Abstract
In this article, I grapple with the internalized ableism I have been navigating upon becoming disabled in 2023. The task of this article is to consider the external forces that shape our ideas about disability with particular attention to socialization processes and larger oppressive systems such as neoliberalism. I specifically consider the messages that different representations, ideologies, and structures communicate to the population at large about disability in order to address why these messages are so often internalized in detrimental ways. Exclusion, I argue, is the societal default for disability and I historicize the different movements that have contributed to this impulse. Ultimately, I consider what it might mean to unlearn some of these tendencies toward exclusion, shame, and ableism and engage with a possible role for music education. As a relatively small discipline, music education offers an important site for the disruption of ableism. I conclude with a call to action/activism.
Recommended Citation
Hess, Juliet
(2026)
"The Voices in Our Heads: Interrogating and Unsettling Internalized Ableism In/For Music Education,"
Visions of Research in Music Education: Vol. 48, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/vrme/vol48/iss1/3