"Abuse of the disabled": Analyzing Disability Representation in Young Adult Literature and Disrupting Ableism in the Literature Classroom

The purpose of this dissertation is to highlight an area of young adult literature (YAL) and social justice education that is often ignored: disability. Informed by a Critical Disability Studies lens, this qualitative study explores the representation of disability in YAL through three independent yet interconnected articles. Specifically, these three articles function together to answer the following guiding research questions: 1) How is disability represented in contemporary young adult literature? and 2) How do readers respond to the representations of disability in YAL and what are the effects of those responses?

First, due to historical misrepresentations of disability and the use of ableist language and stereotypes in literature, article one—“Being Sick is Not a Bad Thing”: A Critical Content Analysis of Disability Representation in Young Adult Literature—presents a critical content analysis of four contemporary YA novels to examine if these issues are still present. The analyses indicate that there are still problematic portrayals of disability in contemporary YAL and that authors’ positionalities as disabled insiders, or outsiders, should be considered when making text selections centering disability. The findings of this critical content analysis informed article two—“It really warmed my heart”: An Instrumental Case Study of Readers’ Responses to Disability in YA Literature—an instrumental case study to examine how seven first-year college students responded to representations of disability in YAL written by disabled authors. Findings from analyzing participants’ written artifacts indicate that their responses to disability were largely influenced by their own ableist beliefs. Finally, inspired by problematic findings in articles one and two, article three—Understanding “Interlocking Oppressions”: Toward an Anti-Ableist Frame for Literary Analysis—proposes a new Anti-Ableist Frame for literacy instruction and analyzing intersectional disabled characters in YAL and other texts. This work has implications for the field of YAL, secondary English language arts, postsecondary English literature, and for educator preparation programs in English and literacy studies.