Accessibility has many different definitions and can look very different depending on the way in which it is being applied to situations and environments. Marriam-Webster’s definition is: something ‘being within reach or easy to understand’, which might not be where your mind first goes when thinking about accessibility. It’s more than likely that most of us think about accessibility strictly in the context of disability. Wikipedia’s definition of accessibility is: “…the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities.” While accessibility does include making technology and the environment available to people with disabilities, it can also mean so much more. In rural areas, accessibility can look like the ease of getting from place to place (think about driving from your home to the hospital or a grocery store. If it isn’t very far, then these places are accessible to you) In big cities it can be the availability of sidewalks and public transit to the public. Accessibility can even be the price of goods so more people can afford them or the language written on important road signs.

Accessibility can look like just about anything that affects the availability of a thing or place to people. Everyone, in one way or another, is affected by accessibility. Even children in public schools depend on their education being accessible, meaning they need; extracurricular classes and sports to have an accessible price, for classes to be spoken and written in languages they understand, and for schools to be an accessible distance from home and have accessible bus systems. But that can be a lot to tackle, and it covers so many topics.

So, for the purposes of my research, here is the definition I’ll be using for accessibility in school in the context of STEAM. ‘The ability for non-English speaking, disabled, and impoverished students to engage with and understand materials at the same capacity their English speaking, able-bodied, and non-impoverished peers do‘. In this context, accessibility looks like having a bilingual instructor, having low-cost or no-cost art courses and activities for public schools, or making art tools like paintbrushes and scissors usable for students with low-grip capacity.