Understanding, Perception, and Accommodation of Disability in Writing Centers

• Other Authors: Lang, Heather (authoraut)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; English
• Published: Florida State University
• Subjects: Rhetoric
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_2017SP_Lang_fsu_0071E_13752

Scholarship in writing center studies has not yet fully examined the ways in which writing center professionals engage with writers with disabilities. Throughout the history of writing center studies, disability has functioned either as a metaphor to distance the writing center from disability, or as an obstacle to overcome. Though recent work has begun to extoll the consequences of such approaches to disability, there remains little systematic or sustained inquiry into practices that benefit, or are developed for, writers with disabilities. Collectively, this scholarship provides the exigence for this study: the need for systematic, inquiry-driven research that illuminates the position of disability in writing centers. Thus, this study asks how do writing center administrators understand, perceive, and accommodate writers with disabilities? To answer this question, I draw from writing center studies, writing studies, and disability studies to develop two interrelated continua that serve as a framework for this dissertation: the Dis/Ability Continuum and the Exclusion/All continuum. I engage these frameworks in a mixed methods research design that combines survey and case study methodologies. The findings of this dissertation include the following: 1) a social understanding of disability is on the rise in writing center studies; 2) social understandings of disability are the result of a complex assemblage of context-specific factors; 2) a social understanding of disability does not necessarily lead to a social perception of disability; 3) social perception of disability is best achieved through recursive and reflexive praxis; 4) a social understanding of disability, when implemented in a writing center setting, may encourage the use of Universal Design approaches to accommodation. === A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. === Spring Semester 2017. === April 10, 2017. === accommodation, disability studies, rhetoric and composition, universal design, writing center studies === Includes bibliographical references. === Kristie Fleckenstein, Professor Directing Dissertation; Donna Nudd, University Representative; Kathleen Blake Yancey, Committee Member; Rhea Estelle Lathan, Committee Member.