Abstract
This paper contends that disabled teachers are in such short supply as to be invisible even amongst minority teachers from already vastly marginalised populations. This is not simply because discriminatory practices are embedded within employment policies of educational systems, but deeply held socio-cultural attitudes also prevent disabled people accessing and attaining basic and later, higher levels of academic achievement. The central argument here is a simple one; disabled people as teachers offer a unique knowledge standpoint, challenge the animosity of dominant cultural beliefs around disability as analogous with passivity or non-achieving, and provide a source of resistance, solace and resolution for students they teach. Disabled people as educators enact exemplary pedagogic justice and socially inclusive practice. The aim of this paper is to explore the benefits to students and places of higher education alike of embracing both the person and the role of the teacher with disability as culturally relevant educators.
Highlights
This paper contends that disabled teachers are in such short supply as to be invisible even amongst minority teachers from already vastly marginalised populations
The aim of this paper is to explore the benefits to students and places of higher education alike of embracing both the person and the role of the teacher with disability as culturally relevant educators
Earlier in this paper I stated that much research around equity in higher education is directed towards students rather than academic teaching staff
Summary
When I step into the lecture theatre or tutorial room I am acutely aware that I am a ‘minority status’ teacher. Whilst referring to teacher demographics and arguing the need to increase the number of ethnically diverse staff in faculties offering Special Education programs, Dooley’s point is a salient one which can be readily transferred to an examination of ‘minority’ culturally diverse, especially disabled, teaching staff across universities in Australia. Upon appointment to a university the new staff member may opt to ‘self identify’ their ethnic origin, or their status as an Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander on a specific form for equal opportunity and human resource data collection purposes This is not the case for staff with disability unless the individual themselves requests some type of specific assistance thereby creating notice within the bureaucracy. The ‘incongruity’ produced in the encounter between the tragic ‘disability’ discourses of science, medicine, charity and the media and the disability rights discourse of disabled people ‘enjoying’ themselves and their ‘solidarity with each other while challenging the role that society has assigned us’. (Corker, 1999, p. 81)
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