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Reconceptualizing Self-Advocacy and Accessibility Labour in Post-Secondary Education for Blind and Partially Sighted Learners: A Participatory Framework

Wilton, Adam (2024) Reconceptualizing Self-Advocacy and Accessibility Labour in Post-Secondary Education for Blind and Partially Sighted Learners: A Participatory Framework. [MRP]

Item Type: MRP
Creators: Wilton, Adam
Abstract:

The prevailing institutional expectation that blind and partially sighted students in post-secondary education will need to repeatedly self-advocate to obtain equitable and timely access to course learning materials is fatiguing, stressful, and othering. The time and resources that students devote to self-advocacy represents unrecognized labour that is not typically expected of non-disabled peers. This unrecompensed accessibility labour and its consequences are central to the rationale for the participatory framework proposed in this paper, recognizing that equitable access depends, in part, on mitigating the requirement that students engage in accessibility labour to realize their right to an inclusive post-secondary education. Dyads of blind and partially sighted accessibility professionals and course instructors will work through an iterative process to upgrade instructors’ workflows for creating and curating accessible learning materials. An anticipated outcome of this facilitation process is that learning materials assigned by participating instructors will meet an increasing proportion of students’ access requirements, and as a result, progressively mitigate the accessibility labour required to gain equitable access to course content.

Date: 10 January 2024
Uncontrolled Keywords: Participatory design, blind and partially sighted students; post-secondary; higher education, learning materials, accessibility labour; accommodation; self-advocacy, accessibility evaluation.
Divisions: Graduate Studies > Inclusive Design
Date Deposited: 17 Jan 2024 15:18
Last Modified: 17 Jan 2024 15:18
URI: https://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/4192

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