AERA Online Paper Repository Viewer

Continuing Paper Access to AERA Annual Meetings
and other Conventions

  
InformationContents
Owner: Natalie L. Shaheen
Owner Email: nlshaheen@gmail.com
Paper Title: The Technology Accessibility Policy Ecosystem: Remedying and Repairing the Digital Exclusion of Disabled Students
Session Title: Policy Influences on Exceptionality Education (Table 11)
Paper Type: Roundtable Presentation
Presentation Date: 4/24/2025
Presentation Location: Denver, CO
Descriptors: Disability Studies, Educational Policy, Instructional Technology
Methodology: Qualitative
Author(s): Natalie L. Shaheen, Illinois State University
Unit: Division L - Educational Policies and Politics
Abstract: The systemic use of inaccessible instructional technologies in K-12 excludes disabled students from technology-mediated education. The 2024 ADA Title II regulations require education agencies to ensure their technologies are accessible. But the new regulations are unlikely to repair digital injustices because the regulations are just one component of the complex policy ecosystem. Herein, I report findings from a multiple embedded case study of two state and three local education agencies' that indicate technology accessibility policy enactment occurs in a six level ecosystem and factors within each level mediate enactment by focusing, accelerating, or decelerating the work. I argue that stakeholders must form coalitions and employ ecological approaches to remedy and repair the digital exclusion of disabled students.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/2189825