When Architecture Disables: Teaching Undergraduates to Perceive Ableism in the Built Environment

This article describes an exercise in which students analyze architectural barriers in campus buildings to understand that people with disabilities are excluded from everyday social interaction. Sociological concepts such as deviance and discrimination prove elusive to students when merely studied from a textbook. Through this active learning exercise, students link their experiential understanding of environmental obstacles with theories and concepts about conformity and non conformity. In their written work, students report about access in public spaces, an understanding of obstacles imposed on people with disabilities, a connection between the physical and social environments, and deviance as a failure to meet the demands of an environment built for able bodies.