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Accounts of academic ableism

Nature Chemistry volume 13, page 511 (2021)Cite this article

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Ableism in Academia: Theorising Experiences of Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses in Higher Education

  • Nicole Brown &
  • Jennifer Leigh
UCL PRESS: 2020. 262 PP. £45 (HARDBACK), £25 (PAPERBACK), £0 (OPEN ACCESS PDF).

Imagine an academic. What do they look like? Based on current demographics of university faculty1, they are probably white, possibly male. But there’s also another common trait the academics you’re envisioning will most likely share, though most people aren’t consciously aware of it. There’s a high probability they are neither disabled nor chronically ill.

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References

  1. Characteristics of Postsecondary Faculty (National Center for Education Statistics, accessed 30 March 2021); https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_csc.asp

  2. People with a Disability Less Likely to Have Completed a Bachelor’s Degree (The Economics Daily, accessed 30 March 2021); https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/people-with-a-disability-less-likely-to-have-completed-a-bachelors-degree.htm

  3. Chawla, D. S. Science is getting harder to read. Nature Index https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/science-research-papers-getting-harder-to-read-acronyms-jargon (2020).

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  1. Twitter: @caffeinatedkrys

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Krystal Vasquez

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  1. Krystal Vasquez
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Correspondence to Krystal Vasquez.

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Vasquez, K. Accounts of academic ableism. Nat. Chem. 13, 511 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-021-00720-3

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