Accessibility Article Summary

The article I read was “Disability as Insight into Social Justice Pedagogy in Technical Communication. This article focuses on how considering those with disabilities may help provide a broader knowledge of social justice in technical communications research. The article states that social action is a category of technical communications research. Social action takes on various forms such as service learning, community-based research, action/activist research, and civic engagement. Students from Utah University are taught to use social action. These students are given the opportunity to use their skills to benefit people with disabilities. Through this opportunity, technical students are taught to practice social justice even if they are not working for a non-profit organization. By questioning what an effective and ethical technical communicator meant, students began to realize that considering the needs of users with disabilities would help make them better technical writers. Students were taught how exclusionary communication designs could be, and teachers taught them how to revise the designs to be more inclusive. They were even given a project to take something and make it more accessible to those with disabilities. By acknowledging the need for inclusion for those with disabilities in technical communications, students were able to expand their social awareness. The students were even able to discuss technical communication issues relating to minorities as well.

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