Welcome

Welcome to Becoming Anti-Ableist: Foundations for Inclusive STEM Programs.

Across the Actua network, instructors play a critical role in shaping how young people experience STEM. The way you design activities, communicate, and build relationships influences who feels welcome, how young people see themselves in STEM, and whether they feel capable and valued.

This module introduces anti-ableism as a framework to strengthen those everyday moments. It is designed to support you in reflecting on your own assumptions about disability, recognizing how ableism shows up in STEM programs, and identifying practical ways to create more inclusive experiences for all participants, including disabled participants, peers, families, and community members. 

Colonial Context 

In Canada today, many dominant ideas about disability, including independence, productivity, normalcy, and success, are shaped by Western disability frameworks and colonial histories. These approaches often individualizes difference and treat disability as something to fix, manage, prevent, or overcome (Haegele & Hodge, 2016; Robinson, 2024). But these ideas are not universal.

Indigenous disability scholars and community leaders, including Dr. Rheanna E. Robinson, highlight how dominant Western models of disability often leave out Indigenous voices, experiences, values, and understandings of community. In some Indigenous contexts (e.g. Nisg̱a’a), difference is not primarily framed as deficit, but understood in relation to community, roles, responsibilities, and interdependence (Hickey & Wilson, 2017; Robinson, 2024). 

Image Description: A designed callout box featuring a quote by Dr. Rheanna E. Robinson that reads: “Models of disability rooted in colonialism have a significant omission of Indigenous voices, experiences, and values.” The quote is visually emphasized as a key takeaway. Offset from the text is a headshot of Dr. Robinson in black and white.

We recognise that First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples hold distinct relationships to land, language, knowledge, and community that shape how learning and science are understood and practiced across this country. However colonial systems have imposed narrow definitions of disability while disrupting relationships to land, language, culture, and community (Reading & Wien, 2009; Robinson, 2024). These impacts continue to shape how disability is understood and responded to today. Non-disabled and disabled Indigenous people face racial discrimination within healthcare systems, barriers to accessing services, and limited availability of culturally relevant and equitable supports (Monchalin et al., 2020; Vives & Sinha, 2019).

One example for disabled First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, experiences such as relocation outside of community to access care and culturally misaligned services reflect the impact of systems designed without Indigenous perspectives, leadership, or ways of knowing (Vives & Sinha, 2019; Greenwood et al., 2015).We also recognize the enduring presence and leadership of Black communities, including African Nova Scotian communities, whose experiences of land, education, and opportunity have been shaped by systemic anti-Black racism, as well as by generations of resistance, innovation, and care.

Disability and ableism do not exist outside of these histories.

These dynamics continue to shape who is included, whose knowledge is valued, and how support is defined.

Learn more about impacts of colonialism and indigenous knowledge systems: Actua Indigenous Worldviews Training.

Pause and Reflect

Before continuing, we invite you to pause, reflect, and locate yourself within these systems. Reflect on the following questions and write your answers in your Becoming Anti-Ableist Workbook or a personal device or notebook.

• What is your relationship to disability?
• What is your relationship to Indigenous territories and communities where you live?
• What assumptions about disability feel normal, obvious, or true to you, and where did they come from?
• How have your ideas about ability, intelligence, expertise, or success been shaped by school, work, media, or family?
• Whose perspectives are reflected in your understanding of disability and whose are missing?
• What changes when disability is understood not only through an individual lens, but also through relationships, community, history, and land?

This is not about having the right answers. It is about recognizing that what we “know,” and how we came to know it, has been shaped by history and culture. This awareness can shift how we relate to others, how we design programs, and how we understand what inclusion actually requires.

About This Module

We respect the diverse and personal ways people understand and describe their bodies, minds, and access needs. We use both identity-first (e.g., disabled people) and person-first language (e.g., people with disabilities), and we do so intentionally. We also recognize people who have access needs but do not identify as disabled. 

This is a foundational module. It introduces key ideas, language, and tools to support more inclusive STEM programming.

It is not designed to make you an expert in disability nor will it provide all the answers. Anti-ableism is an ongoing practice that develops over time through reflection, experience, and engagement with disabled people and communities. We ask you to stay open, to keep learning, unlearning, and shifting your approach over time, rather than trying to “get it right” or be perfect. 

As an Actua instructor, you may not control policies, accommodation processes, or program structures, but you do shape what participants experience day-to-day. This module focuses on what is within your sphere of influence, including:

• How activities are introduced and facilitated.
• How you respond to questions, challenges, or access needs.
• How you communicate with participants, families, and team members.
• How you create space for various ways of learning, participating, and contributing.

Throughout this module, you will be invited to:

• Reflect on your own experiences and assumptions;
• Explore how ableism shows up in STEM programs;
• Consider how your role as an instructor shapes participant experiences; and
• Identify small, meaningful actions you can take in your programs

Key terms are defined throughout, and you can also access an optional glossary if you would like to explore concepts in more depth.

About The Authors

This module was developed by Inclusive Experiences (IX), a disability-led consultancy specializing in anti-ableism, disability inclusion, and systems change. 

IX was co-founded by Elisabeth Walker-Young , C.M., LLD, PLY (she / her) and Shawna Lawson, MA (she / her). We work in deep and joyful partnership, and come to this work with different lived experiences, relationships to disability, and positions of power.

Elisabeth is a white, congenitally disabled settler, recovering Paralympian, and facilitator who brings over 30 years of lived, leadership, and systems-level experience across disability, sport, and community-based organizations. She has spent much of her life working within, and challenging systems that were not designed with disabled people in mind.

Shawna is a white, cis, non-disabled settler, systems change practitioner, and mother of a blind child. Her work focuses on translating complex ideas into practical action, and supporting organizations to shift how they design programs, make decisions, and share power, building on her experience leading community-based research and systems change initiatives across the sport and community sectors.

We both benefit from different forms of privilege, including whiteness, cisgender identity, heterosexuality, and professional authority, as well as forms of disability privilege (such as being ambulatory and having our ways of moving, sensing, and processing often assumed and accommodated by default). These dynamics shape what we notice, what we overlook, and how our perspectives are received.

Our understanding of disability, justice, and anti-ableism has been shaped over time, not only through our own experiences, but through the labour, writing, and leadership of disability justice activists and scholars, and through the many disabled people who have shared their experiences with us. We are also shaped by the thousands of people who have participated in our workshops and engagements across Canada. Many have shared their own stories about ableism -- experiencing it and recognizing how they have contributed to it themselves. These conversations continue to challenge us and remind us that this work is collective and ongoing.

We want to be transparent about what this means:

• We do not speak on behalf of all disabled people or communities.
• Disability is not a single, shared experience. It is shaped by culture, race, gender, class, environment, and access—and by systems that advantage some while marginalizing others.
• This module reflects some perspectives, not all.

If you have feedback on this module, including where it resonated, where it felt incomplete, or where it missed the mark, we invite you to share it directly with Actua at feedback.actua.ca/instructor/training, or IX directly via email elisabeth@inclusive-experiences.ca.

We also invite you to watch, read or listen to this short video introduction, where we share more about who we are and how we came to this important work. Open the video in a new tab: Inclusive Experiences - Who We Are (Youtube).

Content Note

This module includes discussion of ableism, exclusion, and discrimination. Where there are mentions of specific forms of oppression (e.g. Audism), we have included additional content notes.

For some, this content may reflect or resonate with your lived experiences with ableism, exclusion and disability oppression. For others, it may surface moments where you recognize your own role in these dynamics. If you experience other forms of marginalization or oppression related to your identity, you may notice common patterns or themes that feel familiar, challenging, or activating.

You may experience discomfort, defensiveness, or strong emotional responses while engaging in this content. This can be part of the learning process, and we ask that you take care of yourselves and your peers as best as you can. We encourage you to move at your own pace, take breaks as needed, and stay engaged in ways that feel both supportive and accountable. 

Accessibility and Participation

This module is designed as a self-paced, click-through training with written content, reflection questions, and optional external resources.

To support diverse ways of learning and access:

• A downloadable reflection workbook is available.
• A plain-text version of the module can be requested from training@actua.ca. 
• An optional glossary is available to support key terms and concepts.
• Additional formats (e.g., audio, ASL) may be developed over time.

We commit to continuously enhancing the accessibility of this, and other Actua training models over time. If you encounter barriers while engaging with this module, please reach out to the Actua team for support training@actua.ca.

Looking Ahead

In the next section, you will learn more about Actua’s National Youth with Disabilities Program, including its guiding principles and approach to inclusive STEM programming.