Learning Outcomes
The construction of identity is a complex social experience that is lifelong. It is an interaction between how we perceive ourselves, and how others see and interact with us. It is, therefore, a relational process within our social world and within the institutions that define us through categories that are created in our cultural world. Two categories that are socially created are 'childhood' and 'disability'. In recent years there has been a growing cultural awareness of disability identity that embraces difference in bodies, minds, and emotions to create art and culture. An example is the organization Tangled Art + Disability. We do not, however, have the same cultural understanding of disability in childhood. Many children/students and their families do not identify with disability culture because disability is largely constructed as a difference in needs, rather than a valued difference in our early childhood and school environments.
The aim of these activities is to consider disability identity through understanding: