Thinking about Professor Len Barton, October 2025

Thinking about Len Barton

Rod Michalko, Toronto
I met Len for the first time at a Society for Disability Studies conference in Chicago in 2000. The best part of the conference was an evening Tanya Titchkosky and I spent with Len, Mike Oliver his partner, Colin Barnes and his partner at Buddy Guy’s Legends Blues Club.  Lots of drinking, eating, great Mississippi food, lots of laughing and beautiful blues.  The great thing was that Len, Mike and Collin told all about DS and the social model -- surprise, surprise.  We saw Len many times after that. Tanya and I invited him to ST. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish Nova Scotia, where we were teaching and writing.  Len gave a talk in the small eastern Nova Scotian rural community.  400 people attended!  The first two rows were comprised of more than a dozen people using wheelchairs.  People came from all over eastern Nova Scotia to hear Len.  They were not disappointed.  Len was a great influence not only on my work, but also on me, on how I felt and experienced my blindness and how I did my teaching and writing. He provoked me to write “Blindness enters the Classroom”; its still one of my favorites. Len is one of those “guys” you just never forget.  Rest in peace my friend. 

Tanya Titchkosky, University of Toronto
Like Rod Michalko said above, I met Len at what was my first Society for Disability Studies conference in Chicago, where I met so many DS people, including the late Marian Corker. I learned much from Len and his laugh in talking about the different ways of doing disability studies. He brought DS alive for me. Len agreed to come to Nova Scotia for a talk right at a time when I was developing disability studies courses at St. FX University, and right when Nova Scotia was establishing the Disability Coalition of Antigonish/Guysborough counties. I was trying to launch the courses and I was Chair of the Coalition Board which was charged with the task of working between various disability organizations and the provincial government. I didn’t think THE Len Barton, international scholar, would come to rural Nova Scotia, but he did!  And, so many people, 400 or more, came from all over Nova Scotia to hear Len speak. Len brought us together and helped us think about what it might mean to treat disability as a community issue rather than as an individual deficit. Also, I remember that in Antigonish, like in Chicago, accessible washrooms were a problem.  I remember hearing again and again from Len “Bloody ‘ell,” as Len worked to figure out what to do about a lack of access. And he did the same with education – he named the exclusion, straight up and forged alternatives. Thanks for the support and the lesson’s Len and all your work paving a way for so many.  Rest in Peace. 

David Hyatt, University of Sheffield
It was with great sadness that I heard of Len’s passing. Whilst there can be no doubt that Len was a huge influence and inspiration to innumerable colleagues working in the fields of Disability Studies and Inclusive Education, my thoughts turned immediately to more personal ones of my relationship with Len. In the summer of 1995, Len interviewed me and then appointed me to my first full time lectureship in the Department of Education at Sheffield, and thirty years later I am still here! I remember Len’s interview questions focussed on power and relationality, still huge influences and motivations on my work today. Shortly after that, Len became my PhD supervisor and guided me to a successful completion of this through his careful, rigorous and compassionate supervision. Len’s style was a decentering one, encouraging me through my ‘imposter syndrome’ to take genuine ownership of my work and fostering independence, criticality and reflexivity in my writing. Len’s approach to supervision had a profound impact on my own practice, leading and supporting me through the tricky liminal phase of any PhD journey filled with self-doubt and confusing – as he once said to me whilst I was grappling with difficult, contested and contestable social science concepts ‘David, the world is a complex and challenging place’. I worked with Len examining doctorates over the years and whilst his questioning in vivas was always thought-provoking, provocative and robust, he managed this difficult event in any student’s life with care, compassion and generosity. A PhD student examined by Len knew they had been challenged and that they had truly earned their doctorate. Len was not an academic who only focussed on his own work but genuinely cared about the success and wellbeing of his students and colleagues, and in this way, was a powerful and influential role model. A true character, iconoclast and all-round lovely man – we will all miss him enormously!

Katherine Runswick-Cole, University of Sheffield
‘Inclusive education is not about “special” teachers meeting the needs of “special” children in ordinary schools… It is not merely about placing disabled pupils in classrooms with their non‐disabled peers; it is not about “dumping” pupils into an unchanged system of provision and practice. Rather, it is about how, where and why, and with what consequences, we educate all pupils’ (Barton, 1997: 234)”.
 

When I think about Len, I think about these words written nearly thirty years ago, but sadly, still as relevant today as they were then. Len’s work was central to my developing understanding of inclusion when I did my PhD in the School of Education back in the day. I was lucky enough to see Len present as a keynote speaker.  I thought he was such a ‘natural’ speaker but when I asked him about it he told me that you need to practice, practice, practice!  He cared very much about the work and this shone through.
But most of all, when I think about Len, I think about the support he gave to other people.   He  was open and approachable. Above all, he was kind.  And it is for his kindness, generosity of spirit and passion for social justice that I will remember him.

Rebecca Lawthom, University of Sheffield
I know Len Barton as a great writer and fellow academic and doctoral examiner. He was a generous academic, demonstrating those values long before concepts such as generous or compassionate leadership became popular.  He saw potential and the bigger picture in people - not deficit or lack.  I am reminded of the ways in which he made people feel. ‘ I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel’ said Maya Angelou.  Len leaves a legacy of connecting learning with feeling and enabling people to accept that not knowing is more valid than knowledge claiming.  He was a true educator and human being. 

Dan Goodley, University of Sheffield
On our Critical Disability Studies website at the University of Sheffield, created six years ago we wrote: Critical Disability Studies at the University of Sheffield enjoys an interdisciplinary and international reputation for critical disability studies. We span disciplines including education, psychology, sociology, history, geography, childhood and youth, health, social policy, arts, humanities and cultural studies …. [and] Our work builds upon a legacy left by Sheffield Academics such as Len Barton … whose commitment to inclusive education and disability studies informed some of the foundational work in disability studies in our university.

Len’s legacy can be felt not just at Sheffield but globally across the fields of inclusive education and critical disability studies. His leadership of many key journals in the field permitted nascent disability studies to start having real purchase in and outside of academia. As a person he was a true subject of his discipline of education: he was always a learner and many of us remember his willingness to embrace uncertainty and debate. I remember once in a seminar with doctoral students Len reflected on a presentation by one of the researchers. He paused for a moment and announced to the group ‘Wow, the world is so complex and difficult isn’t it?’ In one sentence he gave us all permission to keep learning. Thank you Len.