Disability Awareness

Disability Awareness can be defined as a process of uncovering attitudes and beliefs about disability. Persons with disability often experience discrimination based upon their difference. This discrimination may manifest itself in lowered expectations for disabled people, or pity. Disability awareness asks all people to examine the stereotypes found in media (and even art) that help form peoples’ beliefs about disability. It is my personal belief that one way that the level of disability awareness in art classes can be elevated is by examining the work of artists with disabilities (Disability arts). Often times, their work focuses on deconstructing the ways in which societal structures and media perpetuate these harmful stereotypes. Disability art is art which empowers the artist to cast his or her image as it really is, refuting the pervasive images and stereotypes in society.

Disability awareness is the responsibility of every teacher, because disability exists. Students with disabilities in the classroom need to see themselves represented in the curricula that are chosen (incorporating the work of artists with disabilities into course content) and students without disabilities need to be given the opportunity to examine the role of the media in constructing stereotypes. Further, all students receiving an art education should realize the power and efficacy of art to deconstruct and reconstruct their own ideas and attitudes about a variety of social issues, especially disability. If our classrooms are to prepare students to participate equitably in an increasingly diverse society, disability awareness must be part of the curriculum.

The links below are excellent starting points for examining attitudes about disability and the way that societal structures often engender stereotypes resulting in discrimination. Many of the links below are online interactive exhibits that students and teachers can participate in together.

Disability Awareness in the Classroom (book)
The Ten Commandments of Communicating with People with Disabilities
NICHCY—Disability Awareness Resources
EDGE: Education for Disability and Gender Equity
Disability Films
Disability Museum
Disability Social History Project
National Public Radio—Beyond Affliction: Disability History Project