UC Riverside

Access to education has long been seen as a fundamental element of a developed country. Specifically, the relative availability and access to education by various constituent groups has been identified as an essential metric in educational evaluation. Yet, individuals with disabilities have been identified as being underrepresented within institutions of higher education, including the U.S. community college. Furthermore, scholars have also argued that discussion of disability remain on the margins of scholarship within academia. Therefore, this investigation employed qualitative methods by conducting a Critical Discourse Analysis of California Title 5 policies specific to disabled students in order to examine the socio-political space afforded to disabled students to navigate the institutional environment of the community college. Titchkosky’s (2011) 4W Access framework and the concept of opportunity as developed within Sen’s (1992) Capabilities Approach provided the analytical frameworks for this investigation. Findings indicate that ideological constructs, inflexible funding models, and lack of integration shape access and opportunity negatively for disabled students in California community colleges.