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Duration
6 weeksWeekly study
5 hoursDisability and a Good Life: Thinking through Disability
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20% of the global population has a disability, which means most of us will have an experience of disability in our lives, whether it be personally, through our family and friends, or in our workplaces and communities. But what is disability? It’s often assumed that people with disabilities can’t have a good life. But what is a good life?
In this course, and its sister course Working with Disability, we’ll reflect on how disability is part of who we are as human beings. These courses will give you and your fellow learners the opportunity to think through and work with some of the big issues facing societies, governments and disabled people.
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We know that the way we think about and understand things shapes the way we act. In this course we’ll explore the ways disability is understood and challenge you to think about what it means to have a good life.
To begin, you will reflect on what a good life means for you and hear from other people with and without disabilities about their views on what a good life means for them. As you move through the topics, you will engage in thinking about and discussing contemporary disability issues such as disability politics, history and disability across the life course. At the end of the course we will challenge you to consider how a good life might be enabled for all.
In this free online course, you can choose your pathway through the materials. Resources and strategies to support your learning include:
We encourage you to work through the course week-by-week in order to participate fully in the class discussions. However, once you enrol, materials will continue to be available to you after the course officially ends, so that you have the option to work at your own pace.
We also hope to hear from you. As we strive to improve the course and enable ease of access for all, we have multiple opportunities for you to provide feedback about the accessibility of the materials and the effectiveness of the course design.
By the end of this course you will be able to:
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On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
This course is suitable for both beginners and experts wanting to raise their awareness of disability and disability-related issues within a global context. It is appropriate for people with disabilities and their family members, friends and allies; professionals in the care and community service sectors; medical and allied health professionals; educators; built environment professionals; advocates and policy makers; scholars; and lifelong learners.
Thinking through Disability is an appropriate foundational course for those interested in the course Working with Disability, which looks at disability and its relationship to human rights, access, advocacy and care.
I'm a Lecturer at UNSW, Australia. I'm interested in the relationship between disability, social policy and social change. I think it's really important that universities share knowledge clearly.
I am an academic at UNSW Australia with more than twenty years experience in disability studies and in working for social change in the ways we understand and respond to disability.
I am a professor of disability policy and practice at the Social Policy Research Centre UNSW.I have undertaken research for twenty years with people with disabilities in Australia and internationally
Karen Soldatic is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow (2016 – 2019) at the Institute of Culture and Society, Western Sydney University.
With a background in architecture and interiors - and in higher education - I work mostly on community-based projects to make improvements to the built environment; particularly around disability
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You can use the hashtag #FLThinkingDisability to talk about this course on social media.