Secondary Research

Since we aimed to estimate the growth of DS in this report, it was essential to find historical data sets for baseline comparisons. Fortunately, there were four other published DS studies that had attempted to track at least some of this information previously. Unfortunately, each of these sources had a slightly different scope, making precise comparison difficult. As we explain in detail below however, it was possible to undertake further break-outs on their data sets and ours to allow for relatively accurate comparisons.

1. Pfeiffer and Yoshida (1995)

   Site:	Published in Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ)
   Specs:	Data up to 1993. Geographical scope: U.S. and Canada
   Covers:	Degrees, courses, themes, journals and some research centre comments
   Comment:	Based on a volunteer survey of SDS participants. Written as a full analytical paper, the authors have tables and figures but also extensive analysis of the data. Analysis includes historical notes on the field's formation, the authors' predictions, and a thematic analysis of several syllabi.

2. Kasnitz, Bonney, Aftandelian, and Bromfield 1999

   Site:	World Institute on Disability (WID)
   Specs:	Data for 1999. Geographical scope: the "English speaking world"
   Covers:	Degrees and courses
   Comment:	Provides a well-formatted listing of various factors about each course /degree including titles and names of the professors involved. Notable for its extensive descriptions of DS programs according to various subtitles, including contact information and program requirements. Easy to navigate.

3. Michaud 1999

   Site:	Canadian Centre for Studies in Disability (CCSD)
   Specs:	Data for 1999. Geographical scope: Canada
   Covers:	Degrees, courses, professors, themes, formats
   Comment:	Examines common themes in the courses. Provides break-out of course teaching formats, and instructors.

4. Taylor 2003 [updated in 2006]

   Site:	Syracuse University Disability Studies program; Department of Education
   Specs:	Data updated in 2006. Geographical scope: North American (English-only)
   Covers:	Degrees, contact information, teaching tools, research centers, media, NGOs
   Comment:	Extensive web-based DS review that provides contact information on schools and much more. Generously shares listings of DS resources such as: films, books, articles, journals, non-profit organizations, web sites, teaching tools and SIG's (special interest groups) at national organizations.

All of these studies discuss using a definition of disability studies that fits with the principles we outlined above, however, that does not mean that their data are all therefore identical — there are programs listed in each report that are excluded from the others, or ours. Michaud's study in particular seems to have interpreted the DS rubric quite broadly. It is difficult to ascertain if the differences have to do with different interpretations of the principles, methodological differences (i.e. voluntary survey, word of mouth or web-servation), or with challenges in finding all the data (with websites being much more developed in 2008 than 1993 for instance). While the differences in interpretation and geographical scope mean that the comparisons are imperfect, the differences are relatively minor. These reports have thus been helpful resources.

Although this is not a statistical survey per se, we estimate that our coverage of degrees and courses for 2008 is accurate to within + / - 5% of existing courses and programs by our definitions for the Canadian and US figures and +/- 8% for the other regions. The historical growth figures likely contain a further 7% to 10% error margin given the methodological differences between studies just noted.2

Primary Research

The definitions and secondary, unobtrusive research just described constituted our literature review. The next component is the primary data gathered specifically by us. In 2003 Ryerson University sought to expand their DS offerings and asked Cushing to undertake a DS review that would address their administrators' questions: What unmet scholarly needs does DS fit? Can DS attract enough students? That 2003 study happened to fall 10 years after Pfeiffer & Yoshida's 1993 data set (1995) and its scope was expanded to include the UK and the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand as Western nations with English as the first and primary language. Content collected was also expanded to include number of professors and courses in a program, course titles and years offered, and the departmental location of courses and programs. This 2008 report uses the same content and geographical scope in a 5-year update.

There were six primary research methods used in this research. The first step was the literature review as described above which provided an initial sample of schools and courses to investigate. The second step was web-servation, meaning that we investigated our topic through web-based observations (scanning or surfing) for the existence of DS academic information (degrees, courses, and theses etc). We used general search terms like: "disability studies" "critical disability theory" "social model" or "disability rights" as well as some more specific terms like "freaks," "segregation" or "deafness."

What we did not find online led us to our next two methods: emailing or calling people in a department to clarify data on their site. The variability in website design and content across universities, departments, courses and journals is staggering and meant that we often needed several runs through a given university site before finding all the DS appropriate pages. While some sites are crystal clear, others had nested levels of embedding that made this data hard to find. These navigational challenges were compounded by the different terms used across and even within countries.

The fifth method we used was an interactive form of "member check" where we took the data to people in the field for verification. We had poster displays at the international SDS conference (NYC 2008) and the Canadian CDSA conference (Vancouver 2008) for people to review. We distributed structured feedback forms to conference participants who could verify or adjust our listings. This interactive process led to some helpful refinements.

The sixth and final research method we used grew out of our conversations with one conference attendee who noted that her DS-based thesis would not be captured in our data because her department had no official DS dimension: she had chosen to use DS theory on her own. This led us to investigate how many theses and dissertations were being done with a DS paradigm through a dissertations database. We designed several tables to organize the raw data and created overview charts for analysis from the tables.

Overview: Broad Growth Trends and Distribution

In order to provide as much comparative and longitudinal material as possible given study variations, we have created a number of different tables and charts to give a portrait of the field over the last two decades. The data, on which this section is based, is found in Table 1, which provides an overview of all offerings by region and by school up to 2008. That table is summarized in Figure 1 and comparable summary data for 2003 is found in Figure 2. The heart of this overview is Charts 1, 3, and 4 — all of which illustrate the exponential growth of DS over time and regions.

In Table 1, each "distinct degree" received a check that is tallied in the totals, meaning that a department could earn more than one point.3 By "distinct degree" we mean degrees that are not merely subsets of a higher degree. In other words, if a department has a BA in DS and a minor in DS, this would just earn one point because the minor is a scaled down version of the BA and not a distinct degree. As you can see in Overview Table 1, any stand-alone course, or degree or partial degree has a check mark to indicate its existence, but if it is a sub-set of another degree, its check mark is bracketed to avoid double-counting it and exaggerating the size of the field. If a university has two different departments offering the same type of degree, that counts as two. Using the DS program at Syracuse University as an example, note the checks for their PhD and Masters degrees, but a bracketed check for the Certificate in DS. Their Certificate in Disability, Law and Policy however, gets a full check because its topic is distinct from the other graduate degrees.

The first chart we introduce deals exclusively with our primary data. Chart 1 is a distilled look at the growth in DS courses across all regions included in this study (USA, UK/ Rep. Ireland, Canada, Australia/ New Zealand) all over the five-year period from 2003 to 2008. The left columns denote the number of stand-alone courses on DS topics in 2003 and 2008. By "stand-alone" we mean courses that are not part of any DS-specific degree (or partial degree like a minor or certificate). We also tallied how many courses were offered within degrees or partial degrees and these figures are shown in the middle columns. The final column represents the total number of courses offered. As you can see, both types almost doubled as stand-alone courses grew +93% to 108 in five years, and courses within degrees went up +98% to 420. Average overall growth in DS courses across all regions in the last five years then, has been an impressive +97%, growing to a 2008 total of 528 courses being offered in western, English-speaking countries.

These and other estimates based on our data that follow, tend to be conservative for a few reasons but principally because a third of the UK region degree-related programs that we found do not specify the number of courses that they offer on their websites which means that the UK region in particular is under-counted. We did correct for some of this with multiple email and phone inquiries to the schools, but not all responded. We look forward to updating the charts through responses from readers with more information. Meantime, for an estimate of this gap in data, we calculate that the average number of courses per program is approximately 10 (See Chart 2). With 3 (2008) and 4 (2003) UK region schools' courses unspecified, that could mean up to 30 or 40 more courses in each year. For the charts, we used the hard figures in hand though, and not these estimates.

Regional Distribution

It is possible to break these growth figures out further. Please refer now to the more detailed Figure 3, which includes the source of data for Chart 1. As you can see, total DS courses grew over +65% in all regions, with especially marked growth in Canada and the UK/ Ireland. The Canadian growth (up +121%) traces primarily to growth of courses within degrees (versus stand-alone courses) as is evident from the further break out in Figures 1 and 2. In fact, the same is true for the growth in all regions which suggests that existing degrees have been successful enough to expand their course offerings and that some former stand-alone courses have evolved into full or partial degrees. While some stand-alone courses have indeed been folded into degrees, that loss has been more than compensated for by the development of new stand-alone courses as seen in the virtual doubling (+93%) of stand-alone courses between 2003 and 2008 as well (See Chart 1). While the growth percentages are similar, note that courses within degrees comprises a significantly larger absolute number of courses, making its high growth rate all the more substantial. Some of the high +218% growth in the UK region's number of courses is a result of more course information on the web in 2008 versus 2003.

Returning to Figure 3, we compare each region's share of the total courses with their share of population (as at 2007) within this grouping. This figure creates a sense of the relative size and state of development of DS in each region, as well as highlights that the large size of the USA's population (72% of our study group's total population) and number and share of DS courses (55%), means that they exert a significant "weighted influence" statistically. We have thus kept the data broken out for regions as well as providing the totals, so that readers can get a sense of both the international trends and the significant regional variation. Canada and Australia / New Zealand both have a share of courses that is about double their share of the group's population which suggests that they are both developing well. If we correct the suspected undercounting of the UK region figures (due to "non-specification") it would put them closer to a 23% share of courses.

Growth Areas and Agents in the Past Decade

Chart 3 is a vertical bar graph for all regions and extends the time frame back to 1999. Chart 3 combines our data with an earlier review of DS programs with similar specifications (Kasnitz et al 1999).4 Again, this chart primarily tells a story of growth but it is interesting to see how that growth breaks out. Consonant with the previous chart, you can see a significant expansion of stand-alone courses across all regions — up +70% between 1999 and 2003 (four years) and again up +93% in the next five years. This trend shows no sign of abating or reversing: in fact, we predict that as more people graduate with PhD's and MA's in DS, it will give such courses more stability as there will be a larger pool of scholars who can teach existing courses or continue to develop new ones to compliment the offerings of other departments that they join.

Overview Chart 3 also demonstrates interesting stories about areas of growth at the level of partial and full degrees. The chart is ordered from left to right along the x-axis in levels — so it begins with stand-alone courses; next come two sets of columns at the undergraduate level (BA and Other [ie: minor, diploma, concentration, certificate]) and then three sets of columns at the graduate level (PhD, Masters, and Other [ie: diploma, concentration, certificate]). You can see in Figure 4 that in 2008 across all regions, there are 36 full DS degrees (Bachelor, Masters, PhD) and 31 of what we call "partial degrees" (modules, minor, diploma, concentration, certificate). Figure 4 also shows that full DS degrees are up +200% from 1999 to 2003 and up +71% from 2003 to 2008. Partial DS degrees rose +220% to 2003 and then up +94% to 2008. In each period, there are about the same number of full and partial degrees, with partial degrees growing slightly faster.

When we compare undergraduate and graduate full and partial degrees in concert (see Figure 4), we can see that while growth rates in undergraduate programs outpaced graduate ones in both periods, that is partly because they were growing from a smaller base in 1999. Graduate DS degrees still outnumber undergraduate ones 37 to 29 in 2008. This is perhaps not surprising given that the critical roots of DS theory lend themselves well to graduate work. The figures show, however, that DS is also rapidly becoming an appropriate element of the undergraduate curriculum. Growth is sourcing both from brand new programs and from within existing degrees as evident in Chart 1.

The Long View

The historical perspective is extended a final time in Chart 4, although only for the USA and Canada.5 Chart 4 is a longitudinal snapshot of the astonishing growth of disability studies in the past 27 years for English-speaking North America (1981 to 2008). Pfeiffer & Yoshida trace the first American DS course to 1977 (1995: 484) and indicate that to their knowledge, there are 12 courses being offered by 1981 across the USA (1995: 482). This suggests that total DS courses (in and outside of degrees) in the US and Canada grew a staggering +500% over the 22 years between 1981 and 1993. Although that figure must be seen as tracing partly to a small base figure, the number of DS courses grew a further impressive +422% in the 15 years between 1993 and 2008 even with a larger base of 72 courses. Statistically, DS has moved beyond straight-line growth, to impressive, exponential growth.

Graduate Work Outside of DS Settings

Graduate dissertations are another site of innovative DS work that transpires in departments that have no DS designation or even DS courses, so we wanted to find them. We used ProQuest, an electronic dissertations database as a proxy for estimating the extent of interest in DS themes outside of DS departments, and the departments these scholars were clustered in.

The ProQuest database has over 2 million dissertations, some written as early as 1938, and receives 70,000 new items (PhD and Masters theses) each year. It is primarily an Anglo-North American service based in the USA. It claims coverage of 96% for non-professional American earned doctorates along with a 100% Canadian representation due to an agreement with Canadian libraries (May 2008). ProQuest does not officially collect what they call "professional theses" which means that its findings for Education, Law, and the Applied Health are limited. Still, we found several for DS in those fields. Some international dissertations were found but coverage is low.

A range of search terms were used in an attempt to find as many DS-related theses as possible including: "disability studies", "disability culture" and "social model", "crip", "freak", "eugenics", "Deaf studies", and "Deaf culture." ProQuest searches the title and abstract. If the author used the DS approach but did not mention this in their title/abstract, their thesis would not be found, suggesting a degree of conservatism to these results. The diversity of disciplines across the 152 dissertations found, clearly illustrates that Disability Studies is attracting broad interest among the next generation of scholars.

Chart 5 provides a summary of the share of departments in which we found DS theses completed between 1979 and 2008. What is perhaps most striking is the large number of dissertations within English departments (22%). This suggests that English graduate students see the DS approach as complimentary to their field. Moreover, another 16% of the theses we found were based in other Humanities. A quarter of dissertations (24%) were written for the Social Sciences with Anthropology leading that category with 15 dissertations, followed closely by History with 11.

Interestingly, fully a third of DS theses in our sample were submitted to applied fields such as Education (22%), Social Work (5%), and Applied Health (7%). This is especially striking in that these 'professional' fields are not the explicit ProQuest target fields. This indicator of the extension of the DS approach into the traditionally interventionist fields, is replicated in the departmental location of degrees and courses below.

Surprisingly we found just 4% of dissertations that traced their origins to DS specific departments. There could be several explanations for this. ProQuest just searches titles and abstracts so their search will not catch all dissertations using DS paradigms. Second, not all schools submit to ProQuest especially from outside of North America. It is possible that as relatively new programs, some DS departments simply have not yet established the needed links to library systems. Finally, few PhD's will have graduated from the newer programs.

Departmental Location of Degrees

Beyond the general figures on the growth of DS courses and degrees, we sought to examine where the field's momentum lies by investigating growth by type of department and region. First we revisit the issues raised earlier regarding our classification method in greater depth. Next we discuss the general and regional findings for degrees and then for courses. Finally, we offer a preliminary analysis of the findings. The detailed findings are available for each school in Tables 2 and 3 so that people with regional or disciplinary expertise can craft more particular analyses.

Reflections on Classification Method & DS Internal Differences

DS grew largely through its critique of medical and interventionist approaches to disability, leaving it with no obvious safe space to grow in those disciplines, even though they were the traditional sites of research on disability. Yet neither was DS clearly positioned, early on, to fit into other Social Science and Humanities disciplines given its interdisciplinarity and the general lack of interest in disability matters in those fields. This meant that DS pioneers faced genuine challenges in determining where to locate their courses and degrees in order to gain approval and a foothold in the academy. As such, we felt it was crucial to get an empirical measure of where DS has ultimately ended up being located today, 3 decades on from those earliest courses.

The data in this section all pertains to our original primary research up to 2008 and follows the definitions of DS that we outlined earlier. Classifying each program into a departmental category was however, not always straightforward: we encountered unique combinations like a degree in "Theatre, Education and Deaf Studies" (U of Reading) that effectively crossed three of our categories. In these hybrid cases, we used all the information we could to discern the primary or core disciplinary affiliation, administrative location, course focus, etc.

In addition to the DS guidelines, we had to establish several sub-principles to decide whether a program or course is included in or excluded from our count. For instance, we found some degrees or modules with the DS title but which we decided not to list because our investigation of their course descriptions, syllabi, reading lists and overall program description suggested that in spite of the title, they were traditional, deficit-focused degrees. In some of these cases, we have chosen to list one or two courses from the module that are truly DS in content.6

We do not expect that every reader or instructor will affirm all of our classification decisions, especially where a particular course or module has been excluded. Rather than seeing that as an issue, we consider it an indicator of the dynamism and re-shaping that the field will continue to do for years as it refines and defines itself. Our solution is to be transparent about our choices. At a 2008 SDS conference seminar, there was a lively discussion over whether a new undergraduate module for pre-medical school (life sciences) students should count as "Disability Studies." Several humanities-based DS scholars asked the presenters provocative questions that could be revisited in connection with our findings. The questions were partly stratagems over who gets to define DS, and certainly they echoed Linton's explicit concern with keeping DS separate from DS-themed adaptations to interventionist curricula (1998: 133). The audience questions can encourage a reflexive stocktaking for the field:

• Does being located within the medical sciences automatically discredit you from being DS?
• Should a module be called DS even if only a course or two deals with DS theory directly?
• Do applied courses that deal with progressive themes like social inclusion, autonomy and human rights (but not critical theory) count as DS?
• Can a degree that primarily trains people to work in the interventionist services be DS?
• What difference can be achieved in applied professionals' outlook via a DS course or two?
• Is a little DS better than no DS or more harmful because of the dilution?

Those in applied fields could fairly counter with arguments about the likelihood that their students will exert greater social change due to their extensive and proximate interactions with people with disabilities. A full, constructive airing of these debates may not lead to consensus but at least to greater intra-DS understanding. We could begin with a few of Linton's seminal statements on the issues (1998: 132-142). Her clear statement of what the field needed was, Disability Studies: "A well-developed, interdisciplinary inquiry, grounded in the liberal arts" (ibid: 135-6). She explains further a variety of ways that applied fields should develop better approaches as informed by DS and the Disability Movement, but finally concludes, "no matter which revisions are made in applied fields, all curriculum that supports intervention should be 'not DS'." (ibid: 136).

Although these are clear well-argued statements, we are not sure if they are fair or if this rigid distinction is still needed today. For instance, there are courses within OT/PT programs that are dedicated entirely to the DS approach with DS readings, first person narratives or people with impairment as guest speakers, and which openly discuss the problems with the individualization and medicalization of disability, often taught by people who have done dissertations grounded in DS theory. Is it fair to say that this is any less DS than my (Cushing's) DS course using similar content/ approach just because I teach it in a general way to anthropology and sociology students who don't have a particular career yet? As it turns out, roughly a quarter of students attracted to my courses appear to be employed part-time in front-line service provision and they are yearning for this critical perspective. But how is that different than the OT/PT students being exposed to the perspective of DS as an alternative to the primary interventionist perspective? Let's not forget that Linton also had harsh criticism of the Liberal Arts for their objectifying, "essentialist and deterministic explanations of disability" and yet we are now comfortable with DS being housed in those disciplines, albeit still with our transformative aims.

Linton's bold argument at the close of the 20th century was that in order to develop a rich, critical stance and body of research that offers resistance to the traditional approaches, DS absolutely needed a space of its own. Having this interdisciplinary, liberal arts setting to develop still seems crucial and fruitful today, and well-suited for the flourishing of DS. The question is: is that the only way to be DS? Is it possible to have the DS interdisciplinary, Liberal Arts grounded field and to have courses, modules and degrees that centre and integrate this theory into their applied work? As a parallel, we can imagine that "Culture and Gender" courses in Anthropology Departments or "Women's Health Issues" courses in medical school, can be both being richly informed by the Women's Studies field but also be able to translate feminist lessons to their particular audiences of students in meaningful ways. Having said that, there must be a clear commitment by applied field instructors to move away from the traditional touchstone of "disability as per force, a [individual] problem" (ibid: 134) in order to open students' eyes to the societal role in creating many challenges associated with impairment and its responsibility to help reverse them.

Findings for the Location of Degrees

We outline the findings about where degrees and courses are located followed by joint analysis of these findings due to their interwoven state. Overall, the findings indicate that in 2008, there are distinct differences between which departments are most likely to house individual courses and where full or partial degrees are housed, as well as key regional variations.

Chart 6 depicts which departments the degrees are housed in across all of the regions in our 2008 study.7 We used a principle of "one department = one point" for this calculation in order to avoid distorting the results through double-counting. So if a university Anthropology Department has a BA, a minor and a Masters, it counts for one point in Pie Charts 6 to 10.8

Chart 6 shows that across all regions, the most popular location for DS programs is within a dedicated DS department with 37% of degrees and partial degrees being housed there. This figure must be viewed in the context of the region-specific charts (See Charts 7, 8, 9 and 10) where you can see that this figure of a 1/3 share is boosted by the greater weight of the US figures in this weighted average: that is to say, in Chart 7 and 9 you can note that in the US and Canada, fully half (48% / 50%) of degrees or partial degrees are housed within dedicated DS departments whereas Charts 8 and 10 show that DS degrees located in DS-specific departments in the UK and Australia regions are significantly fewer at 15% / 25%.

The findings suggest questions for further reflection and research such as:

• How does the study of DS develop differently in a DS department, versus when integrated into a regular department?
• Do scholars within DS-specific departments end up feeling isolated from their primary discipline's machinations?
• Do DS scholars within traditional departments find resistance to or interest in DS?
• Where can DS have the most influence on scholarship, public opinion, media, the health system or in the lives of people with disability?

Certainly further research into the diversity of responses to these questions would help define the possibilities and concerns of the field's researchers.

Across all regions, the four most common locations for DS degrees (full/ partial) are (see Chart 6):

What may be most striking here is that the share of degrees housed within the professional schools (Applied Health, Education, Law and Social Work) exceeds that of DS itself. In fact, the sum of the applied department categories accounts for almost half (49%) of degrees. These programs educate students who will likely enter careers as professionals in the health services, law, social or education systems. We combined the categories of Social Sciences and Humanities for the 'Degree Location' charts.9

Regional differences

Regional differences are worth noting here. Half of the 23 departments that offer DS degrees in the US, have chosen to establish independent DS departments (See Chart 7). This presumably affords them a useful degree of autonomy in this dynamic field. Social Sciences and Humanities come in at a mere 4% here but this low figure traces to the fact that the bulk of interest and scholarship that exists in those disciplines has been converted into DS departments. In the US, Education departments house a quarter of DS degrees while another fifth of departments are in Applied fields like Health, Social Work and Law.

There are 13 university departments offering degrees in the UK / Ireland region and they split out into four categories with the Social Sciences & Humanities departments housing the bulk of DS degrees at 38% (See Chart 8). The Applied Health and Education categories each comprise just under a quarter share each and 15% (or 2 departments) are DS-specific. It is interesting that the UK region has developed in a distinct way from the US; despite the UK's well-established DS movement, its degrees are more often in regular (not DS) departments. Two possible explanations are that, one, their system is less amenable to establishing unusual interdisciplinary departments, or, two, that their scholars believe it is more beneficial to pursue DS research and teaching from within existing, general departments. A regional expert could explore this more deeply.

Canada's playing field consists of 6 universities offering degrees or partial degrees as of 2008 (See Chart 9). Similar to the US, half of these initiatives have become DS specific departments or programs. Each of these claims a critical theory focus to their program offerings, but with diverse emphases. The undergraduate degree at Ryerson University, for example, highlights disability and the arts and offers creative course scheduling in modules for flexibility. York University's graduate-only department has a well-developed web of adjunct faculty to help them draw on expertise throughout the large school, and at University of Toronto, two senior DS scholars are actively creating courses, modules, seminar series and a research program throughout the campuses.

The other three Canadian DS degrees are each housed in different departments: Social Work, Applied Health (Community Rehabilitation), and Social Sciences. These degrees also comprise critical DS courses but are directionally closer to an applied focus by design; they aim to disseminate the DS worldview among students who will be working or participating in the disability field through the service, education, and health systems. These programs aim to transform the nature of the medical and education systems from within.

In Australia and New Zealand, 2 of the 4 degrees offered are located in what we have classified as Applied Health programs, and one each is in Disability Studies, and Social Work & Policy (See Chart 10). While many individual courses we examined are clearly critical DS, (see Chart 15) several programs we found in this region were assessed as insufficiently DS to count here. Interestingly, even the thriving DS department at Flinders is housed within a School of Medicine. Flinders offers the most extensive DS offerings with a PhD, Masters, certificate and two BA's.

Findings for the Disciplinary Location of Courses

Stand-alone courses can indicate the leading edge of degree development, but are also significant as evidence of the emerging breadth of interest in DS. Recall from the earlier overview charts that stand-alone courses doubled to 108 between 2003 and 2008 (Figure 3). Chart 11 shows the summary of results for all the regions, while the course break-out for each region is shown separately in Charts 12 to 15. Just a third of the courses, (35 of 108) are at the (post) graduate level, which reverses its prevalence for degrees. In distinction to the categories used from degrees here, the Social Sciences and Humanities were made into separate categories due to volume, and no DS-specific department listing was needed as that would make it part of a degree. We used the principle that every course is worth a check mark or point, as we did in overview Table 1. Figure 4 summarizes the data for pie charts 12-15.

In summary Chart 11, the reader may be struck by the significant difference in how the pieces of the pie break out in contrast to Chart 6 for Degree Locations. Social Sciences and Humanities departments house almost two thirds of the stand-alone courses in 2008 (31% and 28%), while they only accounted for 15% of the degree locations. The next most common locations for independent DS courses were within Education or Social Work departments — some of these are cases where a partial or full degree is called DS but where just a course or two qualified according to the DS guidelines we are using. Applied or Professional courses comprise over 40% of total courses.

Table 1 takes us behind the summary numbers where we see that several schools have multiple courses already (e.g.: University of Arizona, Texas (Austin), Toronto, British Columbia, and Glasgow). This could be a useful early proxy for likely future sites of a DS minor or degree. Indeed Arizona indicates their plans in this regard and Toronto seems well on its way. Table 3 shows that most of the stand-alone DS courses have titles that qualify as introductory or survey-style courses — an important way to introduce a range of people to key DS frameworks. There are also courses that address a specific theme or sub-group. Here is a sampling of those tailored course titles: Disability and Normalcy in Literature; Dependency and Disability in Moral and Political Theory; Deafness in Literature and Film; Global Perspectives on Disability; Dis/ability, Representation and Social Justice; Extraordinary Bodies; and Crip Cultures and DS.

Breaking things down by region, over 60% of these courses are American, and Chart 12 shows that the US split mirrors the regional summary. The Humanities do overtake the Social Sciences, reversing the split to 38 % / 26% of total courses while the share of applied courses is just 37%. We only found 10 independent courses in the UK / Ireland which could be in part due to their distinct approach to graduate work with fewer official courses. Of those 10, Chart 13 shows that there was a nice diversity of disciplinary homes, with Education leading the way at 30% and one or two courses in each of our other categories. Fully 70% of courses fall into the Applied or Professional realm. Canada's break out in Chart 14 closely resembles the US and total patterns with 37% applied courses, which are similarly split with several Education and Social Work courses. For Canada most of the rest - 48% - are Social Sciences and just 14% are Humanities. Australia and New Zealand have a distinctly different split than all others with one course each in: Education, Law and Social Work, making for a highly applied mix, similar to its degree locations (Chart 15). We suspect that this count underestimates what is on offer in the UK and Australia regions but after following up on several leads given to us, we found that most did not meet SDS guidelines.

While there are almost 4 times more courses within degrees (Chart 1), the location and character of independent courses are an important indicators of pools of interest in DS outside its key moorings and for places where DS might fruitfully expand to build on its strengths or to fill in gaps.

Growth and Expansion

The primary story that our findings tell is of the tremendous growth in DS in the last two decades. DS remains an innovative, leading edge school of thought, whose explanatory and worldview-shifting power continues to be revealed to people in the academy and in the applied disability fields. Our findings suggest that DS has reached a critical mass of academic and professional credibility (if not broad popular awareness) in at least two senses: the development of its own departments and the acceptance and offering of DS degrees and courses by a diverse array of traditional departments

To illustrate: in contrast with the absence of DS degrees at the time of the 1993 study (Pfeiffer & Yoshida 1995), the finding that there are now, just 15 years later, 17 dedicated Disability Studies departments offering degrees across the regions (Chart 6), is an impressive measure of the strength of support for this emerging discipline. Growth is also happening elsewhere; we found 29 regular departments offering DS degrees or partial degrees (minor, certificate, concentration etc) (Chart 6 or Figure 5). Together these departments offer 36 distinct,10 full degrees and 31 distinct partial degrees (Figure 4) made up of 420 courses within degrees. Table 1 indicates that there are also several schools with proposed degrees in the advanced planning stages. Growth in courses has been equally noteworthy with independent courses nearly doubling in just 5 years up to 2008 and more than tripling since 1999.

Amidst this exciting story of growth, we do not want to overstate the success — the average person in or out of the academy generally could not explain the idea behind DS in the same way that they could explain the issues of racism, sexism or homophobia, so there is much dissemination yet to be done. It is thus not yet time to argue that DS has 'arrived'. We suggest that one indicator of reaching that stage would be finding evidence that DS ideas, readings and examples were being incorporated into other, non-disability-specific courses.11 Another research study might try to gauge how often DS concepts or readings are used in courses that teach: cultural construction, social movements, sub-cultures, identity, representation or discrimination.

Hybridization of DS with Applied Fields

The most striking new finding from this departmental analysis is the large and increasing share (49%) of DS degrees being offered through Applied and Professional departments. Similarly, over 40% of DS stand-alone courses are in applied settings (Chart 11). Given the roots of DS in critical theory and a critique of the often individualizing, deficit-focused approach of those applied and professional fields, this finding is not uncontroversial. We are calling this phenomenon the hybridization of DS with applied fields which is when DS courses or degrees are offered by departments, or taught by people, whose main focus remains applied in the sense of training people for work within the health, education and social welfare systems. Such training contrasts with more classic DS, which centers on ideas, symbolism and consciousness-raising. Classic DS research involves deconstructing how we imagine disability culturally and socially and how those often-negative imaginings have a material influence on the lives of people with disability.

While DS developed in opposition to the interventionist and medical model approaches inherent to the professional fields, our findings indicate that some of those applied departments are now listening to DS: a solid minority of applied departments are incorporating DS perspectives by offering individual courses or even minors, concentrations or degrees in DS. Within the DS landscape they are much more than a minority, with over 40% of all DS degrees and independent DS courses (Chart 6 and 11). Perhaps we could refer to these courses and degrees as Disability Studies' "fifth column;" our insider tool in the constructive effort to transform how the medical and education systems conceive disability.12

This applied trend prompts the question of what should be done when the foil for one's arguments shifts their position. Should one react with skepticism or openness to collaboration? Their students are going to be active in the disability field regardless, so there is incentive for ensuring that they understand DS. Below we suggest possible positives and drawbacks of the hybridization of DS and applied fields.

Some positive aspects of this development:

• Conceptual Influence: An opportunity for DS to act as a vital corrective to the primarily medical/ applied model approach to disability that is otherwise taught.
• Student Influence: Positions DS scholars well to influence (through teaching or articles) a new group of students. We can plant seeds for reflection about alternative visions of disability and the health, social work and education fields.
• Scholarly and Professional Influence or Cripping the Disciplines: Opportunities for DS scholars to showcase DS concepts, research and theories to academic colleagues and key community partners not otherwise exposed to these ideas.
• Administrative Influence: If the university sees that an applied DS course is popular, this can work towards establishing a DS module or full DS department.
• Awareness: The fact that applied leaders want their students to learn DS is an indicator of the growing critical mass of DS

Some potential drawbacks of this development:

• Dilution: With just a course or two on DS, it is possible that students will not have enough exposure to effectively integrate the core critical message of DS
• Co-optation: A common concern of alternative health approaches (e.g. midwifery, herbal medicine) is how easily their message can get co-opted by the pervasive medical approach, such that it loses its critical, transformative drive and becomes just one more 'lens' or tool in what remains an interventionist model of health.
• Superficiality: By offering a course or module in DS, other faculty members may feel absolved of grappling with the radical implications of DS for the system and curriculum.
• Deceptive: We found numerous departments / degrees across the regions that have had recent name changes to "Disability Studies" that are not actually DS upon closer examination of their mandate and courses. It could be opportunistic, or maybe they are signaling a hope to move in this direction. Misappropriation of the name risks confusing people.
• Tokenism: By agreeing to offer a course or concentration in DS, the university officials may feel less pressure to approve an independent DS department that could create a more conducive space for transformative research and teaching.

Hybridized or blended DS courses and degrees will remain an influential part of the overall DS landscape for the foreseeable future. As such, a key challenge for DS scholars and DS societies is to figure out a plan of engagement with these disciplines that puts us in the driver's seat, or at least in the vehicle! All-out resistance or exclusion of the sort suggested earlier seems impossible (and probably not sensible anyway) and if 'we' disengage, we cannot then be defensive or disappointed about how they use 'our' research and theories. Disengaging does not seem like an option that would serve the dignity of people with disability or the aims of DS. The potential drawbacks listed, and Linton's earlier cautions both suggest that engagement may be uneasy or imperfect at times, but let us not overlook the potential to bear fruit as well.

Integration of DS into Existing Liberal Arts Disciplines

Our third point is about integration, which describes the large number of DS courses and a selection of DS degrees that are offered in liberal arts disciplines as part of a regular degree that is not disability-specific. For example, integration is evident with a single course on disability and literature from a regular English department (Davidson College, USA) or a module on gender and disability out of a Sociology and Social Policy Department (U. of Leeds, UK). Integration scenarios are different in character from Hybridization ones, and they also imply different kinds of challenges for DS as a field.

For this analysis, we defined "liberal arts" to include the social sciences, humanities, fine arts, and languages — fields that are known to teach general intellectual development.13 This is in contrast to the more applied fields discussed above which provide "a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum" (Wikipedia 2008b). This story comes out most strongly in the Location of Courses charts but is also salient for degrees. Integration is a variation on the theme of hybridization in that it is also about identifying the disciplinary route(s) by which DS has entered the academic structures. There are two key differences however. First, the applied and professional fields that we discussed in relation to hybridization have always taught disability-related material, whereas the liberal arts fields were slow to take up the topic of disability in a systematic way (Cushing 2006). The applied fields are very conversant with disability, but through a lens that often conflicts with the DS one. Theoretical or ideological fit is the second key difference. In many ways the DS approach, theory and heuristics are a natural fit for the liberal arts that have long studied and worked with marginalized, misunderstood and disadvantaged groups from critical angles. Here however, disability was not a common vector of difference studied, and as Linton wrote, when they did address it, it was mainly with theories that reproduced negative, deviant overtones (1998: 134-37).

In hybridization scenarios, DS must grapple with a sort of inherent tension that exists because of the history of DS taking those applied disciplines to task. Those fields offer DS a good opportunity to access and transform crucial audiences who will eventually serve on the front lines of disability support systems. However, they also give rise to challenges about how to reach out to, or work collaboratively with those systems, without being submerged by the pervasive interventionist narrative, and losing the critical point of view.

In liberal arts integration scenarios, the good news is that we generally find a receptive, like-minded audience among our colleagues and students who are already familiar with ideas of cultural construction, medicalization of society, systemic violence, structural injustice, identity, representation and other common DS themes. Many people in these fields are unfamiliar with disability and the emerging research and activism around it, so this is a useful opportunity to interest and expose more people to the DS paradigm. We should not assume that the gold standard for DS is always to establish an independent, DS-specific department or degree. If one goal of DS scholars is to expose as many people as possible to DS ideas, then having a DS course or concentration within a traditional department may be equally valuable for achieving exposure, especially among students with little awareness of critical perspectives on disability.

Irrespective of the theoretical compatibility for DS with the liberal arts, the integration of our courses in these departments still raises some questions worth discussing. How do we ensure, for instance, that disability is not viewed as just one more " — ism," unworthy of a distinct analysis apart from what already exists for gender, race, or sexuality? How do we ensure that the voice of people with disability is included in the curriculum and decisions of representation? In recent years, social science and humanities scholars have made some creative attempts to include those they wish to represent in curricular decisions and lectures, and this initiative is a good directional fit for DS.

Future Implications

This research also gestures at provisional program design recommendations. Expansion of DS means that the field can become more diverse, competitive and inclusive. Students will look for increasing flexibility to choose a department that best fits their interests and needs. Future research could usefully poll people with disability and/or undergraduate DS students about what those interests and needs are. It could make sense for some departments or courses to specialize in terms of type, theme or format. Most schools offer a cross-disability approach for practical, ideological or political reasons, but some schools already specialize around a certain type of impairment. Thematic specialization has also already begun to emerge with examples of schools focusing on fine arts, critical theory, or rights, and other possibilities include: narrative, violence, eugenics and reproduction; family and kinship, or even vectors of difference such as gender, ethnicity or stage of life. Specialization should not, of course, diminish the symbolic or political significance of the shared disability experience. A third area of distinction is to offer courses or programs in alternative formats that can increase accessibility by accommodating people with various impairments or work, family and financial barriers. Options include courses offered by distance, web-based, night courses, intensive modules (versus full-term courses) and using universal format for accessibility.