1 Intellectual/Developmental Disability, Rhetoric, and Self-Advocacy
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Intellectual/Developmental Disability, Rhetoric, and Self-Advocacy: A Case Study Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Sean Kamperman, M.A. Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2019 Dissertation Committee Christa Teston, Advisor Margaret Price Amy Shuman 1 Copyrighted by Sean Kamperman 2019 2 Abstract Using grounded methods and deploying a critical disability studies framework, this dissertation assesses how people who identify or are identified as having intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD) use their rhetorical skills—specifically, their self-advocacy skills—to access academic life. Through interviews and observations of rhetors affiliated with an innovative inclusive education program pseudonymously titled “STEP” (“Successful Transitions and Educational Progress”), I offer a practice account of I/DD’s relation to rhetoricity, or rhetorical capacity, in academic spaces. Contra to officialized discourses that portray self-advocacy as the responsibility of individual rhetors, I attend to self-advocacy’s social and rhetorical dimensions across three “sites”: student self-advocacy practices, assessment technologies used to measure student self-determination, and the self-advocacy practices of professional self-advocates. After a methodological commentary on the need for qualitative researchers in rhetoric and writing studies to attend to accessibility as a practical and theoretical concern, I conclude by reflecting on the implications of my findings for rhetorical education writ large: specifically, for how teachers conceive of the relationship between collaboration and credibility in their classrooms. ii Dedication For Milton iii Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the generous support of so many. I’m blessed to have a family who puts up with my absent-mindedness and a partner who is not only patient, but utterly brilliant. Colleen Morrissey, thank you for your love, your podcast recommendations, and your much needed tips on self-care. You made writing this so, so much easier. Mom and Dad, thanks for hanging on to the hundreds of lists, doodles, stories comics, etc. I made as a kid (I’m coming back for those, by the way) and for never failing to show how much you care. Katie, thanks for being my big sister par excellence, my personal trailblazer, playmate, and caffeine donor. The brilliance and generosity of my teachers at Ohio State continually amazes me. Christa Teston, thanks for showing me the kind of scholar and mentor I want to be and for helping me work my way through so many ideas. You stuck by me even back when this dissertation was about maps (?), letting me explore without wandering too far. Margaret Price, your support of graduate students is awe-inspiring. Thank you for your brilliant, kind feedback on my work and your wonderful sense of humor. Thank you, Amy Shuman, for your fascinating seminars and for connecting me to so many people, including the folks at the “STEP” program. You nurtured this project from its inception. Many thanks as well to Scott DeWitt, Wendy Hesford, Jonathan Buehl, Lauren Squires, iv Harvey Graff, and Cindy Selfe for consulting with me at various stages of the project’s development. To my grad student colleagues: thanks to Elizabeth Brewer Olson, Chad Duffy, Rebecca Hudgins, Jessie Male, Ryan Sheehan, Lauren Strand, Andrew Sydlik, and the other members of the OSU disability studies graduate student community for giving this project both intellectual and spiritual nourishment. Thanks also to Jennifer Burgess, Sara Franssen Wilder, Michelle Cohen, Kaitlin Clinnin, Erin Bahl, Sherita Roundtree, Mike Blancato, Gavin Johnson, and Laura Allen for your helpful comments, encouraging remarks, and general camaraderie. And thank you to the Interdisciplinary Seminar in Literacy Studies for Graduate Students and the Graduate Association of Mental Health Action and Advocacy—in particular, Alyssa Chrisman, Hillary Degner, Melissa Guadron, Lindsay Harper Cannon, and Liz Miller—for your fellowship. To my OSU friends: I’m truly blessed to have found in you such a fun, witty, caring group of comrades. Louis Maraj, thanks for being my dude. Zach Harvat, Caitlyn McCloughlin, Pritha Prasad, and Drew Sweet, you made my experience navigating this grad life way more fun than it had any right to be. To my non-OSU friends: Tyler Watts, your friendship through it all has been golden. Andy Thrasher, Ana Whitaker, and the other denizens of the “KeptFriendly” Slack group, thanks for keeping the conversations we started back in the days of TV Night in America rolling. Finally, the gratitude I owe my study participants is immeasurable. Christine Brown, students, faculty, and staff of the STEP program—thank you for supporting this project and for the gift of your time. And to the folks at Austin Clubhouse, who inspired v this work way back when—what can I say? Thank you for teaching me that “anything is possible when working toward wellness together.” vi Vita May 2007……………………………………Midway High School 2011………………………………………....B.A. Plan II Honors/Rhetoric & Writing, The University of Texas at Austin 2010 to 2013………………………………...Staff Generalist/Development Coordinator, Austin Clubhouse, Inc. 2015………………………………………....M.A. English, The Ohio State University 2015 to present………………………….......Graduate Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: English vii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Vita .................................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 (Re)Think College .......................................................................................................... 1 Background ..................................................................................................................... 7 I/DD as marginalized subject in Rhetoric & Writing Studies ..................................... 7 I/DD vis-à-vis Disability Rhetoric ............................................................................ 16 Methodology and Theoretical Framework.................................................................... 21 Study Procedures ...................................................................................................... 26 Chapter Overview ......................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2. Institutional Recognitions and Student Accounts of Self-Advocacy at a Large Midwestern University...................................................................................................... 35 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 35 Background ................................................................................................................... 38 Methods......................................................................................................................... 44 Participants .................................................................................................................... 47 Demographic Characteristics .................................................................................... 47 Prior and Emergent Experiences with Self-Advocacy.............................................. 49 Findings......................................................................................................................... 50 Analysis......................................................................................................................... 54 Exploring Interests and Setting Goals....................................................................... 54 viii Using Rational Discourse to Find Help and Avoid Harm ........................................ 57 Regulating Embodied Signs of Disability................................................................. 65 Using Assistive Technology to Communicate .......................................................... 71 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 75 Implications for Educational Praxis .......................................................................... 77 Chapter. 3 Scientific Self-Determination: Measuring Selves through Technoscientific Text Ecologies .................................................................................................................. 82 Introduction ..................................................................................................................