Date of Award

5-10-2026

Date Published

June 2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Higher Education

Advisor(s)

Cathy McHugh Engstrom

Keywords

Capital Theory;Color-Blind Ideology;Disability Resources;Whiteness

Subject Categories

Education | Educational Administration and Supervision | Higher Education Administration

Abstract

This dissertation examines how Whiteness operates with the delivery of disability-related accommodations on US college campuses. The research in this study focused on three questions: (a) How do disability resource professionals individually begin to make sense of their Whiteness personally? (b) How do disability resource professionals recognize and account for their White racialized frame and Whiteness in their individual professional judgment and decision-making? (c) How do disability resource professionals describe the ways Whiteness as ideology manifests in the field of disability resources, through its professional norms and systemic practices across disability resources in higher education? Twelve White disability resource professionals, ranging in age from their early thirties to early sixties, participated in the study. Participants engaged in three semi-structured Zoom interviews during the summer of 2023. The participants worked at community colleges, 4-year public institutions, to highly selective R1 universities across the United States. Three theoretical frameworks were used in data analysis: Bonilla-Silva’s (2018) Central Frames of Color-blind Racism, Helms’s (1993) model of White Racial Identity Development (WRID), and Bourdieu’s original concepts of social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Edgerton & Roberts, 2014), including Bonilla-Silva et al. (2006) concept of White habitus. The findings align with Leonardo’s (2009) work on the invisibility of Whiteness and the hegemony of Whiteness within disability systems. Despite an individual's racial awareness and desire to decenter Whiteness, institutions and disability systems continue to center and privilege Whiteness in both hidden and obvious ways. The less obvious ways include policies and practices that prioritize White norms, such as individualism and independence, and in more obvious ways, such as leveraging disability status to secure preferential accommodations, resulting in the disproportionate consumption of disability-related resources by privileged White families. Implications for practitioners include ongoing and critical self-reflective practices that examine one's Whiteness and White racialized frame when employing professional judgment and decision-making. Practitioners must identify ways to make disability resource centers (DRCs) more welcoming to students of color. This includes examining policies and practices that consider institutional context and culture that maintain DRCs as White spaces. Additionally, practitioners should examine documentation policies that could disproportionately advantage White, privileged families. Finally, practitioners must interrogate the White norms embedded in the movement to transfer disability resource operations in higher education from a medicalized to a social justice model.

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Open Access

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