Language that speaks about disability went through various revolutionary changes, especially with the rising debate between the medical and social models of disability (see Kenny et al., 2016). With the increased medicalisation of disability, the disability rights movement showed the pitfalls of the medical model and promoted for “a more socially inclusive view of disability” (Kenny et al., 2016, p.2). Indeed, how disability is viewed is reflected in the terminology used to describe it, especially in commonly consulted documents such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, 2007). Regardless of the choices made in the CRPD document, different communities argue for their language preferences. One such community is the autistic community who has been  debating _for instance_ about identity-first language (autistic people) versus person-first language (people with autism) (e.g., Kenny et al. 2016; Botha, Hanlon, and Williams, 2021). Although research has been conducted about language preferences to speak about disability in some European countries, including the United Kingdom, awareness in regard to language use and choice did not spread to some parts of the world such as the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). In this respect, this research will be looking at this particular area in one of the MENA countries: Algeria.

Algeria signed and ratified the CRPD in 2007 but there has not been a clear adherence to a specific terminology. For instance, Eddalia (a former Algerian minister) (2018) in her ministerial speech about the initial steps to implement CRPD used both ‘disabled persons/people’ and ‘persons with disabilities’ while also referring in the same speech to a law issued by the government in 2008 (after signing CRPD in 2007) where the term ‘people with special needs’ was used. This indicates the weak base of terminology agreements among Algerians which can also be noticed in news and social media.

Algeria is a multilingual context with two official languages: Arabic and Tamazight. These are followed by French and English as first and second foreign languages respectively. In this respect, as part of my doctoral research, this research paper intends to explore the terminology preferred by a group of current and prospective teachers in three languages: Arabic, English and French. It also investigates the role of the Algerian society in constructing certain labels and their effects on the persons with disabilities. The research question summarising this research is: how do current as well as prospective teachers in Algeria refer to disability?

This study will provide data about how terminology surrounding disability and inclusion is processed at both the academic/educational and social level in Algeria. Within the use of certain terminologies in French, there is a persistent dominance of the French post-colonial legacy. In this respect, the Algerians’ choices of specific words may fall within the intersection of previous colonial legacy, the current rise of English language and Algeria’s official languages. Furthermore, the intersection between the different languages in the Algerian context in this research will be relevant to several European countries that use more than one language and where English is not the main spoken language, such as Belgium.

This study adheres to the principles of Critical Disability Theory and Decolonial Theory (CDT & DT) due to the nature of this research. CDT will permit for interpretation of terminologies and unveil their inclusivity and acceptance of difference (Shakespeare, 2006; Hosking, 2008; Goodley, 2016). On the other hand, DT will address the way social structure and previous colonial involvement influence the way participants perceived the terms in different languages (Ndlovu, 2016; Ndlovu, 2019).

The study is based on the principles of qualitative research. Interviews were conducted in order to generate information about individual participants’ experiences and thoughts on autism, inclusive education and disability. Although the focus of my doctoral research is on autism, I widened the questions’ aims in the section regarding terminology in order to gather data about both autism and disabilities more broadly. Therefore, the data collected are of specific relevance for this paper. In this paper I will focus on the findings of a section of interviews that were conducted with 13 participants online using Zoom. The participants were either graduates of or students at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Teacher Education Institution in Algeria) or University. While some of them were still studying, others were either students and teaching part-time or teachers. The interviews that were conducted contained different sections and, in this paper, I will only be referring to the findings of terminology and language preference data. Furthermore, the interviewees were given the choice to use any of their preferred language during the interviews (Arabic, French and English), so there was a lot of code switching and code mixing used. During the interview session, a table was shared with the participants that contained disability related terminology. It was delivered in three main languages: Arabic, French and English. Tamazight was not added due to the researcher’s inability of using it. Other questions included the participants’ thoughts about the labels used in the Algerian society and their effects on individuals. They were also asked about their willingness to use any particular terms to refer to students with disabilities or autistic students as they teach. For data analysis, critical thematic analysis was used in order to analyse the data generated from the interviews. Since the theoretical framework employed in this study is based on the principles of critical research (Critical Disability and Decolonial Theories), critical thematic analysis was relevant to analysing the findings of this research. In particular, it offers a critical path to delve deeper into the participants’ language choices and arguments for using certain words rather than others.

Choice of terminology was mostly culturally bound to the Algerian context and social choices of people. The main theme that was extracted from the findings was euphemism. The latter refers to the different ways that people use to beautify certain words or expressions that they believe they are ‘taboo’ or/and ‘ socially inappropriate’ and this very dominant in the Islamic and Arabic culture (see Jdetawy, 2019). In this research, euphemism took different forms, such as otherness in participants’ discourse, identity-first versus person-first language, mother tongue versus foreign language. The way autistic students were referred to portrays an otherness attitude, as neurotypical students were considered to be the main focus of the teaching and learning process. Furthermore, while participants surely adhered to person-first language when it came to Arabic language, it was not clear in English and French languages. Findings also suggest that there was more inclination towards English for several participants in which one participant referred to English as being good in the sense that it addresses autism “in a way that doesn't make it as a big deal”, unlike Arabic, which the respondent considered to be “a bit harsh”. The participants also spoke about how the Algerian society describes and labels individuals with disabilities in general and autistic persons in particular. They demonstrated that most of the words that Algerians use are ableist and intimidating – examples being “crazy”, “disabled”, “retarded”. The participants made their words choices based on their own personal preferences while there was only one participant who suggested that we should ask the specific people themselves rather than just making random selections. To conclude, these findings underscore why this research and more awareness among Algerian teachers and society in general are needed.

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