Disability and Social Inclusion: Lessons From the Pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic necessitated rapid, radical changes to global systems, structures, and organisations across all areas of life, including education, healthcare, and social services. These changes were something of a double‐edged sword. On the one hand, widespread adoption of the kinds of remote‐working technologies long advocated for by disabled people opened up possibilities for inclusion. On the other, some people’s inability to access such technologies, together with increased social isolation, exacerbated forms of exclusion. This thematic issue considers what lessons can be learned from the pandemic in striving to design a future which is more inclusive for all. In this editorial, we provide a brief overview of some of the major challenges the pandemic created for disabled people, who were disproportionately negatively affected by it. We also suggest that a disability rights lens is a useful way of highlighting both the contingency of disability and the need for more responsive and humane healthcare systems. The editorial goes on to outline the opportunities to challenge entrenched ableism and create a “new normal” the pandemic afforded. It concludes by offering a thematic overview of the articles in this thematic issue, which together reveal a complex pattern of inclusions and exclusions, interdependence, and intersectionality.

How and why to use ‘vulnerability’: an interdisciplinary analysis of disease risk, indeterminacy and normality

“…In some ways, as a response to considerable distress the pandemic restrictions catalysed sociotechnical innovation among groups long regarded as vulnerable (including people seeking abortions, as access to at-home medical abortions increased in some places; Reynolds-Wright et al 2022). The normalisation of home working positively affected some chronic pain and fatigue sufferers (Evans et al 2021), yet was a 'doubleedged sword' for others with disabilities (Barden et al 2023) and has ongoing and complicated repercussions for those with care responsibilities, not to mention the ways that risks facing 'key workers' unable to work from home have been eclipsed. In the face of intensely heteronormative emphasis on 'home' and nuclear family 'bubbles', some LGBTQIA communities reworked how to practice bodily intimacy and communality, conducting ethically complex 'experiments with mortality' that questioned the future-oriented social priorities represented in biomedical recommendations, while working out how to communicate and negotiate this with others (Lim 2020).…”

Documenting and analyzing the relevance of Universal Design for Learning in developing inclusive provisions for culturally diverse learners in online pedagogy

“…There have been many gains achieved over this period with respect to studentcentered practices, but there have also been considerable crises that have impacted the learner experience (Aquino & Scott, 2023). As discussed above, awareness of inclusion and accessibility has been heightened, but there is some debate as to whether the lessons learnt about inclusive design during the pandemic have been integrated sustainably into teaching and learning practices (Barden et al, 2023;Burgstahler, 2021). When it comes to online and blended pedagogy more specifically, there is fear that while cultural diversity took a centrestage role within the reflection on the pivot, during the periods of lockdown, there has been no fundamental or radical improvement, post-pandemic, in relation to designing inclusively for culturally diverse learners (Marmolejo & Groccia, 2022;Zhao & Watterston, 2021).…”