In 2021 the Crafts Council launched its national education programme, Craft School, alongside the pedagogical framework Make First. Both Craft School and Make First were a culmination of decades of learning, experience, and research from staff at the Crafts Council and are underpinned by anti-racist and anti-ableist learning methodologies. Through…

The discussion about the words and concepts related to autism is alive in the scholarly community, tacitly or explicitly. Contrasting ideologies linked to the medical model and neurodiversity paradigm underlie terminology referring to autism. The present proof-of-concept study conducted a critical discourse analysis of the terminology (i.e.,…

A compassionate care framework considers the neurodiverse needs of autistics and challenges the practitioner to think beyond their own comfort levels, preferences, and understanding of "correct" labels to consider how their language and actions support or create barriers for students. The foundational goals of compassionate care seek to…

In this article, I reflect on how my positioning along axes of disability, race, and class shapes my interaction with dominant discourses of motherhood and on how these tensions are explored in "The Mother," a public installation of my artwork shown in 2023. Situating myself in the liminal space between participation in and resistance to…

This conceptual methods article parallels remarks given at the 2022 American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities conference highlighting the importance of including the voices of people with intellectual disability in research processes. The purpose of this article was to put forth a call to action to disability researchers…

In this article, there is a cripped arugmentation towards and away from performance as curricular. In other words, what we are trying to more fully grapple with is how curriculum within the school and otherwise becomes and is embodied within the body as a performative action towards and away from "dis"ability as a means of…

Theodore Taylor's "The Cay" received a great deal of criticism upon its publication in 1969 for its racism, yet it has remained in American public school curricula for over fifty years. Defenders of the novel have argued that it advocates for color-blindness, a position that has helped entrench it in schools. Meanwhile, few critics have…

Sex education rarely covers disability. This paper uses autoethnography to reflect on how being epileptic impacted the author's understanding of sex and sexuality. The paper grapples with disability narratives and internalised ableism surrounding sex. The paper seeks to engage with conceptions of "who" sex education is for, and how…

This article describes the Miniature Exhibition Project, a collaborative project involving two intimate, at-home, miniature exhibitions curated by the co-author, Beatriz Asfora Galuban, for the co-author Asami Robledo-Allen Yamamoto. These miniature exhibitions were made to study disability, empathy, and friendship and were intended to reclaim and…

Current understandings of disability experience are centered around individuals who hold the disability identity and membership in the marginalized group. This perspective does not include the experiences of disability allies, such as parents, who act alongside their children to support their access and engagement in the education setting. This…

Intellectual Disabilities (ID) remains an underrepresented topic in social work curriculum, which perhaps results in relatively few social workers opting to practice with people with ID. To address this curricular gap, the article describes three need-based service learning initiatives developed in partnership with community agencies. Students…

Interlocking mechanisms of exclusion function as gatekeepers to high-quality learning in schools, which perpetuate oppressive conceptions of ability, learning, and intelligence. Across educational ecosystems, these intersecting forms of oppression--including but not limited to racism, ableism, and colonialism--are reified through exclusionary…

Underestimating the important role that disability plays in our growing world, the environment, and our inter-dependent economies is no longer acceptable. Far from being placed in a subaltern position, disability plays a significant role in theory and research development in the most recent waves of initiatives addressing work, resources, and the…

The article discusses recent Higher Education (HE) initiatives to introduce the Sunflower Scheme, which enables students with hidden disabilities to 'discreetly' indicate the existence of a disability to access support. A significant problem related to persons with hidden disabilities lies in their frequent reluctance to disclose their…

Questions about human behavior and diversity have captured the attention of scientists from a wide range of philosophical stances for centuries. While behavior analysts would argue that natural science is an enlightening perspective when applied to the understanding of the human condition, at times arguments within certain campaigns would prefer…