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Accessibility Statement

Into the Light: Living Histories of Oppression and Education in Ontario addresses histories and legacies of educational institutions producing and spreading oppressive knowledge while also excluding and preventing specific groups of people from contributing as knowledge creators and sharers. For our project, these excluded groups have included First Nations and settler people who did not fit white settler colonial worldviews, including Black people and other racialized groups as well as poor, disabled, and labelled-as-disabled people. We have worked to counter this silencing in our design process and our developed learning space. In doing so, our project incorporates practices to strengthen learner well-being and full participation by creating a space that is inclusive and respectful, that celebrates and values differences, and that models ways of supporting different people’s access to difficult stories and artifacts.

We have sought ways to 1) protect sensitive and restricted content related to Traditional Knowledge and survivors’ experiences and 2) provide recommendations for educators on how to engage with stories of lived experiences of Indian Residential School and forced institutionalization in ways that support learner’s access to challenging stories.

While we have incorporated WCAG 2.1 at the Level AA standard, we have also applied some Level AAA Success Criteria. We have applied the following:

  1. ASL interpreted videos available for all pre-recorded audio content in synchronized media,
  2. Context-sensitive and multimodal measures and tools to help people navigate and activate their learning in accessible and decolonizing ways,
  3. No time dependent events or activities. Except for non-interactive synchronized media (e.g., videos), timing is not an essential part of the event or activity presented by the stories and content. Participants can move at their own pace.
  4. Location and “breadcrumb” information in the top navigation to indicate learners' location in the website,
  5. Clear section headings to organize the content,
  6. A “Frequently Used Concepts and Terms” document to identify and outline our usage of key words and phrases, including idioms and jargon,
  7. Plain language usage whenever possible. The average reading level of the text ranges from grade 7 to 13, with occasional use of less accessible language due to the essential words, phrases, and idioms of this content. In addition, to push against knowledge creation as a privilege of those deemed intellectually elite, we have included printable plain language “Stop Light” cards.

Please send feedback to Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice at the following email: revision@uoguelph.ca