Seeking inclusion while navigating exclusion: Theorizing the experiences of disabled nursing faculty in academe

Despite repeated calls for equity, diversity, and inclusion in nursing education and the significance of disability for the vocation of nursing, the voices and experiences of nursing faculty with disabilities are largely absent from our literature. In this paper, we present a critical grounded theory of the experiences of disabled nursing faculty in academe to begin to amend this gap. Using critical disability studies as a sensitizing framework and building on prior work on racism and other systems of oppression in nursing, we theorize that nursing academe is a normalized space produced by White, able-mindbodied, and cis-heteropatriarchal discourses that regulate the boundaries of inclusion via exclusionary social norms. Further, we describe the operations of normalcy in nursing academe, discuss implications for education and health care, and consider avenues for change.