WHY CRIP ASSESSMENT? CRITICAL DISABILITY STUDIES THEORIES TO ADVANCE ASSESSMENT FOR INCLUSION

Abstract

Critical disability studies theory offers valuable tools to reframe higher education assessment for inclusion. This chapter argues that three interconnected theoretical movements from critical disability studies (studies in ableism, crip theory, and critical universal design) are necessary to expand the concept of assessment for inclusion. While developed from a disability perspective, these critical tools broadly question how we have conceptualised learners and learning. To advance their use to interrogate and reform assessment practices, it introduces each theoretical move, identifies ways it could shift conceptions of assessment, and suggests provocative questions to guide its use. Through this exploration, it demonstrates that thinking with critical disability studies theory pushes us to consider how assessment has been shaped by a false and exclusionary norm that frames what learning looks like, the requirements of a profession (and therefore what ought to be assessed), and the need to measure. Critical disability theory suggests alternate routes laden with creative thinking from disability that expand possibilities for how we might seek to assess learning. Thinking with these theories builds a case for cripping assessment for inclusion and paves a route towards anti-ableist possibilities.