A Case for including Disability Policy Issues in Public Policy Curricula

Abstract

Many graduate schools of public policy are considering how to expand their curriculum to be more inclusive of diverse elements in society. Some of the themes are familiar: how to learn from the experiences of different countries, how to bring in the perspective of women and people of different races and nationalities. Yet rarely does the debate include people with disabilities, despite the fact that there-are far more people with disabilities (as many as 43 million people, according to various estimates), with far more diverse needs, than there are other minorities. One way to teach public policy students what they need to know about the disability constituency is to include materials on disability issues in the curriculum. The point is twofold: that disability is a mainstream public policy topic that can be used to illustrate a wide array of public policy themes; and that disability issues are important enough to be studied in their own right. This article describes the types of issues that can be discussed in graduate public policy schools in order to accomplish both goals. Until now, virtually no cases have been available, but that situation has changed. Several cases are now available through a three-year grant awarded to the primary author by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The purpose of the grant is to introduce disability into mainstream public policy schools, through the development of case studies, conference workshops, and other publications. The primary author mailed a short survey to over 200 public policy/administration professors,