ABSTRACTMost colleges1 do not advertise all accommodations that are available to students nor do all institutions offer the same accommodations. This can be seen in instances where some universities allow students to listen to music during testing. Music has been shown to benefit students with various disabilities and help with focus and stress reduction, but this accommodation is not readily accessible to students. Music and accommodations, in general, are still viewed as predominantly “privileges” or “advantages” rather than rights promoting equity, diversity, inclusion for all students, and improved testing environments. Obtaining accommodations is based on the dominant medical model which emphasizes impairments rather than accessibility during the registration process. This research examines disability office websites for 50 land grant colleges across the United States to determine if listening to music is listed as a testing accommodation and the accessibility of that information. Of the 50 colleges, five universities had “listening to music during exams or tests” on their websites, and three of the five had the information in the faculty or student handbook, not easily accessible. Only two universities, Virginia Tech, and Washington State University, had information about music listening on their disability website. Future research should address the problem of “accommodations” versus “accessibility” as a right including the inconsistency of finding accommodation information such as listening to music during testing. 1 The terms college(s) and university(ies) will be used interchangeably throughout

Migrant families are among one of the most vulnerable and under protected populations in terms of protection and aid from the United States government. Often arriving on the basis of fleeing violence and severe poverty, their quality of life deeply depends on their ability to find and maintain economic security. Education is recognized as a path and is strongly linked to the achievement of economic wellbeing (U.S. Department of Education, 2021). A great number of (im)migrants experience educational barriers to enrollment and participation in education and are therefore unlikely to obtain both an education and access to financial stability. This thesis presents research on the educational policies and programs currently available for (im)migrant students, recent federally reported educational outcomes of these students, and identifies substantial barriers to their obtaining a meaningful education. The intended demographic of this thesis is Latinx (im)migrant students in the state of Arizona. Distributive justice practices are rooted in the understanding that all humans need specific resources to survive and thrive. This paper theorizes that these practices, when applied in relation to educational barriers affecting (im)migrant students, will enable them to increase both their access to and success in higher education. The author applies a distributive justice framework to address these issues via the creation of an innovative, dual-language infographic to inform (im)migrant students about the resources available to increase their access to higher education. To conclude, the paper provides an analysis of the impact the resource might have on (im)migrant students, as well as what policies or changes might/should be implemented for a large-scale impact.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), schools and families collaborate to determine educational decisions for children with special needs. However, successful collaboration occurs when special education practitioners and families build strong partnerships. This study employed a mixed-methods action research design to examine the effectiveness of professional development training for school-based special education personnel to increase collaboration during special education meetings. The training centered around building participants’ knowledge of special education regulations, policies, and procedures and providing strategies to facilitate a collaborative partnership between families and the school. Participants’ knowledge gained from the training intervention was assessed using a pre-post-intervention survey, followed by semi-structured interviews. Useful aspects of the training intervention included gaining a foundational understanding of legal rights and responsibilities in special education and specific preparation and communication strategies for future family and school collaboration during special education meetings.

2023 has been a record-breaking year for legislation aimed at restricting and even criminalizing access to gender affirming care for minors. In response to these legislative efforts, many advocates rely on invocations of medical authority to defend the right of individuals to access gender affirming care. However, this reliance on the pathologization of transgender identity both reaffirms stigmatization of transgender identity as mental illness as well as forecloses on opportunities to affirm access to gender affirming care otherwise. The purpose of this research is to use disability justice scholarship, predominantly crip theory, to analyze these legislative efforts in-depth beyond the predominant critique offered by the medical-model. I demonstrate that these legislative moves to ban access to gender affirming care are part of a larger effort to prevent a trans future more broadly. Trans childhood has become a particularly fruitful site for this political action due to the ways in which normativities relating to time, biological plasticity, and capacity shape the way that their bodies are understood. I term those individual bodies which have such characteristics of non-normative temporalities, plasticity, and capacity/incapacity grafted onto them become “bodies of normative intervention” and explore how they become the laboratory sites for producing population-wide normative interventions. This legislative effort to restrict access to gender affirming care for minors represents a broader effort to legislate a trans future out of existence through the strategic targeting of trans children. This robs society of valuable trans knowledge and experience.