Category: critical disability theory
ARTbrain Cedar Summer – learning about Truth and Reconciliation
I think that Truth and Reconciliation is the most important conversation of our times, and full of so many interesting aspects for all of us. Yet people with disabilities are almost always left out of the conversation. There are so many parallels to our stories that we think it is important to foster discussion about it. As Indigenous people were moved into Residential Schools and Indian Hospitals, people with disabilities were hospitalised. I talked to retired social workers from Woodlands who took Indigenous children out of Indian Hospitals and into Woodlands to keep them “safer.” The Woodlands Memorial garden contains … Continue reading ARTbrain Cedar Summer – learning about Truth and Reconciliation
Stories about access and cognitive dissonance
“In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance. They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance. “Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to … Continue reading Stories about access and cognitive dissonance