The Burden of Survival: How Doctoral Students in Computing Bridge the Chasm of Inaccessibility

Most critiques of disability and access have been conducted in the U.S., leaving limited insight into how disability and access vary in other cultural and political contexts.

“However, most critiques have been conducted in the U.S. [55, 76, 77, 85, 97, 98], leaving limited insight into how disability and access vary in other cultural and political contexts.”

Disabled students often take on significant labor to meet their access needs, such as requesting access services, incorporating accommodations into routines, and developing workarounds.

“Disabled students often take on significant labor to meet their access needs [41, 77], such as spending considerable time and effort requesting access services (e.g., interpreters), incorporating accommodations into their routines (e.g., installing and learning new software), and developing workarounds to address pervasive inaccessibility in technological tools [77].”

Similar experiences occurred repeatedly throughout Zhang's study at University B; negotiating with others to secure access introduced significant labor to study.

“Similar experiences occurred repeatedly throughout Zhang's study at University B. Similar to findings reported in the U.S. [41, 55, 77, 85], negotiating with others to secure access introduced significant labor to study.”

Although requesting accommodations required effort similar to that in the U.S., the process at University B was complicated by nuanced interpersonal dynamics in a context lacking both established support policies and disability awareness.

“In these instances, although requesting accommodations required effort similar to that in the U.S. [41, 55, 77, 85], the process was complicated by nuanced interpersonal dynamics in a context lacking both established support policies and disability awareness.”

Prior research on education accessibility often focused on specific stages of schooling such as graduate schools or on identifying accessibility needs and issues.

“Prior research on education accessibility often focused on specific stages of schooling such as graduate schools [41, 76, 77] or on identifying accessibility needs and issues [55].”

These barriers often force students to expend additional time and energy for engineering workarounds that meet their access needs.

“These barriers often force students to expend additional time and energy for engineering workarounds that meet their access needs [52, 100].”

The hidden additional time and energy put forth by students for gaining and maintaining access, referred to as the burden of survival by Shinohara et al., is a consequence of inaccessible environments.

“This hidden, additional time and energy put forth by students for the sake of gaining and maintaining access, referred to as the burden of survival by Shinohara et al. [100], is a consequence of inaccessible environments.”

Documented assignment-level pathways and program-level skill alignment exist to support curricular embedding.

“documented assignment-level pathways and program-level skill alignment exist to support it [4, 6, 10, 19, 21, 30, 31, 35].”

Embedding UDL and accessibility across core CS courses is one concrete mechanism to interrupt the cycle from curricular neglect to inaccessible educational technologies and back to student access labor.

“In computing, embedding UDL and accessibility across core CS courses is one concrete mechanism to interrupt the cycle from curricular neglect to inaccessible educational technologies and back to student access labor, making the intended transfer pathway explicit [4, 19, 20, 31, 35].”