Biography

Dr. Judith McKenzie is currently employed as a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town in the Disability Studies Division. She is responsible for convening the postgraduate diploma on Disability Studies and for advising masters and doctoral students. Her research interests favour an engaged scholarship approach to issues relating to social inclusion of children and adults with intellectual disability and their families. She is also involved with the policy and practice of inclusive education in South Africa and in other African countries. Previously she was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Stellenbosch. In April 2010, Dr. Mckenzie completed her PhD in Humanities in the Psychology Department at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Her thesis was entitled, "Constructing the intellectually disabled person as a subject of education: A discourse analysis using Q-methodology.” Her interests in the field of disability studies center around inclusive education, the relationship between disability and poverty, intellectual disability and the inclusion of disability within curriculum and research in higher education. In December 2009 she was awarded the UNESCO/Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah Prize to Promote Quality Education for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.