What do you think?
Rate this book
Creating Our Own Lives: College Students with Intellectual Disability
Young adults with intellectual disability tell the story of their own experience of higher education
How do students with intellectual disability experience higher education? Creating Our Own Lives addresses this question through the eyes of participants themselves. In relating their experiences and aspirations, these student perspectives mount a powerful challenge to assumptions that intellectual disability is best met with protection or segregation.
Taken together, the essays expose and contradict the inherently ableist claim that individuals with intellectual disability cannot be reliable storytellers. Instead, their deeply informative stories serve as a corrective narrative. The first of the four sections, “Laying the Why Everyone Belongs in College,” focuses on belonging and inclusion; the second, “Opening Up Overcoming Doubt and Uncertainty,” conveys the optimism of this generation of advocates through stories of personal hardship, hopeful perseverance, and triumph over adversity; the third, “Inclusion as Diversifying Student Experiences,” supports the understanding of diverse student experiences in inclusive higher education; and the fourth, “Supporting Peer Mentoring and Advice,” offers guidance to those reimagining and creating educational spaces.
Students with disabilities belong in higher education. Not only does this book serve as an important record of students enrolled in inclusive higher education programs, it is also an unprecedented resource, packed with information and inspiration both for parents seeking opportunities for their children and for individuals with intellectual disability who aspire to attend college.
Makayla Adkins, Olivia Baist, Brandon Baldwin, George Barham, Marquavious Barnes, Katie Bartlett, Steven Brief, De'Onte Brown, Meghan Brozaitis, Mary Bryant, Gracie Carrol, Taylor Cathey, Maia Chamberlain, Antonio E. Contreras, Kim Dean, Elizabeth Droessler, Katie Ducett, Keiron Dyck, Rachel Gomez, Deriq Graves, Micah Gray, Maggie Guillaume, Cleo Hamilton, Nathan Heald, Joshua R. Hourigan, Hannah Lenae Humes, Courtney Jorgensen, Eilish Kelderman, Kailin Kelderman, Kenneth Kelty, Kaelan Knowles, Karlee Lambert, Kate Lisotta, Rachel Mast, Elise McDaniel, Emma Miller, Jake Miller, Lydia Newnum, Brenna Mantz Nielsen, Carly O’Connell, Nadia Osbey, Stirling Peebles, Breyan Pettaway, Amanda Pilkenton, True Rafferty, Taylor Ruppe, Lawrence Sapp, Tyler Shore, Brianna Silva, Alex Smith, Elliott Smith, Phillandra Smith, Payton Storms, Allen Thomas, Kylie Walter, Stephen Wanser, Sayid Webb, Breana Whittlesey, Luke Wilcox, Adam Wolfond.
How do students with intellectual disability experience higher education? Creating Our Own Lives addresses this question through the eyes of participants themselves. In relating their experiences and aspirations, these student perspectives mount a powerful challenge to assumptions that intellectual disability is best met with protection or segregation.
Taken together, the essays expose and contradict the inherently ableist claim that individuals with intellectual disability cannot be reliable storytellers. Instead, their deeply informative stories serve as a corrective narrative. The first of the four sections, “Laying the Why Everyone Belongs in College,” focuses on belonging and inclusion; the second, “Opening Up Overcoming Doubt and Uncertainty,” conveys the optimism of this generation of advocates through stories of personal hardship, hopeful perseverance, and triumph over adversity; the third, “Inclusion as Diversifying Student Experiences,” supports the understanding of diverse student experiences in inclusive higher education; and the fourth, “Supporting Peer Mentoring and Advice,” offers guidance to those reimagining and creating educational spaces.
Students with disabilities belong in higher education. Not only does this book serve as an important record of students enrolled in inclusive higher education programs, it is also an unprecedented resource, packed with information and inspiration both for parents seeking opportunities for their children and for individuals with intellectual disability who aspire to attend college.
Makayla Adkins, Olivia Baist, Brandon Baldwin, George Barham, Marquavious Barnes, Katie Bartlett, Steven Brief, De'Onte Brown, Meghan Brozaitis, Mary Bryant, Gracie Carrol, Taylor Cathey, Maia Chamberlain, Antonio E. Contreras, Kim Dean, Elizabeth Droessler, Katie Ducett, Keiron Dyck, Rachel Gomez, Deriq Graves, Micah Gray, Maggie Guillaume, Cleo Hamilton, Nathan Heald, Joshua R. Hourigan, Hannah Lenae Humes, Courtney Jorgensen, Eilish Kelderman, Kailin Kelderman, Kenneth Kelty, Kaelan Knowles, Karlee Lambert, Kate Lisotta, Rachel Mast, Elise McDaniel, Emma Miller, Jake Miller, Lydia Newnum, Brenna Mantz Nielsen, Carly O’Connell, Nadia Osbey, Stirling Peebles, Breyan Pettaway, Amanda Pilkenton, True Rafferty, Taylor Ruppe, Lawrence Sapp, Tyler Shore, Brianna Silva, Alex Smith, Elliott Smith, Phillandra Smith, Payton Storms, Allen Thomas, Kylie Walter, Stephen Wanser, Sayid Webb, Breana Whittlesey, Luke Wilcox, Adam Wolfond.
- GenresDisability
269 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2023
1 person is currently reading
29 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 3, 2024
Creating Our Own Lives is a groundbreaking collection. This is true not only for the world at large but also for the most niche realms of disability justice and scholarship. All too often, intellectually and developmentally disabled (I will use I&DD for brevity) people are left out of disability discourse, or worse, are intentionally abandoned so that other disabled folks can prove that they're not like them. Collecting these voices of intellectually disabled folks about their experiences with higher education is truly admirable and absolutely crucial for disability justice to succeed for all.
There are a wide variety of voices in this book with a wide range of intellectual disabilities and support needs. Some entries are composed by a single disabled author, while others include multiple voices from both the disabled author and their family, tutor, friend, mentor, etc. We end up with a snapshot of the many ways people can experience college, what they want from it, and how they can best be included with other students rather than solely placed in a separate facility. Some authors also include poetry or other creative forms of expression with their entries.
The common thread that was woven throughout these essays was the importance of the college experience. This book offered a welcome challenge to my internalized capitalism and meritocracy. Even as a disabled anarchist who initially went to college for art (later psychology) knowing that there was no money there, to learn and experience new things, I found myself asking, "but is this going to get you a job that will make a living wage? Will you be able to pay off debt? Are you learning the (right, valuable, constructive, etc) things?" It was fantastic to be pushed back into the thinking that I want to have- that there is value in the experience and learning in and of themselves that should be available to all. This is not to say that they didn't learn important things that benefitted them later- they certainly did and that's clear.
This book also did not shy away from some of the specific dangers and hurtles faced by students with intellectual disabilities. One author along with her family recounts the experience of rape, calling attention to the frequency at which women and girls (and frankly, all other genders) with I&DD are targets of predators. Others discussed how their race, sexuality, nationality, specific access needs, etc affected their experiences. The way many people describe their experiences and how they process the world offers a much better look into their lives than textbooks written by non-IDD professionals.
I was also left with some worries. There are a few programs mentioned multiple times throughout that I had not previously heard of and thus would like more information on. There is also a thread of the authors generally having suppotive family and friends and enough financial support to cover the costs of education and all of the supports around it. I used to work with I&DD folks who were mostly middle age and older adults, many of whom had few to no supports and lived in poverty. How can we make these programs accessible to them?
Another thing that really worried me was the frequent mention of unpaid internships. Unpaid internships are already exploitative and shady when the people slaving under them don't have I&DD. When you take into account that the USA allows disabled people to be paid sub-minimum wage and the fact that many of the contributors were seeking jobs in things like food service, teachers assistants, early childhood support, etc, unpaid internships seem like a great way for corporations to both profit from an image of "helping" disabled people while having them work without pay. Perhaps there's a small modicum of redeemability if an internship leads you to a high pay job where you can recover from working for nothing. This is not the case with many of the jobs sought out here. Generally, people who join food service jobs, for instance, go through training at their location and are paid during that time. There's no reason that should change for an I&DD person. I do not feel that the editors reckoned enough with these possibilities of exploitation. They did discuss ableism and interconnected oppressions, but seemed to see these programs as an antidote.
In the end, my question is: Are these programs equitably designed or are they a drink of water in the desert? It's probably a bit of both. Nonetheless, this book exists as an important step forward and justly highlights the voices of people who often remain unheard and unseen. I hope that it leads to more scholarship in this direction.
This was also posted to my blog.
There are a wide variety of voices in this book with a wide range of intellectual disabilities and support needs. Some entries are composed by a single disabled author, while others include multiple voices from both the disabled author and their family, tutor, friend, mentor, etc. We end up with a snapshot of the many ways people can experience college, what they want from it, and how they can best be included with other students rather than solely placed in a separate facility. Some authors also include poetry or other creative forms of expression with their entries.
The common thread that was woven throughout these essays was the importance of the college experience. This book offered a welcome challenge to my internalized capitalism and meritocracy. Even as a disabled anarchist who initially went to college for art (later psychology) knowing that there was no money there, to learn and experience new things, I found myself asking, "but is this going to get you a job that will make a living wage? Will you be able to pay off debt? Are you learning the (right, valuable, constructive, etc) things?" It was fantastic to be pushed back into the thinking that I want to have- that there is value in the experience and learning in and of themselves that should be available to all. This is not to say that they didn't learn important things that benefitted them later- they certainly did and that's clear.
This book also did not shy away from some of the specific dangers and hurtles faced by students with intellectual disabilities. One author along with her family recounts the experience of rape, calling attention to the frequency at which women and girls (and frankly, all other genders) with I&DD are targets of predators. Others discussed how their race, sexuality, nationality, specific access needs, etc affected their experiences. The way many people describe their experiences and how they process the world offers a much better look into their lives than textbooks written by non-IDD professionals.
I was also left with some worries. There are a few programs mentioned multiple times throughout that I had not previously heard of and thus would like more information on. There is also a thread of the authors generally having suppotive family and friends and enough financial support to cover the costs of education and all of the supports around it. I used to work with I&DD folks who were mostly middle age and older adults, many of whom had few to no supports and lived in poverty. How can we make these programs accessible to them?
Another thing that really worried me was the frequent mention of unpaid internships. Unpaid internships are already exploitative and shady when the people slaving under them don't have I&DD. When you take into account that the USA allows disabled people to be paid sub-minimum wage and the fact that many of the contributors were seeking jobs in things like food service, teachers assistants, early childhood support, etc, unpaid internships seem like a great way for corporations to both profit from an image of "helping" disabled people while having them work without pay. Perhaps there's a small modicum of redeemability if an internship leads you to a high pay job where you can recover from working for nothing. This is not the case with many of the jobs sought out here. Generally, people who join food service jobs, for instance, go through training at their location and are paid during that time. There's no reason that should change for an I&DD person. I do not feel that the editors reckoned enough with these possibilities of exploitation. They did discuss ableism and interconnected oppressions, but seemed to see these programs as an antidote.
In the end, my question is: Are these programs equitably designed or are they a drink of water in the desert? It's probably a bit of both. Nonetheless, this book exists as an important step forward and justly highlights the voices of people who often remain unheard and unseen. I hope that it leads to more scholarship in this direction.
This was also posted to my blog.
Displaying 1 of 1 review