Disability Representation in the Media

a Discovery Core Experience

The course may be taken as either a BCORE 107 (Social Sciences) or a BCORE 104 (Arts & Humanities) course. It also fulfills the DIVERSITY graduation requirement.

About This Course

This course provides students with introductory knowledge of Critical Disability Studies (CDS), a growing multi-disciplinary field that investigates, critiques, and enhances Western society’s understanding of disability.

Students will be introduced to a critical framework for recognizing how people with disabilities have experienced disadvantages and exclusion because of personal and societal responses to their impairments.

We will explore how disability activists and scholars have re-conceptualized disability to a more empowering social-political and human rights perspective, as an element of human diversity/variation and a source of community.

Additionally, this course will also incorporate a Community Engagement piece as we partner with the Alyssa Burnett Adult Life Center (ABALC) in Bothell to support individuals on the autistic spectrum and intellectual developmental disabilities. Students will attend a total of 4 one hour classes at the ABALC convenient to their schedule to learn alongside and equip clients at the ABALC with skills to live their most meaningful life. UWB students will also plan with the ABALC staff and residents for the Center’s annual “Hot Cocoa Party” at the end of the quarter. 

Dr. Mo West (she/her/hers)

School of Nursing & Health Studies

About Dr. West

  • University of Washington Seattle, WA PhD, Nursing
  • The Catholic University of America Washington, DC MS, Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing
  • University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA BS, Nursing

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