Teachers with Disabilities: Their Challenges and Their Needs
By A.D. Walker ©2018
University of Central Florida
Introduction
The purpose of this research study (referred to as the “DTN survey”) is to identify teachers with disabilities as a group needing improved support services, illustrate some of the challenges teachers with disabilities face within the profession of education, and make recommendations to improve support services for teachers with disabilities within the field of education. The DTN survey also sought answers to questions such as; where are teaches with disabilities working; are teachers with disabilities employed as part time or full time employees; and is there a relationship between becoming a teacher with a disability and being exposed to role models who were teachers with a disability.
According to the 2016 Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly “Current Population Survey”, 4.6 of every 100 people working in education is a person with a disability. According to the Digest of Education Research, there are 4.6 million people working as teachers in Pre-K through post secondary schools in the US. If we apply the Labor Bureaus demographic data to the Education Research Data, we can roughly estimate that 4.6% of teachers working in Pre-K through Post Secondary settings have a disability. That’s roughly 210,000 people working in the field of education, who have a disability.
31% of participants in the DTN survey worked in elementary schools, 27% in high schools, 19% in middle schools, and 12% in colleges or universities. In addition, 68% of survey participants were employed full time, 15% part time, and 17% were not employed. 60% stated they had a physical disability, 30% an invisible disability, and 10% responded “other”, many of which elaborated with having multiple disabilities. The level of education of survey participants were, 45% Masters Degree, 36% Bachelors Degree, 10% Doctorate, and the remainder 9% responded “other” elaborating with, in a teacher education program, retired, or Bachelors degree with additional certificates.
Goals of the Study
There were three goals to the DTN survey; educate, empower, and improve. Educate the non-disabled community, empower educators with disabilities, and improve services for teachers with disabilities. I chose to pursue this research because I encountered challenges within the field of education that specifically related to disability. As I encountered these challenges, I also found support services for individuals with disabilities dramatically decreases when those individuals reach adulthood (Gragoudas, 2012, Luft, 2015, Plotner 2017).
Upon interviewing a director of a national center that provides professional support services for educators with disabilities working in the field of education, the director stated, "as long as support services are available, there is no reason an educator with a disability cannot be successful in a career in education”, however, she declined to answer the question, "how often are support services available". According to the results of the DTN study, more than 70% of teachers with a disability feel professional support services within the field of education are "not often available nor helpful". This shows there is a need for better professional support services for teachers with disabilities in the field of education.
I was curious how many educators with disabilities were experiencing challenges in the field of education, what those challenges were, and what was being done about resolving those challenges. Many teachers with disabilities are isolated simply because there are so few of them. Isolation breeds inadequate services (Villegas & Irvine 2010). Out of the 75 participants in the DTN survey, 51% said there were 1-2 teachers with disabilities working in their school, 15% said there were no teachers with disabilities in their school, and 18% responded they didn’t know how many teachers with disabilities were working in their school. I’m curious if the 51% were including themselves in the 1-2 teachers with disabilities working in their school.
When asked to rate the career opportunities in the field of education, 16% responded “average”, 38% responded “few”, and 44% of survey participants rated the career opportunities for teachers with disabilities in the field of education were “very few”. When asked what their greatest obstacle was, 33% responded - discrimination, 15% - lack of resources/support services, and 11% - accessibility. When asked where they experienced the most discrimination, 56% of survey participants responded - administration, 15% - coworkers, 7% parents, 4% students, and 15% responded none or other.
Methods
The sample group were 75 educators with disabilities (mainly from the US with a small percentage from other countries) who randomly participated in an anonymous survey over a 5 year period between 2011 and 2016. Participants were recruited via a website that was created to provide resources for educators with disabilities. The website was entitled "The Disabled Teachers Network" or DTN. Upon visiting the DTN website, participants were asked to complete an anonymous survey and/or become a member of DTN, both were voluntary. Over a 5 year period 75 educators with disabilities completed the survey.
The survey was conducted through "Polldaddy" and added to the DTN website. Survey questions included; disability type, employment status, rate support services for educators with disabilities, rate career opportunities within the field of education for educators with disabilities, and questions about obstacles and discrimination faced by educators with disabilities. This was a non-experimental descriptive study.
Findings and Implications
Villegas and Irvine’s (2010) research showed when children are exposed to role models like themselves within professions, they are more likely to perceive that profession as a career possibility for themselves. 58% of the teachers with a disability who participated in the DTN survey did not have the benefit of being exposed to teachers with disabilities as role models. Perhaps some of the 58% had been exposed to successful professionals with disabilities working in other fields. It would be interesting to further study the impact of successful professional role models with disabilities on children with disabilities. 26% of DTN survey participants stated they had been exposed to teachers with disabilities as role models and 13% said they didn’t know if any of their teachers had a disability.
Throughout the DTN research study I found an overall lack of research about educators with disabilities. This supports Sokal, Woloshyn, and Wilson’s (2017) research which concluded, hundreds of publications are available for preparing teachers to work in inclusive classrooms but there are few publications on teachers themselves who have disabilities. Research developed by educators with disabilities about teachers with disabilities can provide vital information that may help improve support services for teachers with disabilities and possibly increase the number of teachers with disabilities to more than the 4.6%.
If we provide comprehensive support services to help our K-12 students with disabilities succeed, we cannot expect our adult teachers with disabilities to be successful in the professional arena without appropriate supports and the professionals who can help provide and advance those supports. With an ever growing population of people with disabilities entering the workforce, available job accommodations need to match the current need.
In addition to improving support services for teachers with disabilities, it is my hope this research will motivate and inspire teachers with disabilities to pursue research in the area of teachers with disabilities. In addition, funding that is continuously provided to ineffective support services needs to be rerouted to support services that are effective and systematically evaluated by the people who use those services. These support services also need to be inclusive, in that they employ and have on staff individuals with disabilities.
Limitations
Threats to this study are the relatively small sample size. There were also issues with the data collection platforms “Poll Daddy” and “Weebly”. Both proved to be unreliable with continual periods of being down and not allowing people to take the survey, thus reducing the sample size even more. In addition, the Labor Bureau’s data is a generalization that does not distinguish how many people with disabilities are working as teachers, administrators or other job positions in the field of education, thus, it is difficult to get a precise number of how many teachers with disabilities there are. Voting more than once was controlled by only permitting voting from one IP address, however, this does not allow for voters who use more than one IP address. In addition, using the internet for random selection does not allow for the fact that some people may have voted who are not disabled. Other limitations include survey questions that were too general, i.e, we cannot know if survey participants included themselves in answering the question “how many teachers with disabilities are employed in your school”.
References
* Bureau of Labor Statistics (2017) Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics Summary. Retrieved 1/29/2018 from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/disabl.nr0.htm
* Digest of Education Statistics (2015) National Center for Educational Statistics. US Dept. of Education. Retrieved 1/29/2018 from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016014.pdf
* Digest of Education Statistic (2012) National Center for Education Statistics, US Dept. of Education. Retrieved 2/23/2018 from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_098.asp
* Gragoudas, S. (2012) Preparing Students with Disabilities to Transition from School to Work Through Self Determination Training. Institute for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA. Work 407–411 DOI 10.3233/WOR-131782 IOS Press
* Luft, P. (2015) Transition Services for DHH Adolescents and Young Adults: Challenges and Theoretical Frameworks. American Annals of the Deaf, Vol. 160 Num. 4 Fall 2015, pp. 395-414 (article) Published by Gallaudet University Press. DOI 10.1353/aad.2015.0028
* Oregon School Board Association - Legal Accommodations for School Employees Retrieved 4/1/2018 from http://www.osba.org/Resources/Article/Legal/ADA_Accommodations.aspx
* Plotner, Anthony. (2017) Centers for independent living and secondary transition collaboration: characteristics for enhanced service delivery for adolescents in the United States
Disability & Rehabilitation Volume: 39 Issue 13. ISSN: 0963-8288 Online ISSN: 1464-5165
* Sokal, L., Woloshyn, D., Wilson, A., (2017) Pre-service Teachers with Disabilities: Challenges and Opportunities for Directors of Student Teaching in Western Canada. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Vol 8. Issue 3. Article 7
* Villegas, A.M., Irvine, J.J. 2010. Diversifying the Teaching Force. Urban Review 42:175–192 DOI 10.1007/s11256-010-0150-1
* Wetzel, M., Goddard, T.M., Mathess, L. - 2016. Occupation and Industry Series: Accommodating Educators with Disabilities. Job Accommodation Network. Retrieved 1/29/2018 from https://askjan.org/media/educators.html
* United States Department of Education (2004) Handbook for Reasonable Accommodations, Administrative Communications System, Office of Management Executive Office. Retrieved 3/17/2018 from https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/foia/acshbom3.pdf
By A.D. Walker ©2018
University of Central Florida
Introduction
The purpose of this research study (referred to as the “DTN survey”) is to identify teachers with disabilities as a group needing improved support services, illustrate some of the challenges teachers with disabilities face within the profession of education, and make recommendations to improve support services for teachers with disabilities within the field of education. The DTN survey also sought answers to questions such as; where are teaches with disabilities working; are teachers with disabilities employed as part time or full time employees; and is there a relationship between becoming a teacher with a disability and being exposed to role models who were teachers with a disability.
According to the 2016 Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly “Current Population Survey”, 4.6 of every 100 people working in education is a person with a disability. According to the Digest of Education Research, there are 4.6 million people working as teachers in Pre-K through post secondary schools in the US. If we apply the Labor Bureaus demographic data to the Education Research Data, we can roughly estimate that 4.6% of teachers working in Pre-K through Post Secondary settings have a disability. That’s roughly 210,000 people working in the field of education, who have a disability.
31% of participants in the DTN survey worked in elementary schools, 27% in high schools, 19% in middle schools, and 12% in colleges or universities. In addition, 68% of survey participants were employed full time, 15% part time, and 17% were not employed. 60% stated they had a physical disability, 30% an invisible disability, and 10% responded “other”, many of which elaborated with having multiple disabilities. The level of education of survey participants were, 45% Masters Degree, 36% Bachelors Degree, 10% Doctorate, and the remainder 9% responded “other” elaborating with, in a teacher education program, retired, or Bachelors degree with additional certificates.
Goals of the Study
There were three goals to the DTN survey; educate, empower, and improve. Educate the non-disabled community, empower educators with disabilities, and improve services for teachers with disabilities. I chose to pursue this research because I encountered challenges within the field of education that specifically related to disability. As I encountered these challenges, I also found support services for individuals with disabilities dramatically decreases when those individuals reach adulthood (Gragoudas, 2012, Luft, 2015, Plotner 2017).
Upon interviewing a director of a national center that provides professional support services for educators with disabilities working in the field of education, the director stated, "as long as support services are available, there is no reason an educator with a disability cannot be successful in a career in education”, however, she declined to answer the question, "how often are support services available". According to the results of the DTN study, more than 70% of teachers with a disability feel professional support services within the field of education are "not often available nor helpful". This shows there is a need for better professional support services for teachers with disabilities in the field of education.
I was curious how many educators with disabilities were experiencing challenges in the field of education, what those challenges were, and what was being done about resolving those challenges. Many teachers with disabilities are isolated simply because there are so few of them. Isolation breeds inadequate services (Villegas & Irvine 2010). Out of the 75 participants in the DTN survey, 51% said there were 1-2 teachers with disabilities working in their school, 15% said there were no teachers with disabilities in their school, and 18% responded they didn’t know how many teachers with disabilities were working in their school. I’m curious if the 51% were including themselves in the 1-2 teachers with disabilities working in their school.
When asked to rate the career opportunities in the field of education, 16% responded “average”, 38% responded “few”, and 44% of survey participants rated the career opportunities for teachers with disabilities in the field of education were “very few”. When asked what their greatest obstacle was, 33% responded - discrimination, 15% - lack of resources/support services, and 11% - accessibility. When asked where they experienced the most discrimination, 56% of survey participants responded - administration, 15% - coworkers, 7% parents, 4% students, and 15% responded none or other.
Methods
The sample group were 75 educators with disabilities (mainly from the US with a small percentage from other countries) who randomly participated in an anonymous survey over a 5 year period between 2011 and 2016. Participants were recruited via a website that was created to provide resources for educators with disabilities. The website was entitled "The Disabled Teachers Network" or DTN. Upon visiting the DTN website, participants were asked to complete an anonymous survey and/or become a member of DTN, both were voluntary. Over a 5 year period 75 educators with disabilities completed the survey.
The survey was conducted through "Polldaddy" and added to the DTN website. Survey questions included; disability type, employment status, rate support services for educators with disabilities, rate career opportunities within the field of education for educators with disabilities, and questions about obstacles and discrimination faced by educators with disabilities. This was a non-experimental descriptive study.
Findings and Implications
Villegas and Irvine’s (2010) research showed when children are exposed to role models like themselves within professions, they are more likely to perceive that profession as a career possibility for themselves. 58% of the teachers with a disability who participated in the DTN survey did not have the benefit of being exposed to teachers with disabilities as role models. Perhaps some of the 58% had been exposed to successful professionals with disabilities working in other fields. It would be interesting to further study the impact of successful professional role models with disabilities on children with disabilities. 26% of DTN survey participants stated they had been exposed to teachers with disabilities as role models and 13% said they didn’t know if any of their teachers had a disability.
Throughout the DTN research study I found an overall lack of research about educators with disabilities. This supports Sokal, Woloshyn, and Wilson’s (2017) research which concluded, hundreds of publications are available for preparing teachers to work in inclusive classrooms but there are few publications on teachers themselves who have disabilities. Research developed by educators with disabilities about teachers with disabilities can provide vital information that may help improve support services for teachers with disabilities and possibly increase the number of teachers with disabilities to more than the 4.6%.
If we provide comprehensive support services to help our K-12 students with disabilities succeed, we cannot expect our adult teachers with disabilities to be successful in the professional arena without appropriate supports and the professionals who can help provide and advance those supports. With an ever growing population of people with disabilities entering the workforce, available job accommodations need to match the current need.
In addition to improving support services for teachers with disabilities, it is my hope this research will motivate and inspire teachers with disabilities to pursue research in the area of teachers with disabilities. In addition, funding that is continuously provided to ineffective support services needs to be rerouted to support services that are effective and systematically evaluated by the people who use those services. These support services also need to be inclusive, in that they employ and have on staff individuals with disabilities.
Limitations
Threats to this study are the relatively small sample size. There were also issues with the data collection platforms “Poll Daddy” and “Weebly”. Both proved to be unreliable with continual periods of being down and not allowing people to take the survey, thus reducing the sample size even more. In addition, the Labor Bureau’s data is a generalization that does not distinguish how many people with disabilities are working as teachers, administrators or other job positions in the field of education, thus, it is difficult to get a precise number of how many teachers with disabilities there are. Voting more than once was controlled by only permitting voting from one IP address, however, this does not allow for voters who use more than one IP address. In addition, using the internet for random selection does not allow for the fact that some people may have voted who are not disabled. Other limitations include survey questions that were too general, i.e, we cannot know if survey participants included themselves in answering the question “how many teachers with disabilities are employed in your school”.
References
* Bureau of Labor Statistics (2017) Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics Summary. Retrieved 1/29/2018 from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/disabl.nr0.htm
* Digest of Education Statistics (2015) National Center for Educational Statistics. US Dept. of Education. Retrieved 1/29/2018 from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016014.pdf
* Digest of Education Statistic (2012) National Center for Education Statistics, US Dept. of Education. Retrieved 2/23/2018 from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_098.asp
* Gragoudas, S. (2012) Preparing Students with Disabilities to Transition from School to Work Through Self Determination Training. Institute for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA. Work 407–411 DOI 10.3233/WOR-131782 IOS Press
* Luft, P. (2015) Transition Services for DHH Adolescents and Young Adults: Challenges and Theoretical Frameworks. American Annals of the Deaf, Vol. 160 Num. 4 Fall 2015, pp. 395-414 (article) Published by Gallaudet University Press. DOI 10.1353/aad.2015.0028
* Oregon School Board Association - Legal Accommodations for School Employees Retrieved 4/1/2018 from http://www.osba.org/Resources/Article/Legal/ADA_Accommodations.aspx
* Plotner, Anthony. (2017) Centers for independent living and secondary transition collaboration: characteristics for enhanced service delivery for adolescents in the United States
Disability & Rehabilitation Volume: 39 Issue 13. ISSN: 0963-8288 Online ISSN: 1464-5165
* Sokal, L., Woloshyn, D., Wilson, A., (2017) Pre-service Teachers with Disabilities: Challenges and Opportunities for Directors of Student Teaching in Western Canada. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Vol 8. Issue 3. Article 7
* Villegas, A.M., Irvine, J.J. 2010. Diversifying the Teaching Force. Urban Review 42:175–192 DOI 10.1007/s11256-010-0150-1
* Wetzel, M., Goddard, T.M., Mathess, L. - 2016. Occupation and Industry Series: Accommodating Educators with Disabilities. Job Accommodation Network. Retrieved 1/29/2018 from https://askjan.org/media/educators.html
* United States Department of Education (2004) Handbook for Reasonable Accommodations, Administrative Communications System, Office of Management Executive Office. Retrieved 3/17/2018 from https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/foia/acshbom3.pdf
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Disabled Teachers Network ©2011-2018 All Rights Reserved
Disabled Teachers Network ©2011-2018 All Rights Reserved