Radio blindness: interdisciplinarity, ocularnormativity, and young people’s preparation for academia

Abstract

ABSTRACT True to the field of Cultural Disability Studies in Education (CDSE), this project adopts an explicitly interdisciplinary approach in order to explore representations of disability and the related social attitudes and experiences. Disability studies and radio studies are brought together to predicate and inform the analysis of a sample of education-centred discussions featured in In Touch, a long-running BBC Radio 4 programme made for, and by, people who have visual impairments. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is applied to the sub-themes of mainstream-special schooling and social interaction, which are organised in accordance with the tripartite model of disability in order to avoid one-dimensional readings. The project cuts across the mainstream-special binary and reveals the epistemological value of non-normative community in both preparing for, and succeeding in, 21st-century academia.