Learning Outcomes
In the early years of life, children are learning about who they are within their families and community. Building an identity, including as a disable person, is a complex social experience that is lifelong. As each of us builds identity, there is an interaction between how we perceive ourselves and how others see and interact with us. It is, therefore, a relational process within our social world and within the institutions that define us through categories that are created in our cultural world. Two categories that are socially created are 'childhood' and 'disability'. In recent years there has been a growing cultural awareness of disability identity that embraces difference in bodies, minds, and emotions to create art and culture.
At the same time, parents and families are navigating childhood spaces and rules. The relationship between families and educational institutions has a broad impact on families. This experience is something we call Crip Family Life. For children, families and educators, there are many representations of disability all around them, which influence how we think about disability. It is important to actively seek our complex, authentic and broad representations of disability that build knowledge of disabled community.
Many children/students and their families do not identify with disability culture because disability is largely constructed as a difference in needs, rather than a valued difference in our early childhood and school environments.
The aim of these activities is to consider disability identity through understanding:
References
Page updated June 2026.