ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of teaching about disability history in K–12 classrooms, detailing the historical mistreatment and oppression of individuals with disabilities in society, and its legacies. It draws attention to efforts aimed at the systematic elimination or segregation of people with disabilities through eugenics policies, institutionalization, and other practices. The chapter is structured around the central question of how beliefs and practices of the past can be connected to today’s beliefs and practices toward people with disabilities. The authors draw attention to how individual, cultural, political, educational, and economic contexts or factors converge in complicated ways in a power hierarchy. They provide practical ideas for entering into classroom inquiries which explore why people with disabilities have been historically oppressed and how collectivism is important for making social change. This chapter includes suggestions for books and multimedia resources, both for further professional development and for use in K–12 lesson planning or curriculum development. Teachers can choose from numerous activity ideas and reproducible worksheets for teaching about disability history in K–12 classrooms.
