DEE - Disability and Equity in Education

This course will explore historical and current theoretical models and paradigms that have shaped educational beliefs and values about disability. Its purpose is to provide participants with several of the multiple epistemological frames that underlie pedagogy of disability. Among the paradigms to be considered will be behavioral and social learning theories, medical and positivist models, and cognitive and psychodynamic theories. Emphasis will be placed on the contributions and implications for practice of each model or paradigm. The course also examines tensions among the beliefs and assumptions inherent in each, the social meanings of disability in each, and the consequences of these tensions for policies and practices. Prerequisite(s): Admission to a doctoral program in NCE, post-masters status, or consent of instructor. 3 semester hours

This course is designed to provide the student with a basic understanding of policy, policy discourses, and critical policy analysis, particularly the analysis of policy ideology, politics, and policy consequences. Students will be given opportunities to analyze and critique policy from their chosen field (e.g., curriculum, special education, teacher education, literacy, leadership), critique policy making in action; develop a scholarly stance toward policy analysis; recognize the connections between justice, social action, policy, and practice; and formulate ideas and strategies for being policy change-agents in their chosen education. Prerequisite(s): Admission to a doctoral program in NCE, post-masters status, or consent of instructor. 3 semester hours

This course explores principles and practices of activism across a variety of contexts. The primary focus is on personal, social, institutional and legislative changes necessary to promote inclusive democratic education. The roles and procedures of advocacy, consciousness raising, activism, service learning, emancipatory research, and critical pedagogy are addressed. Psychological, social, and educational processes involved in constructing and maintaining marginal "others" are analyzed and deconstructed in order to imagine and conceptualize futures that are not tied to the dictates of the past. Insights gained and strategies used in prominent social movements, including the disability rights movement, will be investigated. Prerequisite(s): Admission to a doctoral program in NCE, post-masters status, or consent of instructor. 3 semester hours

This course critically explores implications, meanings, and uses of educational and psychological assessment in the social construction of ability/disability and the maintenance of social hierarchies. Historical, philosophical, and scientific foundations of assessment will be explored and interrogated. Historical and contemporary theories and practices of assessment will be considered from positions of race, ethnicity, gender, social class and disability. Social, educational, and political uses of assessment will be evaluated from critical sociological, educational and psychological perspectives. Assessment and accountability practices embedded in federal education laws will be scrutinized for their impact on particular social groups and institutional cultures. Prerequisite(s): Admission to a doctoral program in NCE, post-masters status, or consent of instructor. 3 semester hours

Educational knowledge is often viewed as evolutionary and progressive, leading to incremental improvement of services for individuals with disabilities. This course critically examines the foundational grand narratives of progress and emancipation evident in a traditional or modernist conception of disability in education. Course participants will draw from critical perspectives to explore the assumptions, conceptions and discontinuities evident in the history of disability as represented in primary and secondary sources and contemporary historical accounts. Prerequisite(s): Admission to a doctoral program in NCE, post-masters status, or consent of instructor. 3 semester hours

A doctoral seminar dealing with issues in education as they relate to disability and equity. Prerequisite(s): Admission to a doctoral program in NCE, post-masters status, or consent of instructor. 3 semester hours (May be repeated 3 times up to 12 hours.)

This seminar introduces the student to the interdisciplinary field of disability studies in education, including its tenets and its approaches to theory, research, and practice. Basic concepts in the field are examined, particularly comparisons between the medical and social models of disability and the implications of both. Contemporary regional and global issues, problems, and debates are explored as relate to K-12 and postsecondary inclusive education. Prerequisite(s): Admission to a doctoral program in NCE, post-masters status, or consent of instructor. 3 semester hours