About the Journal

Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Andrew Marcum, CUNY School of Professional Studies

Associate Editor: Dr. Brian Le Lay, CUNY School of Professional Studies

Managing Editor: Dr. Charnessa Warren, University of Chicago

Mission

The idea for this journal originated during a conversation between Mariette Bates, Beth Haller, Matthew Wangeman, and Suzanne Stolz at a Society for Disability Studies conference.

With the proliferation of disability studies courses and programs since the 1990s, this journal addresses a growing need for a platform to foster community and enhance disability studies pedagogy across academic disciplines and nonacademic spaces alike.

The mission of The Journal of Teaching Disability Studies (JTDS) is to promote and enhance disability studies pedagogy in a wide variety of academic and nonacademic contexts, including but by no means limited to:

• primary, secondary, and postsecondary academic settings including continuing and adult education
• standalone courses or topics/approaches within discipline-specific courses the curriculum
• institutions such as libraries, museums, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies
• professional learning initiatives such as workshops, microcredentials, and faculty development programs

JTDS encourages educators to share original research on how disability studies can fit into these contexts.

Scope

What is meant by the term disability studies is contested ground. Some courses and programs that identify as disability studies fall on the more applied side of the spectrum, while many others center a variety of humanistic, arts-based, and theoretical approaches. We celebrate this multiplicity.

Broadly, it is our hope that JTDS will help educators to identify and explore pedagogical approaches that use the social model (broadly construed) as a driving philosophy, prioritize disabled people’s experiences as co-researchers and study participants, and incorporate principles and practices of inclusive and universal design in course design and delivery.