By including the perspectives of people with diverse abilities, we can create affirming learning spaces that reject ableism. Changing the learning environment to be more inclusive—instead of a focus on changing the learner—provides opportunities for accessible education practices that benefit all young people. Our resources can help young people embrace diverse abilities and understand the injustices people with disabilities often encounter.
“Disability is the way other people don’t accommodate you or respond to you.”
—Ashley Dalton, from "Disability Is Diversity" by Courtney Wai
Featured Resources:
Applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Supports Inclusive Education
[2024] Ensuring education is inclusive of young people with diverse needs and abilities takes intentional practice. This article and toolkit highlights Universal Design for Learning (UDL) practices that can help educators design experiences that benefit all students.
Disability Is Diversity
[2023] Embracing diversity means accepting disability as a part of the total human experience and being intentional about practices that remove barriers to learning so all children can thrive. Read this magazine feature that introduces Universal Design for Learning.
Confronting Ableism on the Way to Justice
[2022] To build a society that advances the human rights of all people requires the social justice movement to be intentional in including intersecting identities and diverse equity struggles. This magazine feature examines the need for disability rights advocacy in the social justice movement.
Clear Connection
[2015] Deaf and hard-of-hearing students can effectively miss class, even if they attend every day. This magazine feature provides recommendations to learn to spot this phenomenon and help reverse it.
Beautiful Differences
[2014] This magazine feature story provides a classroom profile that reveals it's never too early to discuss differing abilities.
A Painter Named Kennedy
[2015] In this student text, Kennedy, a young man from Mombasa, Kenya, doesn't let his wheelchair stop him from making the world a more beautiful place.