Disability Culture and Outreaching to People with Disabilities Overseas about Exchange Opportunites in the USA

Disability rights movements are at different stages in different countries and parts of the world. Although most are making positive changes with support from the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in many countries, children with disabilities, if they receive education, are most often educated in segregated schools and vocational training centers among other students with similar disabilities – schools for students who are deaf, blind, with mobility disabilities, cerebral palsy, etc. Access at the higher education level is usually restricted for people with disabilities, although in every country bright young people with disabilities have achieved access and success often with self-determination and support of family and friends in the absence of any university-provided accommodations on campus. Laws and their implementation for inclusive education vary widely throughout the regions of the world, and some inclusion efforts at the primary and secondary levels, and provision of disability services in higher education are slowly being established or expanded. For information about disability laws in other countries, visit DREDF’s Directory of National Disability Non-Discrimination Laws or library documents at the Independent Living Institute.

Although it is important and necessary to show respect for the ideas and beliefs of the host country, U.S.-based international exchange programs have legal as well as ethical commitments to ensure that all exchange participants have equal opportunities to participate. Overseas partners of U.S.-based exchange organizations must fully comprehend  the organization’s clear commitment to the human and civil rights of all people with disabilities – those from the United States and those in the host country.

Understanding Disability Rights Models

Medical vs. Human Rights / Social Justice Model

• The medical model defines disability as a health condition or disease and as an impairment to be addressed by doctors and rehabilitation specialists who pursue treatments and cures for disabling conditions. The focus is on changing disabled people who are seen as needed to be cared for and cured so they can perform more efficiently in a society that has been constructed by and according to non-disabled people.
  
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• The human rights and social justice model focuses on the role of society in gaining equality for all its citizens, including people with disabilities. The focus shifts from fixing individuals to eliminating socially constructed barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating fully in their communities. Equality for people with disabilities is seen in the same light as equality for other minority communities where social structures such as prejudice, segregation, inaccessibility and cultural/religious beliefs are the problems.
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Working Across Cultures: Disability Culture in Different Countries

Cultural differences in concepts like disability, independence, confidentiality, respect for authority and personal rights may affect a person's approach to disability accommodation.

Language and terminology
When trying to do outreach to locate underrepresented groups, it may be difficult to explain a disability, especially a non-apparent disability, in the language or cultural context of the host country, and the explanation may not receive the kind of response you expect. When explaining about exchange opportunities specifically include information about disability services in the U.S. schools or communities and that the program is open to and welcoming of people with disabilities, as there may be a perception that only non-disabled people are desired or eligible if there has up to that point only been non-disabled participants. When explaining about the equal opportunity and access in the United States understand that “accommodations” or “rights” may be understood differently.

• Disability-specific vocabulary
  There may be no precise word in the host country’s language for a participant’s disability, or some types of disability may not be one that is easily accepted as legitimate or understood in the host country.
• Perceptions of independence
  In some cultures, independence may include relying on family, friends, the community or the aid of strangers – utilizing informal human support, which compared to the United States may be perceived as a less self-directed approach. Culturally, it is common for family members to provide  services such as a sighted guide for a sibling who is blind, or a cousin may assist with note-taking in classes, as opposed to assistive technology like a white cane or Braille notetaking machine that may be more common in the U.S. If traveling, young, unmarried women with disabilities may be accompanied by an elder brother or uncle for cultural or religious reasons in some countries.
• Understanding how a disability may be viewed by a given culture
  In some communities, people with visible disabilities are deterred from participating in the life of the community by social, institutional and infrastructural restrictions while other disabilities may be regarded as a blessing or gift (for example: in some cultures, people with epilepsy are considered gifted because they are believed to communicate with ancestors during seizures, other cultures may consider women who are blind unlikely to marry so will invest in their education for self-supporting futures). Parents who are influenced by their cultures that see visible disability as shameful and a reflection of a family's past wrong deeds, or as undervalued or less useful in comparison to investment of family resources in non-disabled siblings, may keep their children from school or hidden from community interactions.  The children who are not hidden but sponsored to attend school, athletic or work training programs will have made it through cultural stigmas and infrastructural barriers.
  
• Difference in approach to accommodations
  Many overseas universities in the non-Western world do not have an office of disability services or a formal procedure for requesting disability-related accommodations. Accommodations are arranged through community services, person-to-person, or by family members versus through legal processes according to law.

Cultural Models of Providing Accommodations

Frequently, it is underlying cultural differences, as well as individual and contextual responses, that impact the ways in which a person with a disability is accommodated or generally treated. Insight into cultural differences that shape expectations and approaches regarding disability issues can be useful for exchange organizations when working with overseas partners and preparing exchange participants for the U.S. culture. In many Latin American, African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries, disability-related accommodations are commonly arranged through informal social networks, personal discussions with professors or staff, or host family members.

Approaches to providing accommodations

• Procedural
  Doing what is required by rules or law  (U.S. approach)
• Personal
  Arranged person to person through direct conversations about what is needed and why
• Community
  In some cultures it is the responsibility of the student’s friends and family

Recruiting People with Disabilities

With a better understanding of disability, overseas educational advisers and U.S. exchange recruiters can prepare for these differences to help increase outreach so more people with disabilities can have U.S. experiences. One can begin to encourage people with disabilities to apply by:

• Talking with parents or family members
• Seeking support from other disabled leaders in the community
• Networking with a sibling without a disability who has benefited from a similar experience. Relate the benefits the non-disabled sibling has experienced to a sibling with a disability
• Communicating to all staff and volunteers in an organization any established disability-inclusive or diversity policies
• Identifying contacts at organizations that are led by and work with people with disabilities
• Developing contacts with special education and adaptive physical education teachers and physical therapists working with disabled youth
• Sharing stories, videos and presentations by returned alumni with disabilities.
  
• Considering linking families, including siblings and other respected members, with families of returnees, since family support can make or break a participant’s chances of going on exchange.
• Linking to our webpage for interntional visitors with disabilities interested in coming to the USA for study, volunteer, internship, teaching or professional development.