Annotated Bibliography And Reflection

Annotated Bibliography and Reflections 2

Disability and ability identities and identity development:

Riddell, S., & Weedon, E. (2014). Disabled students in higher education: Discourses of disability and the negotiation of identity. International Journal of Educational Research, 63, 38-46.

Criticizing a low enrollment of disabled students at certain occupational training in postsecondary education level, Riddell and Weedon conducted case studies of a group of disabled students in four universities to examine their experiences and outcomes of identity development in relation to their disabilities. The authors observed that it is inevitable to consider disability as a major aspect of the identity for students with visible impairments, students

Though, I am curious whether it has changed over a decade since this case study was conducted. Thinking back to when I completed my teacher training recently, I still observed stigma on disabilities. Although the study provided a good overview of discrimination against disabled students and their issue of disclosure of their disabilities, I would have liked to read more on how the disability affects their identities. It would have been beneficial to also provide brief summary of other case studies to present how these students negotiate their identity in relation to their disabilities. This study was more focused on hidden impairments with a choice of disclosing a disability, but do students with visible impairments also feel as strongly to not consider disability as a key part of their identity, and would they also want to not disclose their disability if it does not significantly affect their learning in classes. Moreover, how does the intersectionality of other identity dimensions affect their way of negotiating their identity, was the students in marginalized group considered in their study, or did it only consider students in privileged groups in other dimensions? To change the attitudes people have on disabled students, it will be important to expand research into listening to a diverse group of students with different

It has only been about 3 years since my family had come to Canada when I pursued postsecondary education and I had almost zero knowledge of Canadian postsecondary education, but I had aspirational capital from my family to be supportive in every way they could provide although we did not have the normative cultural capital of others who grew up in Canada. I also had navigational capital of a very helpful counsellor in high school to introduce me to the institution and the program I pursued by considering my interests and believing in my potential. With my responsibilities for my family in translation helped me develop a better familiar capital to understand a sense of collectiveness to support my own community, which had further allowed me to a supportive colleague for my peers during my studies. In a way I had also developed linguistic capital among my group of Asian friends, although our English skills were not proficient, we were able to understand each other from shared Confucius-based values and expressions. This further influenced my social capital to find our own coping strategies to navigate the environments in the predominantly white institution. Furthermore, from encountering racism throughout my studies, I had developed resistant capital to not be discouraged by discrimination.