Date of Award
5-11-2025
Date Published
June 2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition
Advisor(s)
Krista Kennedy
Keywords
Composition;Decolonial;Disability rhetoric;Graduate education;Rhetoric;Writing
Subject Categories
Arts and Humanities | Rhetoric and Composition
Abstract
While scholarship on graduate education and graduate teacher assistant training has emerged as a growing trend in the field of rhetoric and composition, perspectives from disabled graduate students about their navigation of academic spaces remain understudied and undervalued (Lutkewitte, Kitchens, Scanlon; Macaulay; Badenhorst, Amell, Burford; Brown). An often neglected and precarious student population, disabled graduate students’ experiences are critical to graduate education scholarship because their lived experiences offer insight into critiques of normative and disabling academic structures. This IRB-approved study contributes to scholarship on graduate education by carefully analyzing the cultural expectations of normativity, ability, and productivity that are implicitly and explicitly delineated in rhetoric and composition graduate programs. My work explores the ways these expectations influence disabled graduate students' professionalization in the discipline and what kinds of resistance disabled graduate students have employed to meet their access needs. Using critical disability, feminist, and decolonial methods and methodologies to analyze qualitative data from interview subjects about their lived experiences with academic structures and policies, I consider its impact on the professional identity construction of disabled graduate students. The voices of approximately 70 disabled graduate students form the central data for this study, which relies on 70 usable survey responses, 17 interview participants, and over 20 hours of transcripts. I conclude with ways that disabled graduate students resist ableism and discuss their suggested recommendations for constructing a culture of access. The following research questions drive my research: 1. How do rhetoric and composition’s cultural expectations and discursive notions of productivity, efficiency, and ability impact disabled graduate students’ identity construction as they negotiate liminal spaces between teaching, research, and community? 2. How can listening to how disabled graduate students navigate institutional and departmental structures and practice resistance lead to structural recommendations for rhetoric and composition graduate programs that prioritize collective care and the development of a culture of access? While disability and ableism are an issue for all disabled people working and visiting university campuses, the ways that disability manifests differ. Variable power dynamics, institutional structures and expectations, and interpersonal relationships materialize the mutable ways disability is perceived within the academy and discipline. Graduate students are especially vulnerable to these power dynamics and institutional structures, given their precarious positions require them to operate in liminal positions within universities. My project interrogates where access breakdowns occur. For instance, one critical implication from my research is the necessity of reframing how we conceptualize productivity and labor in ways that can highlight the additional labor expected of disabled graduate students when institutional and departmental structures fail to meet students’ accommodations. Further, many interview participants have remarked that access is often dependent on interpersonal relationships, especially the relationship with their dissertation advisor, suggesting that the construction of explicit professional documentation around mentorship responsibilities in rhetoric and composition programs would be helpful. This data emphasizes the need for transparency in graduate education, especially for marginalized graduate students.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Wilson-Kopko, Gabriella, "Disabling Structures: Disability and Graduate Student Professionalization" (2025). Dissertations - ALL. 2105.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/2105
