STANDARD: Ethical Approaches to Empower Disabled Graduate Students in STEM

该奖项支持一个项目，该项目将调查学术文化和人际关系如何系统性地使残疾学生处于不利地位；具体地说，它将专注于计算机领域的残疾研究生。研究人员将调查能力主义的表现，即给予非残疾人特权而不是残疾人的行为，为了调查的目的，这被理解为一个伦理问题。她将确定能力主义的学术文化如何为研究生水平的成就造成不道德的系统性障碍。为此，她将采访计算机及相关领域的残疾研究生。她将从不同的机构招聘在计算和相关领域具有不同代表性的现任和前任研究生。她还将采访为这些学生提供建议的教职员工，以及来自不同大学残疾服务办公室的代表。她将利用这些数据来制定一套指导方针，说明如何在研究中解决可获得性障碍，并将根据该项目的结果制定。指导方针将分发给学生、教师顾问和大学残疾服务办公室，以便他们能够开始采用反能力主义的语言和战略，并积极将其纳入工作。受益于这一结果的人不仅限于计算机领域的人；它们也将适用于邻近领域的学生和研究人员。这是一个研究项目，旨在解决一个基本的研究问题：学术期望和人际关系如何违反道德行为，并为残疾研究生制造障碍，以及哪些指导和资源有效地授权学生和盟友从事公平和反能力主义的做法，使学生能够取得成功？为了解决这一研究问题，我们建议使用定性研究的方法来分析面向公众的机构残疾服务政策，并采访残疾研究生、教师顾问和残疾服务工作人员，以了解针对残疾的资源和态度如何在研究生水平上为残疾学生造成障碍。然后，研究人员将以伦理反能力主义者的视角批判性地分析这些定性数据，并参与参与性设计工作，以开发具有指导方针和战略的工具包，其中包括为研究生、教师顾问和残疾服务办公室采用的反能力主义方法。该项目将提供有关学术文化的知识，这些文化可能会给残疾研究生带来持续的成功障碍。这项工作的贡献包括关于能力主义如何表现为研究生障碍的经验发现，以及包含指导方针的工具包，其中包括为残疾学生、教师顾问和残疾服务办公室的学业成功而制定的反能力主义战略。她将向学生、教师和残疾服务办公室部署工具包，并评估工具包的有效性，以提供有用的反能力主义者战略来增强学生的能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports a project that will investigate how academic culture and relationships systematically disadvantage disabled students; specifically, it will focus on disabled graduate students in computing. The researcher will investigate manifestations of ableism, the act of privileging nondisabled people over those with disabilities, which is understood for the purposes of the investigation as an ethical issue. She will determine how ableist academic culture contributes to unethical systemic obstacles for achievement at the graduate level. To do so, she will interview graduate students with disabilities in computing and related fields. She will recruit current and former graduate students with a diverse representation across disabilities in computing and related fields from different institutions. She will also interview faculty who have advised such students, and representatives from different university disability services offices. She will use this data to develop a set of guidelines on how to address accessibility barriers in research are to be developed on the basis of the outcomes of this project. The guidelines will be disseminated to students, faculty advisors, and university disability services offices so they can begin to adopt anti-ableist language and strategies and actively incorporate inclusion in their work. Those who stand to benefit from the outcomes of this are not limited to those in computing; they will also be applicable to students and researchers in adjacent fields.This is a research project to addresses a fundamental research question: How do academic expectations and relationships contravene ethical conduct and create barriers for disabled graduate students, and what guidance and resources effectively empower students and allies to engage equitable and anti-ableist practices to enable students to achieve success? To address this research question, we propose to use a qualitative research approach to analyze public-facing institutional disability service policies, and to interview disabled graduate students, faculty advisors, and disability services staff to understand how resources and attitudes toward disability create barriers for disabled students at the graduate level. The researcher will then critically analyze this qualitative data with an ethical anti-ableist lens and engage participatory design efforts to develop toolkits with guidelines and strategies that incorporate anti-ableist approaches for graduate students, faculty advisors, and disability service offices. The project will contribute knowledge about academic culture that may persist ableist barriers to success for disabled graduate students. Contributions of this work include empirical findings about how ableism manifests as barriers for graduate students, and a toolkit with guidelines that incorporate anti-ableist strategies for academic success for disabled students, faculty advisors and disability services offices. She will deploy toolkits to students, faculty and disability service offices and evaluate the effectiveness of the toolkits to provide useful anti-ableist strategies to empower students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.