001, Gabel in press, Gallagher 1998, Patterson 1994, Sachs 2001, Thompson 1997, Ware 2002). Others have discussed applying the concept of universal design to curriculum development in order to render courses fully accessible to people with disabilities (Orkwis 2003). My purpose here is not just to discuss postsecondary curriculum development and accessibility, but also strategies for achieving the programmatic acceptance of DS courses and curricula on the university level.

Disability Studies Courses

I sent letters of inquiry to local universities to see if there would be interest in a DS course. I succeeded in getting a course entitled "Gender & Disability" through the University of Rhode Island curriculum committee, but left for a postdoctoral position at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Disability and Human Development, before I had the chance to teach it. The following year, I returned to Rhode Island to accept another postdoctoral position at Brown University, Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. I began to work with a group of Brown University faculty to form an interdisciplinary DS/disability research group. Founding members of the group included Carol Poore (German Studies), Dennis Hogan (Sociology), Susan Allen (Sociology), and John Susa (Pediatrics). Most group members either had a disability or a family member with a disability. In 2001 we received a Wayland Collegium Fellowship to support the group efforts and fund guest speakers.

Finally, I was scheduled to teach my dream course, "Culture and Disability," through the Anthropology and Sociology department at the University of Rhode Island, only to have it cancelled at the last minute due to a budget crisis. I mentioned the course to my mentor at Brown University, Dr. Bruce Becker. He arranged to have the three-credit course offered to undergraduates in the Brown University Department of Community Health. Although the content of the syllabus was unchanged, we changed the name from "Culture & Disability" to "Disability, Health & Community" (a marketing decision), added some snappy lecture headings, and found ourselves with earnest groups of undergraduates, most of them with pre-medicine majors. During the two years I taught the course at Brown, about half of the students either self-identified as having a disability, had a family member with a disability, or had some sort of experience with disability service provision (e.g. a parent works in the field, or had volunteered in a summer camp for children with disabilities).

The course readings and discussion were organized thematically: history, eugenics, euthanasia, gender, sexuality, race & ethnicity, violence, addiction, culture, disability rights, assistive suicide, etc. We had guest speakers: members of the DS group, staff from the local Independent Living Center, and self advocates with developmental disabilities who had at one time been institutionalized at Ladd School (now closed). We expected that students would, in addition to completing the general readings, develop a sub-topic of interest to them. During the first half of the course, students developed a literature review and during the second part, they engaged in a community-based project related to their topic. We also required additional community-based learning experiences (e.g., visits to residential and vocational programs, independent living centers, self-advocacy and independent living conferences), and the viewing of relevant films and plays such as "Of Mice and Men" and "Lost in Yonkers." Students were expected to match theory with "real world" examples, either from their own experience or found in poetry, literature, news media, or on the internet.

We included teaching assistants or co-instructors with disabilities. Sarah Everhart Skeels began as a teaching assistant but became a co-instructor, helping me to keep Bruce (an emergency room physician) and the pre-medicine students from getting sidetracked into medical discussions about physiology (e.g. how people with spinal cord injuries pee). It was Bruce who suggested introducing a literary component to the course and we clashed amicably over how the disability experience is portrayed by nondisabled writers in Geek Love (Dunn, 1983) and Motherless Brooklyn (Lethem, 1999). Students also had the option of borrowing a wheelchair so they could experience the environmental and social barriers related to wheelchair use. I pointed out that this "disability awareness" exercise has been criticized by DS scholars as resulting in distorted and unrealistic perceptions of the disability experience. However, the students were so enthusiastic about the idea that we let them proceed. At least, after the first year, Sarah lent the students her spare wheelchair so the students could use it rather than one of those "crappy hospital chairs."

Sarah and I were finally able to teach the original "Culture & Disability" course at the University of Rhode Island, College of Continuing Education, in the fall of 2001. This was a wonderful experience. We enrolled people with disabilities, family members, bureaucrats, advocates, direct-care workers and even someone who worked for the Social Security Administration. Theoretical debate did not come as easily to this group as it did to the Brown undergraduates, but neither was there a tendency to lapse into discussions of physiology. The students were mostly older and worked full time, so I made the community-based experiences optional. Since most of the class lived or worked with disability on a daily basis, we still had an experientially-based learning environment where discussions of the readings were informed by the personal knowledge of the students and instructors. After I moved to Stony Brook University, Sarah and Bruce continued to teach the course at Brown, but Sarah was not allowed to take responsibility for the course at URI because she is not an anthropologist or sociologist. She hopes to find a way to teach the course through a different department.

At Stony Brook University, where I was hired by the Occupational Therapy program in the School of Health Technology and Management, I began to search for DS colleagues. The university is divided by a busy highway that neatly separates University Hospital from the rest of campus. The liberal arts disciplines are on the other side of the road, and people must use buses, or bikes, or hike across an overpass to get from one side to another. I was now firmly lodged in the health sciences center, jutting off from the hospital. I wanted to find out what disability research was taking place on campus, and especially to find colleagues outside of the health sciences. I remember explaining to one of my new colleagues that just because I worked in the "belly of the beast," I did not intend to be digested. I applied and received a small Stony Brook University "Dialogues with Diversity" grant to begin an interdisciplinary DS group, modeled after the group at Brown University. Although it has been challenging to get people to cross to the other side of the road, the Stony Brook DS group involves participants from both sides of campus, including faculty from philosophy, romance languages, history, architecture, women's studies, and psychology as well as health sciences fields such as occupational therapy, medicine, and social work, and staff from disability support services and community relations.

Kimberly Jackson, a medical student concentrating in developmental medicine, was interested in designing a 12-hour course to teach DS to medical students. Together with Eva Kittay, we designed and co-taught the course which included sections on history, ethics, and children and family relationships. I also convinced my program Director, Vera-Jean Clark-Brown, to approve a similar 1-credit DS course for the Occupational Therapy graduate students. She also suggested creating a DS concentration for the undergraduate Health Science (BSHS) program of the School of Health Technology and Management (SHTM).

The Concentration

During an early spring 2003 fire-drill, as we shivered in the cold, I discussed the possibility of a DS concentration with the BSHS program chair, Deborah Zelizer. Vera-Jean Clark-Brown had already spoken to her of the idea, and this al fresco conversation was the first of many. We received permission to run the concentration for a trial year from the Dean of SHTM, Craig Lehmann. After the trial year, the DS concentration was submitted to the New York State Education Department of the University of the State of New York in Albany, for formal approval for inclusion of the concentration as a permanent part of the BSHS program. During that spring and summer, we began to develop courses for the concentration. I posted drafts and solicited feedback from the Stony Brook DS group, the Society for Disability Studies, and the Anthropology and Disability Research e-mail lists. Eventually we recruited instructors (several with disabilities) to teach the courses; they helped us to develop the course proposals for approval by the curriculum committee. We gave instructors freedom to pursue their areas of interest and expertise within the structure we provided. Some of the instructors were DS scholars; others were disability rights activists or professionals with decades of experience in the field. Some of the instructors had clinical training in psychology or social work, but all were immersed in issues of history, community, and advocacy.

According to the informational brochures, the Bachelor of Science in Health Science degree program educates students to enter clinical and non-clinical fields of health care. Students may continue with their education to pursue a clinical degree or enter the workforce upon graduation. The literature about the program states, "while many of the courses provide relevant education and information about health care, the intent is to graduate students who are both liberally educated and knowledgeable in health sciences." During the first semester of their senior year, BSHS students enroll in 15 credits of required health science curriculum including: Professional Ethics, Communication Skills, Health Care Issues, Professional Writing, and Issues in Healthcare Informatics. During the last semester of their senior year, students may select a concentration or complete 14 credits from among the Health Science Program offerings. The concentrations include DS, Health Care Management, Public Health/Community Health Education, Health Care Informatics, Environmental Health, Radiation Therapy, Medical Dosimetry, and Anesthesiology Technology. Thus the choices contain a mixture of technology-based traditional healthcare and courses related to policy and management. Given the scope of choices provided by the different concentrations, students may select tracks leading to specialized applied technical expertise or more abstract attainments in theory and policy. Thus students have diverse motivations for choosing this major.

The students at Stony Brook (a public university), in the BSHS, program are quite different from the students I taught at Brown University (an Ivy League member). There are more ethnic and racial minorities and many of the students are the first in their family to receive a college education. A high percentage of the students live at home, hold jobs, and face commutes of more than one hour in order to attend classes. Some of the students in the BSHS program are interested in further study, but most are concerned with being able to get a good job immediately upon graduation. When creating the 5-course concentration, I considered how to build upon the objectives of my original DS course. I expanded the different components of my original course: the shared theoretical foundation, the development of individual areas of expertise, and the community-based research and learning experiences. I also considered what practical information might increase the employability of the graduates.

Although I identify myself as a DS scholar, I do not, myself, have a disability. The fact that I now work in the rehabilitation division of a health science program renders my position in the field even more suspect (Cassuto 1999; McCarthy 2002). I find myself on the defensive, having to prove that I am not just another representative of the medical model. I take comfort in the words of Carol Gill (2004):

I am committed to involving health professionals in DS and have gone on record to proclaim that excellent DS scholarship is being conducted by many health professionals. I would also argue that many of us in disability studies should learn a lot more about impairment to ground our thinking. I agree that the expansion of the dialog between disability studies and the health professions is extremely important. I hope that it will result in the liberation of medical services from the medical model. This, in turn, will further the liberation of disabled people who need good medical services. I see no paradox in this.

Still, I have been warned that there are rehabilitation programs that have renamed themselves "DS" programs, even though their curricula remained unchanged. In order to clarify the intent of the concentration, I needed to provide an upfront definition of what I meant by DS. The Society for Disability Studies has recently begun to create a set of guidelines for DS programs, but these did not exist when I was putting together the concentration (Guidelines for DS Programs 2004). The principles below are adapted from the "Chicago Model of Disability Studies" (2004):^[1]
1) Disability is a part of the continuum of human experience; everyone has some experience with disability at some point in their lives;
2) Disability should be studied with an understanding of historical, cultural, and social contexts;
3) Disability experience is formed through complex interactions between bodies and environments; Environmental barriers can be more disabling than physiology.
4) DS moves beyond a medical model of disability to consider interdisciplinary and
community-based participatory approaches;
5) DS promotes a civil rights agenda and an understanding of social policies that empower or prevent people with disabilities from attaining full citizenship;
6) DS supports the full participation of disabled people in academia and the professions.

The differences between these principles and the original principles of the "Chicago Model" are minor. Primarily, I simplified the wording so as not to intimidate the undergraduates, and also removed some references to research and intervention that are not appropriate within an undergraduate context. I also included the possibility that policy might empower and not just obstruct civil rights for people with disabilities.

Many of the students considering the concentration are concerned about immediate job prospects. Thus, materials describing the disability concentration state that it prepares students at the bachelors level to immediately assume entry-level managerial positions in developmental or physical disability services, independent living centers, mental health centers, geriatric and vocational rehabilitation contexts. Also, DS can lead to employment in organizations promoting disability-rights advocacy and activism. The entry-level salary is estimated as $25,000 – 40,000 depending on the students' level of experience and type of employment they desired (e.g. activist vs. service provision). The concentration is presented as excellent preparation for students interested in graduate study in DS, Rehabilitation Counseling, Physical and Occupational Therapy, Health Policy & Management, Social Welfare, Medicine, Psychology, and many other health-related or scholarly fields. The course descriptions below are taken from the proposals approved by the School of Health Technology and Management curriculum committee. Deborah Zelizer and I worked together with individual course instructors to write and revise these proposals.

The concentration's central course is a remodeled version of "Disability, Health and Community" (3 credits). This course has been redesigned to focus more intensively on the historical and theoretical contexts of DS. Students are exposed to historical analysis, biomedical discourse, cultural critique, and field research to understand the evolution of medical practices, cultural beliefs, and social structures influencing the treatments, services, and opportunities available to people with disabilities in the United States and internationally. Course topics include: gender, sexuality, race, poverty, "invisible disabilities", eugenic sterilization and assisted suicide. Guest speakers bring a multi-layered understanding of the issues faced by people with disabilities, and by their families.

"Projects in Disability Studies" (4 credits) provides the students with the opportunity to develop an individual area of expertise, become familiar with the literature and engage in community-based learning experiences. During this seminar, students develop independent projects in the topic areas of DS. They develop a set of readings, and engage in a minimum of 15 hours of experiential learning in the form of community site-visits, volunteerism, or internships. Students are given help finding community sites and guidance on how to develop a project, find the appropriate literature, and write their final paper. Students are encouraged to seek mentors who are experts in their chosen topic.

"Children with Disabilities" (2 credits) provides a comprehensive overview of the theories of child development and issues related to children with developmental spectrum disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders and communication and learning disorders. Class content includes behavioral, developmental, language, medical, motor and sensory needs of children with developmental disabilities. It also provides information on the historical and social contexts in which children receive special education and other services, and discusses family dynamics.

"Disability and Employment" (3 credits) provides a comprehensive overview of the Disability and Employment field. Through the use of didactic and experiential techniques, the students explore pertinent employment-related legislation, the vocational rehabilitation system, the structure of existing governmental and not-for-profit programs, and current disability employment practices. There is specific emphasis on the key roles of placement professionals. This course also provides individualized learning opportunities for individuals with disabilities who happen to be job seeking.

Independent Living and Disability Studies (3 credits) is an interdisciplinary exploration of how independent living has evolved as a social and political movement. Topics include analyzing current legislation, social issues and living philosophies. Guest speakers and films help students to understand the issues faced by people with disabilities living independently.

During the first year of the concentration we had more than twenty students. Usually the number of students in a new concentration is much smaller, but the BSHS program has grown so quickly that many of the more established concentrations filled up, and students selected DS after being turned away from their first or second choices. We also received an unexpectedly large number of students interested in pursuing further study in clinical fields such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, and nursing. This led to a complicated dynamic in the classroom since, at one extreme, we had students already steeped in medical or rehabilitation models and, at the other extreme, we had students who had no experience, understanding, or interest (at least at first) in studying disability.

Lessons Learned

As I write this manuscript, we have just completed our first year of the DS concentration. There has not been time to analyze course evaluations or other formal means of determining the success of the program. We hope the decision-makers in Albany will approve the concentration to become a permanent part of the BSHS program. Having a new baby and other teaching commitments (and with great regret!), I was not able to teach in the concentration in its inaugural year. Instead I served as an informal advisor to the students and also to a few of the instructors, some of whom were teaching for the first time. I provided information about the concentration to prospective students and met with students to discuss where the concentration might lead them. When my schedule permitted, I attended classes to help with lectures and class discussions, and listened to the students' final presentations. I organized group meetings with all the instructors, to discuss lecture topics and to try to prevent redundancy.

I solicited feedback from the students about their opinions of the individual courses and the concentration. Some of the complaints were familiar, even typical. For example, I heard complaints that there was too much reading or that instructor expectations were too high. Students also complained of too many papers and that, despite our attempts to diversify subjects students felt there was still some redundancy. For example, topics such as history, legislation, and sexuality, came up repeatedly. However, I do not think it a bad thing that the students were challenged to tackle complex theory. Then too, what students experienced as redundancy might also be interpreted as reinforcement of key issues reappearing in different contexts. In my experience teaching DS, there always seem to be a few students who eagerly grasp the concepts and a few who passionately reject them. The transmission of knowledge is an imperfect process, but in the end, I think these courses make a positive difference. Recently, I was heartened to hear a current student speaking to prospective students in the Stony Brook Pre-Physical Therapy Club, telling them about the social model of disability and advocating for DS as excellent preparation for graduate study in physical therapy. One of the instructors also shared with me this quote written by a student as a part of the mid-term: "The first day of class I thought, 'I know that disabled people go through a lot, but I'm not sure I can sit through a semester of this!' Now that I see the whole picture and am truly aware that I can become a person with a disability at any given time, I see how interesting and important this concentration is."

One lesson I have learned, I think is especially pertinent to DS. It is the importance of making a course as accessible as possible and accommodating to a variety of learning styles (Orkwis 2003). I present course materials in a variety of formats: interdisciplinary nonfiction, autobiography, fiction, film, cartoons, TV series, and websites. I also grade so as to capture student effort in a variety of different ways. Instead of focusing entirely on formal written work (such as exams or papers), I diversify to allow students to present information orally, through class discussion and formal presentations. I expect students to submit written discussion questions and "real world" examples that link the readings to "real world" data. I require them to submit journals of their subjective and analytical reactions to the readings and films. I pay attention to class participation. I know who completes and truly understands the assignments. I know who consistently participates in class discussions. I have moved away from grading 50% midterm 50% final paper after a few experiences where slackers, who happened to be good paper-writers, did better than earnest students, who did not write well, but who completed and understood all the readings, films, site visits, and led class discussions throughout the semester. My course grading systems are Byzantine and usually include 10% for class participation, 10% for site visits, 10% for the oral presentation; 20% for weekly assignments; 20-40% for paper (or papers); and 20-40% for mid-term (and final). I have also offered special credit worth 5-10% of the grade to avoid routinely penalizing people whose disabilities or cultural backgrounds result in their being especially quiet in class.

Finally, I have learned from my experience at three different institutions that introducing DS on campus is most successful when undertaken as a collaborative process. Working alone, I would not have gotten as far, nor reached as many people. I am grateful to have had the chance to connect with so many dedicated faculty and professionals with and without disabilities. The process of building a DS community is as meaningful as the potential products (courses, guest speakers, film series, publications etc.) of these collaborations

Future Directions

As a DS concentration, and as a DS presence on the Stony Brook campus, we are still very much in our infancy. I am thrilled and amazed that we have been able to accomplish as much as we have in less than two years! I would like to assess the effectiveness of the concentration by giving a pre-and-post questionnaire to the students to see if their understanding of disability changes by the completion of the concentration. I would like to follow students to see what kinds of jobs they get and future training they complete. I would like to survey the organizations that hosted our students for their practicum to hear their opinions of the experience. As the BSHS concentration becomes more popular, our next challenge will be to ensure the quality of the learning experience despite larger class sizes, as the current class-size limit is 50 students. I am also in the process of developing some Master's-level courses and, I hope, a Master's level concentration in the future. Most importantly, I would like to find some way to actually teach more DS in future years. This year I felt left out from all the fun.

References

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Block, P. (2002) Teaching Anthropology and Disability Studies to Medical and Heath Care Students, Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, November 23, 2002.

Cassuto, L. 1999. Whose field is it anyway? Disability Studies in the academy. Chronicle of Higher Education, 45 (28): A60.

Chen, L., Kirchner, C., Kudlick, C. (2004). Disability Studies: Guidelines & Core Values- An Interdisciplinary ListServ Discussion About an Emergent and Brave New Field. Disability Studies Quarterly. Fall 2004. Website: http://dsq-sds.org .

"Chicago Model of Disability Studies" (2004). Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Disability Studies: General Information. University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Applied Health Sciences. Website accessed on May 10, 2004. http://www.ahs.uic.edu/ahs/php/section.php?id=167

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Ware, L. P. (2002). A moral conversation on disability: Risking the personal in educational contexts. Hypatia, 17(3):143-74.

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Acknowledgements

The following individuals and programs supported my efforts to develop and teach Disability Studies courses: Leo Carroll (University of Rhode Island, Department of Sociology and Anthropology); Bruce Becker, Sarah Everhart Skeels, Susan Allen, Dennis Hogan, Carol Poore, John Susa (Brown University); Deborah Zelizer, Jack Coulehan, Michael Vetrano; Vera-Jean Clark-Brown; Craig Lehmann; Eva Kittay (Stony Brook University); Devva Kasnitz, organizer, and the other participants on the panel "Teaching Anthropology and Disability Studies" at the 2002 American Anthropological Society Meeting in New Orleans, LA; University of Rhode Island, Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Feinstein School of Continuing Education; Brown University Department of Community Health; Stony Brook University School of Health Technology and Management, Bachelor of Science in Health Science and Occupational Therapy Programs; Stony Brook University Medicine in Society Program.

The following organizations have provided guest speakers and experiential learning for our students at URI, Brown, and Stony Brook: Avatar, Inc.; Flying Shuttles, Blackstone Valley ARC; PARI, Inc.; SILO, Inc.; Advocates-In-Action; Shake-A-Leg, Inc.; UCP-Suffolk County; Developmental Disabilities Institute; Stony Brook Child Care Services; Canines for Independence; Alternatives for Children; Franklin Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing; Pal-O-Mine Equestrian, Inc.; Long Island Veteran's Home; Stony Brook University Hospital Occupational Therapy Outpatient Clinic; Association for the Help of Retarded Children (Nassau County); Suffolk County Special Olympics; St. Charles Hospital and Rehabilitation Center.

The following individuals served as instructors and co-instructors for the Disability Studies courses mentioned in the article: Bruce Becker; Michael Cohen; Elaine Gerber; Kimberly Jackson; Eva Kittay; David Kudysch; Catherine McWilliams; Stephanie Patterson; Sarah Everhart Skeels; Nina Slota.

I wish to thank Vera-Jean Clark-Brown, Nina Slota, Stephanie Patterson, Catherine McWilliams and Elaine GerberÝfor their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Footnotes

¹The Ph.D. Program in Disability Studies at UIC seeks to promote and develop objectives consistent with the principles informing the Chicago Model of Disability Studies: 1) the recognition of disability as an integral aspect of the continuum that comprises bodily and cognitive experiences; 2) the analysis of disability within its appropriate historical, cultural, and social contexts; 3) the study of disability experience as a complex phenomenological interaction between individuals and environments; 4) the elaboration [adoption] of progressive research and intervention paradigms that move beyond a traditional medical model of disability to incorporate interdisciplinary and participatory approaches; 5) the development of social policies that promote a wide-sweeping civil rights agenda for citizens with disabilities; 6) the integration of disabled people into academia and the professions.

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