Episode 205: Senior Thesis 2024 - Quinn

Fractured Education: The School System’s Prejudiced Social Divide by Quinn

Abstract: Despite all of our advances in ridding ourselves of the injustices that have plagued our nation, a particular example of bigotry has been left to fester. People with special needs have historically been a consistent target for prejudice and oppression; this discrimination has bled out of the history books and into the American school system. To this day, American schools operate under ableism and discrimination, causing incredible social development problems our for students, and continuing to contribute to a bigoted culture. It is imperative to the development of all students that students with special needs are socially included within school culture. School culture unifies a school, it dictates the tones and conditions that a student body will operate under. For students to overcome a culturally instilled attitude of ableism, they must be educated on and exposed to their peers with special needs, specifically in these culture-building events. Inclusion in these events is the first step in breaking through the prejudice that students and their educational system share, exposing the humanity in the students who are treated as less-than, and bringing to light the inhumanity in the ableism that has dictated the lives of so many students with disabilities.

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