College students with disabilities redefine activism: Self-advocacy, storytelling, and collective action.

Abstract

Despite rapid growth in the numbers of students with disabilities enrolling in higher education, there is limited research about their experiences in colleges and universities, and information about their collegiate activism is even more limited. Through a constructivist grounded theory study of 59 college students and recent graduates, we demonstrate the connection between activism and purpose in the lives of students with disabilities. Our findings suggest advocacy skills and activist tendencies were socialized early in life by parental role models. College students with disabilities drew upon foundational self-advocacy skills to engage in a variety of forms of disability activism during college including doing, role modeling, and teaching self-advocacy; reducing stigma through education and storytelling; and collective action. College students also engaged in activism on issues other than disability. Narratives from students with disabilities demonstrate a need to rethink traditional notions of activism in order to develop broader and more accurate definitions of college activism.

Using Qualitative Research to Document Variations in Student Experience

“…Ultimately, however, we must note that we do not believe this study to be exceptionally unique. While it is true that there is limited research on this topic (Kimball et al., ), our study provided robust information about many facets of students’ experiences on campus—including their social lives, experiences in residential halls, thoughts about disability services, comments on instructor behaviors, and more. The expansive nature of constructivist qualitative work means that it will almost always produce a broader range of findings than intended: it has a way of showing the interconnectedness of otherwise disparate experiences.…”

“…Even in leaving the basketball team, however, this participant also revealed that she had learned to identify situations that were maladaptive for her success and to remove herself from them, which can be a key form of self‐determination for people with disabilities (Kimball, Moore, Vaccaro, Troiano, & Newman, ).…”

“…Further, building from the observation that athletic participation had become a way of imparting structure in their lives, our findings suggest that interventions that use physical activity as a way to teach time management might prove helpful. Disability services offices have not historically offered this form of support (Kimball et al., ). Finally, our study encourages campuses to look beyond the physical dimensions of disability to acknowledge the many ways that students with disabilities engage on campus, and not to only consider their experiences when assessing disability services offices (Vaccaro et al., ).…”

Cultural Competence and Inclusivity in Mentoring, Coaching, and Advising

“…Kimball, Moore, Vaccaro, Troiano, and Newman () found that college students with disabilities were often not recognized as activists or student leaders despite extensive action on and off campus. By expanding the definition of activism and reimagining what leadership looked like, Kimball et al.…”

Student activism, diversity, and the struggle for a just society.

“…In "From Margins to Mainstream: Social Media as a Tool for Campus Sexual Violence Activism, " Linder, Myers, Riggle, and Lacy (2016) use Internet-related ethnography to call attention to the growing role of social media in student organizing, specifically addressing campus sexual violence. Kimball, Moore, Vaccaro, Troiano, and Newman (2016) in "College Students with Disabilities Redefine Activism: Self-Advocacy, Storytelling and Collective Action" rely on a constructivist grounded theory approach to offer important insights into the ways in which students with disabilities challenge traditional conceptions of student activism. In "'The Poor Kids' Table': Organizing Around an Invisible and Stigmatized Identity in Flux," Warnock and Hurst (2016) utilize qualitative data from 16 semistructured interviews to examine the formation and maintenance of a support group involving low-income, first-generation, and/or working-class students (LIFGWC); a key finding notes that LIFGWC students differed in their comfort level in terms of engaging in social class based campus activism.…”