Disability Model Analysis
Overview
We want you to demonstrate an ability to argue for how a given technology or research project, including your own, meets or fails to meet appropriate disability principles drawn from disability justice.
Best Practices for Disability Models Analysis
It is important to understand disability led, critical theoretical models and consider how they should impact the design of disability technology. Some models you might consider drawing from include:
- Disability justice’s 10 principles laid out by Sins Invalid
- Language Justice
- Feminist disability theory
- Another model you may find or regularly use yourself (requires staff approval)
In addition, you must demonstrate an understanding of some of the standard principals for good disability-centered design drawn from disability studies’ models of disability, and community modes such as Liz Jackson’s concept of a disability dongle. These include
- Avoiding ableist assumptions about what disabled people need or want or are capable of (for example, are both design tools, and their outputs accessible? does the project increase control and agency, or do things for disabled people?)
- Disability leadership or input into the early stages of the work to avoid the disability dongle scenario
- Looking beyond overly simplistic models of disability to address the whole community (intersectionality, multiple disabled people, multiply disabled people)
Rubric for this Competency
- Excellent
- Uses two or more principals correctly (including defining them and correctly explaining why they apply) and addresses at least two of the three additional points in a nuanced way
- Competent
- Uses at least two principals correctly and addresses at least one additional point
- Not Competent
- Doesn't accurately connect the subject to disability-related concepts
Typical Handin for this Competency
- Define and explain two disability justice principles. For each, explain how the subject fails or succeeds to meet that?
- Address the three additional points
- Is it ableist?
- Is it informed by disabled perspectives?
- Does it oversimplify disability/identity?