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Title: Navigating Complexities

Navigating Complexities

The Intersectionality of Blackness and Disability in Higher Education

by Leroy Baker (Author)
©2025 Textbook X, 256 Pages
Education

Summary

Academic accommodations have become quite commonplace in universities in the Global North. At their best, accommodations support the rights of all students to an education, enabling students with disabilities or those who learn differently to succeed in the university and beyond. But are accommodations truly at their best? Reflecting on his own experiences as a Black student with a disability as well as the experiences of other Black students accessing accommodations at Canada’s premier university, the University of Toronto, Baker examines how Black students who self-identify as having a disability navigate the everyday complexities of Blackness and disability in Canadian higher education. Revealing the often invisible ways Black disabled students negotiate the double bind of disability and anti-Blackness, this book draws attention to the alarming regularity with which students internalize stigmas born from structural forms of anti-Black racism and ableism and demonstrates how this often create devastating barriers to student success and well-being.
Timely, thought-provoking, and at times deeply personal, this book encourages us to rethink the accommodations process with the aim of supporting all students to achieve success within the academy and beyond.

Table Of Contents


Leroy A. Baker

Navigating Complexities The Intersectionality of Blackness and Disability in Higher Education

Names: Baker, Leroy A., author.

Title: Navigating complexities : the intersectionality of blackness and disability in higher education / Leroy A. Baker.

Description: New York, NY : Peter Lang, [2025] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024042360 (print) | LCCN 2024042361 (ebook) | ISBN 9781636677422 (paperback) | ISBN 9781636677439 (pdf) | ISBN 9781636677446 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: College students, Black—Canada—Social conditions. | College students with disabilities—Services for—Canada. | Educational equalization—Canada. | Racism in education—Canada. | Inclusive education—Canada.

Classification: LCC LC2804 .B35 2025 (print) | LCC LC2804 (ebook) | DDC 371.9/047408996071—dc23/eng/20241018

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024042360

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024042361DOI 10.3726/b22394

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

ISBN 9781636677422 (paperback)

ISBN 9781636677439 (ebook)

ISBN 9781636677446 (epub)

DOI 10.3726/b22394

© 2025 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne

Published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, USA

info@peterlang.com - www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilization outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.

This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Leroy A. Baker received his PhD in Sociology and Social Justice Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto and currently holds a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University. His research focuses on Black mental health, equity, intersectionality theory, education, and practice. Baker was awarded the Dionne Brand Award for Excellence in Liberal Arts for his exemplary achievement in research at the University of Toronto.

About the book

Academic accommodations have become quite commonplace in universities in the Global North. At their best, accommodations support the rights of all students to an education, enabling students with disabilities or those who learn differently to succeed in the university and beyond. But are accommodations truly at their best?

Reflecting on his own experiences as a Black student with a disability as well as the experiences of other Black students accessing accommodations at Canada’s premier university, the University of Toronto, Baker examines how Black students who self-identify as having a disability navigate the everyday complexities of Blackness and disability in Canadian higher education. Revealing the ofteninvisible ways Black disabled students negotiate the double bind of disability and anti-Blackness, this book draws attention to the alarming regularity with which students internalize stigmas born from structural forms of anti-Black racism and ableism and demonstrates how this often create devastating barriers to student success and well-being.

Timely, thought-provoking, and at times deeply personal, this book encourages us to rethink the accommodations process with the aim of supporting all students to achieve success within the academy and beyond.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Preface

I grew up as an abused and neglected youth in Jamaica, and I learned firsthand how these obstacles result in social, economic, and psychological marginalization of the abused male body. After immigrating to Canada, the category of race made my previous challenges more comprehensible. These experiences are part of what motivated me to apply to the Transitional Year Program at the University of Toronto, as an entry to postsecondary education and, later, to pursue an undergraduate degree in Equity Studies.

I enrolled in several courses in disability studies that examined equity and the body; this ultimately encouraged my interest in how individual social position is frequently reflected institutionally. I became interested in critically examining my early challenges living in an abusive family in Jamaica and my experiences immigrating to Canada, and both examinations had several unanticipated benefits. First, these critical examinations served to strengthen my resolve; second, they afforded me a unique opportunity to gain experience occupying marginalized social and material spaces; and finally, they reinforced my belief in the necessary connection between critical thinking and survival, whether that survival is physical, psychological, or intellectual.

The racial, disability, sexual, and gender diversity within my program’s student body and my subsequent understanding of the systemic and personal challenges faced by these historically marginalized groups has broadened my understanding of social and educational systems, including their ability to exclude individuals who lack significant power to resist social and institutional exclusion in Canada.

Undoubtedly, my belief in the value and necessity of education comes from my rough personal academic journey over the years; a journey into an unfamiliar environment as a young child who experienced physical violence and social oppression in Jamaica and as an immigrant to Canada who encountered institutional anti-Black racism and personal exclusion. The experiences of Black Canadians were similar to mine because of the marginalization and intersectional discrimination they have experienced throughout their lives. As it was for me, education as an institution seemed unattainable because of Blackness, disability, and discrimination. The intersection of the identities of Blackness and disability, and its impact on education, has long been a research interest of mine. The challenges facing Black students with disabilities suggests that an examination of a similar population in universities would be useful. The focus has been not only to formulate the theoretical characteristics of Blackness and disability in the university setting but also to analyze its practical implications.

In this book, I explore how Black undergraduate and graduate students with disabilities navigate the everyday complexities of Blackness and disabilities in university life. The University of Toronto was the site of this investigation, though this book is not intended to be a criticism or analysis of this institution specifically. A qualitative investigation of the way university bureaucracy interacts with Blackness and disability, I draw from the experiences of 12 Black students with disabilities at this university who met the inclusion criteria and were willing to share their lived experiences when seeking accommodation with the Accessibility Services Office.

Acknowledgments

This book has been a remarkable journey for me and would not have been possible without the love and support of several people who dared me to dream. I am grateful for the support of my incomparable PhD thesis advisor, Dr. Tanya Titchkosky, who has provided me with critical insights, invaluable commitment, and dedication. Dr. Titchkosky’s work in the field of Disability Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto was integral to the performance of my project, and her words guided me at several times through this process. The success of this book is due in no small part to her as well. I cannot underscore enough how thankful I am for Dr. Titchkosky’s guidance and unwavering support. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Rod Michalko for his invaluable advice, words of wisdom, encouragement, and guidance. His theoretical work on marginality and disability as a “cultural production” functioned as the guidepost for my work in this book.

I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Thomas Mathien for sharing his invaluable knowledge and critical insights for the completion of this book. My book owes its greatest debts to the participants at the University of Toronto with whom I carried out this study. Your enthusiasm and candid insights in sharing your reflections and experiences have been integral to the completion of this book. Many thanks to Dr. Anne McGuire and Dr. Patricia Douglas for their critical insights and support. Your continued generosity in sharing your knowledge and expertise in the fields of equity studies and disability studies is greatly appreciated. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to those scholars and sources whose critical works in the various subject areas of the discipline have contributed to the foundation of this book. To name a few: Professor Sylvia Wynter, Stuart Hall, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, Frantz Fanon, Dr. Patricia Hill Collins, Dr. Katherine McKittrick, Dr. bell hooks, Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Dr. Paul Gilroy, Dr. Lennard Davis, and Dr. Judith Butler.

Details

Pages
X, 256
Publication Year
2025
ISBN (PDF)
9781636677439
ISBN (ePUB)
9781636677446
ISBN (Softcover)
9781636677422
DOI
10.3726/b22394
Language
English
Publication date
2024 (December)
Keywords
marginality discrimination Navigating Complexities The Intersectionality of Blackness and Disability in Higher Education Leroy Baker accessibility higher education blackness black students identity disability education policy learning assessment academic accommodations black studies anti-racism ableism disability studies sociology of education social psychology intersectionality gender studies equity social justice coloniality
Published
New York, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, Oxford, 2025. X, 256 pp., 1 color ill.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Leroy Baker (Author)

Leroy A. Baker received his PhD in Sociology and Social Justice Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto and currently holds a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University. His research focuses on Black mental health, equity, intersectionality theory, education, and practice. Baker was awarded the Dionne Brand Award for Excellence in Liberal Arts for his exemplary achievement in research at the University of Toronto.

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Title: Navigating Complexities