Disability and diversity on CSU websites: A critical discourse study.

Abstract

With more than 325,000 students, the California State University (CSU) system is 1 of the largest in the United States, making it a useful unit of analysis for studying disability and diversity. Using a critical discourse theoretical framework and borrowing strategies from Astroff (2001) and Pauwells (2012), we found disability information on CSU websites to have surface visibility-66% of the sites had minimal information on the home page. However, digging deeper into the sites we found frustrating navigation structures, hidden content, and the disengagement of disability from diversity. The sites constitute disability as the deficits of individual students that call for regulatory institutional responses and ignore disability as a feature of diversity.

College disability support offices as advertisements: A multimodal discourse analysis

“…Fewer clicks were required on PC devices because putting a cursor, or hovering, on a menu bar often automatically opened the sub-menu bar, whereas a phone user would need to click the menu bar icon to open the same sub-menu bar. Gabel et al (2015) suggests that four or fewer clicks on computers are within a comfortable range for users.…”

“…Navigation path to specific content from a homepage is related to prioritization and categorization of the information and the users’ perception of being welcomed into the website (Djonov, 2007; Gabel et al, 2015). Particularly, indexing how easily DSO webpage can be reached, the number of clicks and navigation path serve as a proxy for accessibility (Gabel et al, 2015). Gabel et al (2015) conducted the ‘snapshot click study’, which gathered the number of clicks and navigation paths needed to find disability content from the homepages of HEIs.…”

“…Particularly, indexing how easily DSO webpage can be reached, the number of clicks and navigation path serve as a proxy for accessibility (Gabel et al, 2015). Gabel et al (2015) conducted the ‘snapshot click study’, which gathered the number of clicks and navigation paths needed to find disability content from the homepages of HEIs. Gabel et al found that 12% of the HEI websites included did not have disability content within the four clicks from the homepage or required users to do a search for ‘disability’ to reach disability contents.…”

“…They also report that while these websites often include many images of racial minorities and international students, they rarely feature individuals with visible disabilities. Furthermore, Gabel et al’s (2015) discourse analysis of HEI websites revealed that disability was disengaged from institutional diversity and was situated as deficits of individual students. The HEI websites analyzed by Gabel et al (2015) frequently used terms consistent with medical model discourse when referring to disabilities, thereby positioning disability as a problem located within students.…”

“…Furthermore, Gabel et al’s (2015) discourse analysis of HEI websites revealed that disability was disengaged from institutional diversity and was situated as deficits of individual students. The HEI websites analyzed by Gabel et al (2015) frequently used terms consistent with medical model discourse when referring to disabilities, thereby positioning disability as a problem located within students. Gabel et al (2015) also suggested that the low visibility of disability on the homepages of HEIs powerfully communicates an institutional lack of attention toward disability as a part of diversity.…”