Dr. Carly Christensen is a Disabled educator and scholar committed to inclusive education frameworks that recognize Disability as a valued identity. Carly is the co-lead of the Inclusive Education Research Stream at the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship (CIIC), where she emphasizes that creating inclusive schools involves acknowledging disability history, dismantling its lingering effects, and ensuring schools become spaces of belonging and healing for Disabled learners.
Breakout Session:
Turning the Page on Ableism: Rethinking Disability Through Children’s Books
In this highly interactive, hands-on workshop, participants will dig into children’s picture books to explore how disability is represented. Together, we will examine how books can reinforce ableism, but also how they can be used more thoughtfully to open up new ways of understanding disability as part of human diversity.
Disability is a social identity that is often left out of conversations about representation and social justice. This session centers disability as a valued and important part of identity, and explores how including disability in meaningful ways can strengthen broader efforts toward equity and belonging.
This workshop introduces practical tools for spotting ableism in language, images, and storylines. Participants will work directly with texts to analyze representation, grapple with complexity, and consider how books can be used in more critical and affirming ways.
This workshop draws on a curated and researched collection of 90+ children’s books that engage with disability in a range of ways, not all perfect, but all useful for learning.
Participants will leave with:
- concrete strategies for selecting and using books in more disability-affirming ways
- tools to identify deficit-based, simplistic, or harmful narratives
- practical ideas for supporting conversations with children about disability, difference, and belonging
