EDUCATIONAL GOALS FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS DIAGNOSED WITH DISABILITIES: FROM INDIVIDUALIST TO TRANSFORMATIVE ACTIVIST AGENDA

Abstract

Due to the legal protections and the effects of inclusive reforms introduced in the U.S. in the last decades, the number of students diagnosed with disabilities (SDWD) entering post-secondary education in the country has steadily increased. Nevertheless, SDWD remain significantly underrepresented among the college student population and their graduation rates are lower than those of their able-bodies peers’. Common explanations of unequal outcomes of SDWD in college have invoked issues related to students’ transitioning from high school to college and inadequate provision of diversified and adequate support. In this paper, I critically examine the scholarship on academic success of SDWD in higher education that shape institutional discourses and practices around educational and life goals for SDWD. My analysis reveals that narrowly individualistic notions of personal responsibility, autonomy, self-determination and self-advocacy skills dominate such practices and discourses. My contention is that a focus on achieving independence as the ultimate educational goal for SDWD reproduces ableistic assumptions and ultimately disempowers those students. Merging insights from critical disability studies with the Vygotskian socio-historical theory expanded by the Transformative Activist Stance, I propose a radical reconceptualization of developmental goals for SDWD away from the notion of independence of individual learners toward focusing on interdependence, reciprocity, relationality, connectedness and collective agency.