The focus of education should be on providing equitable learning environments for students. Students attend school from varying backgrounds and they will also have different learning styles and needs. Students with disabilities might not benefit from equality, nor should they. What these students need is equity. Stone (2012) defines equity as indicating “distributions regarded as fair, even though they contain both equalities and inequalities” (p. 41). Not every student will receive identical accommodations or services, as they are tailored to each student’s individual needs. Stone (2012) defines equality as indicating “sameness and to signify the part of distribution that contains uniformity” (p. 41). This pertains to all students receiving the same accommodations, which will not benefit or allow those who have specific needs to be successful. Students, especially those with disabilities require equitable school learning environments in order to learn and experience academic success.
People with disabilities are considered absent citizens (Prince, 2009). This speaks to the barriers that people with disabilities face when they want to participate “in politics, education, the labour market, and” the community (Prince, 2009, p. 3). It seems that society perceives people with disabilities as not worthy of participation in main stream society. Stone’s (2012) argument regarding community memberships and how society gets “to decide whether you’re in or not” is interesting (p. 43). This type of environment can create tension among members based on socioeconomic status, neighbourhood, and even educational attainment which can dictate what one can and cannot participate in (Stone, 2012). This can become especially troubling for students with disabilities as they navigate through the education system. For example, poor grades could prevent one from attaining acceptance to post-secondary education. Having accommodations in place early on in an identified students’ academic career could prevent difficulties down the road.
Prince (2009) argues that those with disabilities experience higher “rates of poverty and unemployment” (p. 3). Education systems, by not exercising equity could be setting up students with disabilities to fail, sending them on a path which positions them to be unsuccessful. Intellectual disabilities can prevent a student’s “ability to participate fully in society,” if educational accommodations are not in place (Prince, 2009, p. 5). A student who goes through the education system with an undiagnosed intellectual disability could constantly struggle to catch up to their classmates. Long term frustration could lead to dropping out of school, which would place him or her at a disadvantage when looking for work (Prince, 2009).
Stone (2012) states that group-based distribution of accommodations would be beneficial in determining that students with disabilities require some form of academic accommodation. The concern here would be that since there is variance in academic disabilities it would be ineffective for every student to have the exact same accommodations. Once it has been established that a student qualifies for accommodations, his or her needs must be determined. This is what Stone (2012) defines as need-based distribution and “requires redefining the item to be distributed” (p. 52). There are a variety of different accommodations for students with disabilities. It is very important that the needs of each student are determined before the accommodation is granted. This will ensure that the needs of each individual student have been examined and the appropriate accommodations have been assigned to ensure academic success.
Equitable school environments will benefit students with learning disabilities. Each student should be provided the opportunity to be academically successful. Student’s not experiencing success could be placed at a disadvantage when seeking employment or post-secondary studies (Stone, 2012). Providing equitable academic accommodations could attribute to academic success. The key to an equitable learning environment is that once students have been identified as having a learning disability, his or her accommodation needs are put in place. Schools’ providing an equitable learning environment ensures that every student will have the opportunity to experience academic success.
© Sabrina Morgan
References
Stone, D. (2012). Policy paradox: The art of political decision making (3rd ed.). Norton.
Prince, M. (2009). Absent citizens: Disability politics and policy in Canada. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.