Supporting Teachers to Teach Disability History with Confidence: Lessons from New Jersey

Sharon Pennock
Wed, 15 Oct 2025 18:08:33 +0000

The new article “Supporting Teachers to Teach Disability History with Confidence: Lessons from New Jersey” by Nicole Hansen, DEE board member Christa S. Bialka, and Teresa G. Wojcik highlights what we at Disability Equality in Education (DEE) know well: teachers want to include disability history and representation, but they need support, time, and ready-to-use resources to do it confidently and accurately.

The researchers found that while many New Jersey teachers are open to teaching about disability, few have the tools or training to move beyond limited, medicalized, or tragedy-centered portrayals. Their findings confirm the need for exactly what Disability Equality in Education (DEE) provides - curriculum resources, professional development, and community-created materials that make including disability in the curriculum practical, authentic, and grounded in the social model.

We’re encouraged to see research like this backing the work so many of us are doing to build classrooms where disability is understood as a vital part of history and identity, not an afterthought.

Read the article with a few takeaways here from Emerging America: https://www.emergingamerica.org/blog/supporting-teachers-teach-disability-history-confidence-lessons-new-jersey and the full text of “Requirement Versus Reality: Secondary Social Studies Teachers’ Attitudes and Practices When Teaching About Disability History” published in The Social Studies.