‘Broken Trust’ –A critical policy analysis of the difficulties faced by disabled intergenerational families seeking education and accommodation

As a result of the presence of racialized, gendered, and socio-economic bias within educational policies intended to assist disabled individuals, many students and their families often encounter abusive and negative accommodation experiences. These failures are particularly damaging during the transition out of high school and even more so within post secondary institutions themselves.Employing the educational policy analysis model created by Diem, Young, Wilton, Mansfield, and Lee (2014) in their paper entitled “The intellectual landscape of critical policy analysis” this major research paper explores several policies which impact students during these transition periods and highlights the failures that they repeatedly encounter. The personal story of the author is also woven into the analysis to show that there is a human side of this experience which must be included to truly expose the brutal nature of these policy failures. It is shown throughout that even though policy is crafted with rhetoric that may seem beneficial to the disabled recipient, the intent is often one of control, suppression, and reinforcement of the aforementioned negative biases.