Making Sense of Our Encounters with Trigger Warnings as Autistic Higher Education Students Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Participatory IPA Study and Autoethnography

Authors

Abstract

The utility of trigger warnings is a polarizing topic within post-secondary education. Autistic individuals are more likely to be affected by trauma. However, the intersections of autism and trauma are poorly understood. Very little research has been conducted examining students’ perspectives on trigger warnings, none of which focuses on students who are affected by trauma, nor those who identify as Autistic. Through a transformative lens grounded in participatory action research, my thesis investigated how 3 Autistic post-secondary students and alumni with trauma made sense of their experiences with trigger warnings. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis involving 2 semi-structured interviews and an autoethnography, we explored our holistic identities, what sociopolitical significance we attribute to our educators’ uses of trigger warnings, what practices we considered harmful or helpful, and our recommendations to support students with shared lived experience. Analysis of our contributions revealed that we learned to view our autism as a source of difference, became wary of unmasking by virtue of our experiences with trauma, expressed a need for our identities to be acknowledged in higher education spaces, and asserted the benefit of inclusive learning spaces to help empower ourselves as well as other marginalized students. Participants’ accounts challenged to the assumption that trigger warnings are ineffective if they do not reduce distress in students, instead proposing that they may make students feel seen and respected. Participants reflected on the possibility that further systemic change, such as increased representation of academic leaders with lived experience and policy changes to accessibility services, may result in more comprehensive efforts towards inclusivity. The potential for applying participatory and accessible design elements of this study in future research was explored.

No cited bibliography is currently integrated for this reference. This does not necessarily mean that no bibliography exists.