Incivility, Ostracism, and Social Climate Surveys Through the Lens of Disabled People: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Incivility and civility have been studied for more than a century across disciplines and in many areas ranging from workplaces to communication, the digital world, and everyday life. They are often used to the detriment of marginalized groups. Their negative use is seen to set the groundwork for other negative treatments, such as bullying and harassment, impacting the social climate in a negative way. Ostracism is seen to be linked to incivility. Disabled people disproportionally face negative treatments, such as bullying and harassment, and experience a negative social climate, as highlighted by the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, suggesting that they also disproportionately experience incivility and ostracism. Climate surveys aim to expose toxic social climate in workplaces, schools, and communities caused by incivility, ostracism, bullying, and harassment. As such, how incivility, civility, ostracism, and the design of climate surveys are discussed in the literature is of importance to disabled people. We could find no review that analyzed the use of climate surveys beyond individual surveys and the concepts of incivility and ostracism in relation to disabled people. The objective of our study was to contribute to filling this gap by analyzing the academic literature present in SCOPUS, EBSCO HOST (70 databases), and Web of Science, performing keyword frequency and content analysis of abstracts and full texts. Our findings provide empirical evidence for a systemic neglect of disabled people in the topics covered: from 21,215 abstracts mentioning “civilit*” or “incivilit*”, only 14 were relevant, and of the 8358 abstracts mentioning ostracism, only 26 were relevant. Of the 3643 abstracts mentioning “climate surveys,” 12 sources covered disabled people by focusing on a given survey, but not one study performed an evaluation of the utility of climate surveys for disabled people in general. Racism is seen as a structural problem facilitating civility/incivility. Ableism, the negative judgments of a given set of abilities someone has, and disablism, the systemic discrimination based on such judgments, are structural problems experienced by disabled people, facilitating civility/incivility. However, ableism generated only 2 hits, and disablism/disableism had no hits. Most of our sources focused on workplace incivility, and authors were mostly from the USA. We found no linkage to social and policy discourses that aim to make the social environment better, such as equity, diversity, and inclusion, well-being, and science and technology governance. This is the first paper of its kind to look in depth at how the academic literature engages with the concepts of civility, incivility, and ostracism and with the instrument of social climate surveys in relation to disabled people. Our findings can be used by many different disciplines and fields to strengthen the theoretical and practical discussions on the topics in relation to disabled people and beyond.

1. Introduction

There are many forms of negative treatment that people, including disabled people, experience. Bullying, unfair treatment, and harassment are forms of maltreatment of disabled people that are well-reported. For example, according to Statistics Canada, 35% of disabled university professors, instructors, teachers, or researchers “experienced unfair treatment or discrimination in the past 12 months”, while 47% saw themselves “subjected to at least one type of harassment in the past 12 months” [1]. And disabled youth and children are reported to experience bullying [2], including cyberbullying [3,4,5,6,7,8], and many other negative treatments [9] to a greater extent than their non-disabled counterparts. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities outlines many negative issues and treatments disabled people face as individuals and as a social group [10].

In the 1999 article that introduced the concept of workplace incivility, it is stated that

“Civil behavior involves treating others with dignity, acting with regard to others’ feelings, and preserving the social norms for mutual respect (Carter, 1998; Elias, 1982; Johnson, 1988; Morris, 1996). Observing formal rules of etiquette has less to do with civility than does being polite and demonstrating a sensibility of concern and regard (Carter, 1998).”

[11] (p. 454)

And they state that

“incivility implies rudeness and disregard for others, in violation of norms for respect in interpersonal relations (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Morris, 1996).”

[11] (p. 455)

And they generated the following definition of workplace incivility:

“low-intensity, disrespectful or rude behavior directed toward another person in face-to-face interactions, violating norms of mutual respect but not necessarily intended to cause harm.”

[11]

Workplace incivility is seen to lay the groundwork for more negative organizational behaviour, such as harassment and bullying [11,12,13,14]. Based on this, it is important to investigate workplace incivility in relation to disabled people, given that disabled people already face so many issues within their workplace. Furthermore, if there is a toxic environment in a given workplace towards disabled people, whereby incivility is one aspect of a toxic social environment, it is highly probable that disabled people face barriers to being employed in that given workplace to start with. However, we could not find one review that focused on disabled people, although various systematic reviews on workplace incivility exist [15,16].

However, the issue of civility and incivility goes far beyond the workplace and organizations, making it even more important to be investigated in relation to disabled people.

Civility and incivility have been a focus of academic inquiry for “the past one hundred years” [17] (p. 86); (see, for example, Norbert Elias’ seminal work “The civilizing process” is from 1939 (German language original “Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation” [18], English versions [19,20], and some other works of Elias’ see [21,22,23,24]).

Incivility and civility have been analyzed beyond the workplace and organizations [11,14], in areas such as everyday incivility [17,25,26], cyber, digital, and online incivility [27,28,29,30], political incivility [31,32,33,34], and clinical incivility [35]. There is “interpersonal civility” [36] described as “interpersonal incivility when there is person-to-person contact between individuals” [37] (p. 321), which is the premise of various incivility definitions, such as the workplace incivility definition, and there are discussions that look at civility of politeness, moral civility, and justificatory civility [38] and beyond the individual to the societal level.

Disabled people face issues in all the areas that are the focus of incivility analysis, and as such, one can assume that disabled people also experience incivility in all of these areas.

We could not find any review that looked at the broad issue of incivility in relation to disabled people, either.

Incivility and civility are analyzed through the lenses of many different disciplines, such as sociology, social theory, psychology, criminology, political science, communication studies, philosophy, law, cultural studies, education, management and organizational studies, policy studies, and health-related studies, to name a few. Interestingly, it is noted that many of these academic inquiries work in silos and are not aware of the breadth of scope of academic engagement with civility and incivility [16]. One of the leading scholars in workplace incivility work recommended “more interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations” [16] (p. 308).

All these fields also engage with disabled people in one way or another, often using a disability studies lens, and as such could cover the breadth of incivility and civility through the lens of disabled people and disability studies.

Selective incivility (within the context of workplace incivility) has been coined to highlight that marginalized groups are selectively targeted [39,40,41,42,43]. It is argued that “ The selective incivility theory (Cortina, 2008) conceptualizes how this insidious mechanism allows racism, sexism, and other “isms” to persist in our organizations” [44] (p. 5163). As racism is classified as a form of everyday incivility [41], the concept of selective incivility can be applied beyond workplace incivility. Incivility is often targeted at people seen as or labelled as inferior (e.g., ability-wise and status-wise) [42]. Ableism and disablism are the ability judgments equivalent to racism and sexism, and are everyday incivilities disabled people experience, as is evident, for example, in the language of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [10].

“Ableism” is a term used to highlight the sentiment that certain abilities are seen as essential. Labelling individuals or groups as ‘lacking’, or are ‘lacking’, these essential abilities is often used to classify as inferior in relation to the ones who did the labelling [45,46,47,48,49]. Disablism is one consequence of this negative ability judgment and is defined in relation to disabled people as a “discriminatory, oppressive or abusive behaviour arising from the belief that disabled people are inferior to others” [50] or in more general terms, “the ability expectations, and ableism oppression (the negative treatment) of the ones judged as impaired as ‘ability-wanted’ by applying irrelevant body ability expectations” [51] (p. 120). As such, ableism and disablism can be seen as a form of everyday incivility. And as being seen as inferior is one mechanism to justify incivility, one could see incivility as one form of disablism experienced.

Workplace ostracism is linked to workplace incivility [15]. Incivility is seen to lead to “perceived social ostracism and perceived injustice, which will in turn negatively influence psychological and academic health” [52] (p. 336).

We could not find a review of the literature that looked at ostracism in conjunction with disabled people.

Climate surveys are widely used as tools to unmask toxic environments in workplaces, schools, and communities, including the mistreatments mentioned.

“An institution’s climate is often studied with regard to the treatment and experiences of marginalized or ‘at-risk’ demographic subgroups within the community, and how these combine to form the cumulative campus climate. As one of these traditionally marginalized groups, students with disabilities can experience implicit and explicit prejudice and discrimination based on their disabilities (i.e., ableism)” [53] (p. 6).

The “Student Experience in the Research University (SERU)” survey has been used for many years, which also covers disabled students as one group of students [54]. We suggest that, if designed appropriately, such surveys could be useful to identify all forms of mistreatment disabled people face.

However, we found no literature review that assesses how disabled people are represented within academic discussions of climate surveys. Various studies reflect on some findings of specific surveys, such as the SERU one [55], but these studies focused on the climate in relation to disabled people, evident in some results of a specific survey, but not on the design of climate surveys in general.

1.1. Civility, Incivility, and Ostracism

Civility and Incivility have been investigated by many different disciplines, within different contexts and at different times, focusing on different aspects of incivility and civility. Incivility is seen as a common occurrence, with the term everyday incivility reflecting some aspect of that [17], as is Clark’s everyday civility index [56,57].

Workplace incivility, for example, has been described in 1999 as a “low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others” [11] (p. 457) and “behavior that disrupts mutual respect in the workplace” [11] (p. 455). Workplace civility has been described in the same 1999 study as “a behavior that helps to preserve the norms for mutual respect in the workplace. Civility reflects concern for others” [11] (p. 455). In the same study, an incivility spiral is provided [11], indicating that incivility sets the stage for harassment and bullying. Within the workplace and education setting, it is noted that Power impacts incivility and burnout [58] and that everyone should be allies to call out incivility [59]. Peer education is developed to decrease incivility [60]. There are also challenges noted for incivility due to technology changing the workplace, such as museums [61].

Political incivility is described as

“Political communication scholars tend to approach incivility as violations of politeness, focusing, for instance, on “features of discussion that convey an unnecessary disrespectful tone towards the discussion forum, its participants, or its topics”…” some scholars approach incivility as a spectrum that ranges from less harmful expressions to hateful and abusive speech.”

[62] (p. 2)

And the definition of incivility used in criminology is “low-level breaches of community standards that signal an erosion of conventionally accepted norms and values” (LaGrange, Ferraro, & Supancic, 1992: 311–312)” [11] (p. 455), whereby often the phrase “social incivility” is used with the indicators of “public drinking/public drug use, public drug sales, vandalism or graffiti, prostitution, panhandling/begging, loitering/hanging out, truancy/youth skipping school, transients/homeless sleeping on streets” [63] (p. 368), and used as a term to describe “so called antisocial behavior” [64] (p. 46).

Another definition of social incivility used by an author based in the School of Humanities and the Centre for Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney is “social incivility: the everyday behaviours of others that respondents often found rude and insulting, even as they dismissed their significance” [65] (p. 110), whereby the author links the concept to “everyday racism”, noting that this social climate of everyday racism “undermines the ability of migrants to feel ‘at home’” [65] (p. 108). The author concludes:

“Forms of social incivility, like harsher experiences of vilification, amount to the affective regulation of social belonging and participation.”

[65] (p. 108)

According to Elias’s seminal work on the civilisation process, civility norms have been developed and internalized over time, leading to a decrease in and control of interpersonal violence in part due to state developments and their legal frameworks [18,19,20]. But civility norms are also seen as a tool to maintain power and with that to support power hierarchies [18,19,20] and it is argued that “from its very roots, civility has been tied in with power, class, and the rules guiding who can participate” [66] (p. 220) and “the terms civil and civility have been used throughout history as tools of oppression, colonization, and bigotry” [66] (p. 220) and to silence hard questions [67]. It is argued that some forms of civility (surface-level civility) are problematic and some incivilities (critical incivility) could be acceptable [38] (p. 81), see also [68,69,70].

The initial study that introduced the concept of workplace incivility noted, citing Elias, that

“Civility traditionally has been viewed by society as a source of power in American culture-a means of gaining favor and asserting cultural superiority-an acceptable ploy for attaining social advantage. The spread of civility has served to muffle the issue of class, softening the divisions between rich and poor and employers and employees” [11] (p. 452) and argued that “norms concerning how people ought to behave in order to live cooperatively can be witnessed in every community and culture (Elias, 1982; Goffman, 1967; Hartman, 1996). Thus, civility, as a moral standard, can be considered a virtue.”

[11] (p. 452)

In the end it is argued that

“We face a direct problem in the characterisation of civility, because the term itself is ‘a member of two kindred conceptual families’ (Meyer, 2000: 71).3 Specifically, we can distinguish between civility as an ethical concept and civility as a political concept (Johnson, 2007. See also Boyd, 2006; Calhoun, 2000). As an ethical concept, civility is bound up with the idea of what it means to be civilised, well-mannered or polite; it focuses on standards of decency in everyday life. As a political concept, civility is bound up with the idea of an association of citizens; it concerns one’s status and obligations as a member of a political community, as a citizen with certain rights and responsibilities. Clearly, the two meanings are not the same, and this is crucial to my larger argument: being polite is not the same as being a good citizen.”

[70] (p. 95)

And

“We can think of ethical civility as denoting a set of social norms. Elizabeth Anderson (2000: 170) defines a social norm as ‘a standard of behavior shared by a social group, commonly understood by its members as authoritative or obligatory for them’. In the case of civility norms, the relevant social group is that constituted by the joint commitment of its members to their society as a shared problem.”

[70] (p. 95)

Then there are sub-areas of civility and incivility. Civility is based on being polite, justificatory civility, and moral civility [38], whereby it is argued that the civility based on being polite can be in conflict with justificatory civility and moral civility [38].

To outline the three forms of civility. Polite civility, civility as politeness. This aspect of civility is about “norms of etiquette and politeness: to be civil, in this first sense, implies to speak and act in ways that comply with these norms” [71] (p. 38), see also [38], and so incivility means one does not adhere to these norms. However, what is expected is contextual, as social norms and customs differ between and within social groups and societies and constantly change [71]. “Different identities can be sources of various politeness norms [71] (p. 40), as can be language [71]. “Civility [as politeness] is the ‘practical ability of individuals to distinguish between different social roles and contexts and to differentiate their behaviour accordingly … [which] crucially involves an element of judgment” [71] (p. 43). This aspect is highly relevant for disabled people, as many disabled people are seen as not having the social skills needed to fulfill the requirements of civility as politeness. It is also argued that this form of civility can be used for oppression, silencing, and exclusion [38], as its based on certain social norms set by people and systems who have the power to set the norms, and whereby these with power can label “incivility as dissent”, as in “deliberate acts of incivility aimed at expressing a sense of injustice toward established social norms, structures, and institutions” [38] (p. 82).

Then there is civility as public-mindedness, which has the component of moral civility and justificatory civility [71]. It is argued that moral civility demands to refrain “from using physical violence against others, 87 discriminating against them, 88 or using racist or other types of expression that portray members of certain groups as physically, intellectually, or morally inferior” [71] (p. 48), see also [38] (p. 84). The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [10] could be seen as a list of moral incivilities disabled people experience.

Justificatory incivility is about the public justification of actions [71] as “one’s duties toward others regarding the justification of political decisions” [38] (p. 83). An example of justificatory incivility is, for example, if a line of reasoning is used that “ overtly or covertly deny that certain citizens are entitled to basic rights and liberties” [71] (p. 38). This form of justificatory incivility is linked to moral incivility [71]. Then there is also an epistemic part to justificatory incivility where biased data and evidence-producing procedures are used to justify actions that fit moral incivility [71]. “Justificatory civility” is described as “one’s duties toward others regarding the justification of political decisions” [38] (p. 83). Negative and biased imageries of disabled people have been used for a long time to justify negative political decisions towards disabled people, such as the elimination of disabled people in the Third Reich [72].

Ostracism is seen as a form of incivility and a consequence of incivility. Ostracism is an action that excludes or ignores an individual or group—through, for example, silent treatment [73,74,75,76,77]. “The silent treatment” is a specific type of incivility [78]. Ostracism is conceptualized to represent “the noninteractive components of incivility” [78] (p. 318), seen as a covert and common form of incivility [77] (p. 507), and incivility is seen to encourage and exacerbate ostracism [79,80]. It is reported that “Data from STEM women employees revealed a typology of STEM incivility, mapping onto ostracism, hostility, undermining, and sexual incivility [77] (p. 501) and that “observers react more negatively to the targets of ostracism compared to the targets of incivility, and react more negatively to the perpetrators of incivility compared to the perpetrators of ostracism” [81] (p. 1). Ostracism is seen to “undermine one’s sense of belongingness” and making “one feel othered” [77] (p. 507). Both are seen as microaggressions [82] and cause a toxic interpersonal climate [83].

1.2. Selective Incivility

Civility is seen as a tool to silence hard questions [67]. It is argued that “from its very roots, civility has been tied in with power, class, and the rules guiding who can participate” [66] (p. 220) and “the terms civil and civility have been used throughout history as tools of oppression, colonization, and bigotry” [66] (p. 220). Selective incivility could be seen as a term to indicate problematic aspects of civility and was started by [39,40] “to provide an explanatory mechanism for the lower rates of White women and women of color in the upper echelons of organizations” [43] (p. 254).The very framing of civility favors privileged groups [84]. One can exhibit incivility towards other racial minorities even if one belongs to another racial minority [85]. It is noted that the danger of being targeted increases if one belongs to intersecting marginalized identities [86]. The term selective incivility is used to flag that certain minority/marginalized groups are disproportionately targeted by incivility [39,44,87,88], offline and online [60] (e.g., women [88,89], Black employees [41,44], Black, Asian, and ethnically diverse therapeutic radiographer undergraduate students [59], influencers of marginalized background women, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals [90], and not born in Europe [91]). Various other studies supporting the selective incivility in organizations argument are outlined in [43] for women and lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees, including a list of “contextual factors that are relevant to selective incivility: group processes, workplace gender composition, status and power, and modality (in-person or online incivility)” [43] (p. 254). Selective incivility at the workplace is one form of microaggression [42], and social categorization is a tool to justify uncivil behaviors [42]. Lack of reporting of incivilities due to fear of negative consequences [92] and selective incivility based on social identity [93] are noted, see also [94]. Defensive silence (i.e., self-protective withholding of opinions and information) [41] (p. 859) is noted as a response by black employees.

Given that selective incivility focuses on the danger of experiencing incivility at the workplace of marginalized groups, and racism is classified as a form of everyday incivility [41], and that other forms of incivility are also covered with a focus on marginalized groups, one could apply the concept of selective incivility to all areas of discussions covering incivility.

1.3. Climate Surveys

It is argued that

“Organizational climate is a key determinant of diverse aspects of success in work settings, including in academia. Power dynamics in higher education can result in inequitable experiences of workplace climate, potentially harming the well-being and productivity of employees. Quantifying experiences of climate across employment categories can help identify changes necessary to create a more equitable workplace for all.”

[95]

Forty-six abstracts in Scopus contain the words “climate survey” and harassment, for example [96,97,98,99], and 36 abstracts contain the words bullying and “climate survey”, for example [100,101,102]. Climate surveys have been developed to look at incivility [96,103] and ostracism [104].

“Climate surveys hold the potential to advance equity in organizations, serving to generate quantitative data on the depth and breadth of climate-related issues, with its forte being those related to belonging, inclusion, and relationships.”

[105] (p. 1)

Studies looked at the “intersections between harassment, bullying, and cyberbullying (poly-victimization) and three indicators of school climate: safety, connection, and equity” [106] (p. 377).

Climate surveys such as the Maryland Safe and Supportive Schools Climate Survey [107], the American Dental Education Association’s (ADEA) climate survey [108], and others focusing on equity, diversity, and inclusion or subareas of EDI have been used in many places and academically analyzed (for example, [109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119]). Climate surveys covered racial and ethnic minority students [120], “the role that white identity, as the Dominant culture, plays in maintaining the status quo of racialized school climate” [121] (p. 949), the “experiences of inclusion, belonging, professional opportunities, discrimination, microaggressions, racism, and harassment” [122] (p. 305), “racial, gendered, and class-based inequality in political science” [118] (p. 69), and “female, non-binary, and gender-queer graduate students, faculty, and staff” [123] (p. 453). The items of “inclusion, climate, harassment, and discrimination were selected from the dental education-wide ADEA Climate Survey” to look at whether “faculty, staff, administrators, and administrators with faculty appointment experienced overall climate differently and if there were differences by race within each of these role categories” [124] (p. 722). Climate surveys were used to ascertain how white students perceive a shift in their social position as U.S. elite independent schools become more racially inclusive [125]. The 2021 Black Climate Survey was used to look at various aspects of racism at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville [126]. “5911 online campus climate surveys were collected at a mid-Atlantic university” to better understand the barriers of “sexual and racial/ethnic minority women to disclosing experiences of campus sexual violence” [127] (p. 417).

Back in 2011 the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) performed a Diversity Climate Survey to understand implicit prejudiced attitudes, finding “that employee generally held favourable attitudes towards diversity and employment equity” but also “that employees showed greater support for programs and policies that promote fair and equal treatment of all employees, compared to those that appear to favour one particular group over another” [128] (p. 185).

The question is how many of the academic abstracts mentioning “climate survey*” cover disabled people and to what depth?

When we searched webpages for climate surveys that specifically focused on disabled people, we found only one that covered specifically disabled people, and that one source included an extensive interpretation of the findings [129]. There is a brief by the National Center for College Students with Disabilities (NCCSD) that looked at disabled people and campus climate issues, making use of some survey data [53], but these were not surveys developed specifically for disabled students. And there are other surveys we found online that added disability as part of their social climate survey [54,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137] (we assume there are more). A toolkit is online that includes a workplace disability climate survey and an accessible event survey [138].

However, we could not find any review that evaluates the discussions around the design and use of social climate surveys in relation to disabled people.

1.4. Linking the Incivility, Civility, Ostracism, and Climate Survey Discussions to Broader Social Problem-Solving Discourses

If incivility and civility are a social issue and not only an individual one, and if the analysis has to expand the levels of analysis beyond the individual”, “by including meso- and macro-level constructs such as organizational and national values in analyses, how individual-level experiences of incivility affect perceptions of meso- and macro-level constructs” [43] (p. 257), then many actors have to be involved in looking at incivility. The actions proposed in many academic and non-academic discourses that aim to make the social environment better (e.g., equity, diversity and inclusion, science and technology governance, social determinants of health, environmental activism, allyship) are impacted by and impact incivility. Not considering incivility in these discourses may render the actions proposed in their discussions less useful or detrimental for disabled people of all ages.

The relationship between trust, general well-being, and incivility has been explored, finding that trust enhanced civil behavior, which in turn increased general well-being [139]. The authors noted, “In the modern times, workplaces are becoming more diverse. There are not only gender differences but also differences in age, sexual orientation, and persons with disabilities. The presence of low incivility can go a long way in encouraging an inclusive workplace. It is thus relevant in managing workplace diversity and for creating a more inclusive environment” [139] (p. 301). Interestingly, the authors noted under managerial implications, “Seventh, as organizations strive toward promoting diversity and inclusion (D&I), they should be mindful of possible and unintended majority backlash (resistance and opposition by the majority workers in the organization for special measures in favor of minorities), which can potentially increase the chances of workplace incivility” [139] (p. 315).

Science and technology governance discourses and discussions in many technology-focused ethics fields, such as AI-ethics, bioethics, computer science ethics, information technology ethics, nanoethics, neuroethics, and robo-ethics [140] aim to decrease or prevent the appearance of societal problems linked to scientific and technological advancements. Incivility is a societal problem, and science and technology advancements are linked to incivility in many ways, such as the very area of cyber/online/virtual incivility [27], which people often feel powerless to make it stop [28]. Technology solutions are put forward to deal with this incivility [141,142], and AI is put forward to govern civility [30]. However, it is noted that these tools depend on norms and the detection of certain language as uncivil, which poses a problem [30,142]. As such, these science and technology discussions should cover the role of science and technology in the context of incivility and how it enables selective incivility and other types of incivility.

To summarize:

Incivility and ostracism are extensively covered in the academic literature and seen to set the groundwork for other negative treatments, such as bullying and harassment. Disabled people disproportionally face negative treatments, such as bullying and harassment, suggesting that they also disproportionately experience incivility and ostracism. Climate surveys aim to expose toxic social climates in workplaces, schools, and communities caused by, e.g., incivility, ostracism, bullying, and harassment. As such, how incivility, civility, ostracism, and the design of climate surveys are discussed in the literature is of importance to disabled people. Racism is classified as a form of everyday incivility [41]. Ableism and disablism are the ability judgments equivalent to racism. As such, it is important that the incivility, civility, ostracism, and social climate survey-focused literature make use of ability judgment-based concepts. We could not find a review that looked at the extent to which and how disabled people are covered in the academic engagement with climate surveys, incivility, civility and ostracism. Our study aimed to start filling this gap.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Design and Theoretical Framework

Scoping studies are used to investigate the state of research on a given topic [143,144]. Our scoping study focuses on the extent of academic research that has been conducted on the civility, incivility, ostracism, and climate surveys related to disabled people. Our study followed a modified version of a scoping review outlined by [145]. We fulfilled all the requirements of the Prisma chart (Table A4, Appendix A) for scoping reviews [146] with the exception that we decided not to use a flow chart as a figure but to provide the same information under the search strategy as a table. We used manifest coding (hit count approach) [147,148] to ascertain the presence but especially the absence of certain terms reflecting certain themes we think should be present in the academic literature we analyzed because civility/incivility realities and how climate surveys are implemented are impacted by or impacting many of the discussions linked to the keywords we selected. And we used a thematic content analysis to describe the themes we found in the downloaded full-text sources based on the abstracts flagged as relevant.

We interpret our findings through the field [149,150,151,152,153,154,155,156,157] and methodology [158] of critical/disability studies, which investigates the social, lived experience of disabled people/people with disabilities, and disablism, the systemic discrimination based on not measuring up to irrelevant ability norms [50].

As one definition explains, “Critical disability studies considers how institutions, cities, or societies ‘dis-able’ people systemically and socially, as well as looking into how the body and impairment can critically be incorporated into the discussions of disability and disablement” [159]. Covering the Global South, in one study, it is stated:

“Critical disability studies (CDS), or critical disability theory (CDT), includes interdisciplinary approaches to analyze disability as a socio-political, historical, and cultural phenomenon that is shaped by symbolic and sociocultural structures, political ideas, literary representations, narratives, and practices in various world settings.”

[160]

And for one of her last musings about the field, see the views of the late Critical Disability Studies scholar from India, Anita Ghai, a pioneer in disability studies/Critical disability studies and the role of disabled women [161]. Disability Justice added intersectionality to the mix [162,163,164,165,166,167,168] and is a main lens in teaching critical disability studies [169,170].

Ableism has been coined as a term by the disability rights movement and evolved since the 1960’s [171] “to question irrelevant normative body/mind ability expectations and the ability privileges (i.e., ability to work, to gain education, to be part of society, to have a positive identity, to be seen as a citizen) that come with them and the disablism, the ability expectations, and ableism oppression (the negative treatment) of the ones judged as impaired as ‘ability-wanted’ by applying irrelevant body ability expectations” [51] (p. 120) (for disablism see also [50]).

Since then, many ability-based concepts [172] have been coined within the disability rights movement and the fields of disability studies and the three strands of ability-based studies (ability expectation and ableism studies, short ability studies [48,173], studies in ableism [46,47,174], and critical studies of ableism [156,175]), which focus on the investigation of ability-based expectations, judgments, norms, and conflicts, to analyze in more detail how ableism and disablism manifest themselves and what to do about it. All these fields look into how to de-disablize (removal or undoing of disablism) [172], how to implement anti-disablism [176,177,178], (resistance to disablism) and how to achieve disability justice, [162,163,164,165,166,167,168]. And the end goal is to achieve ability expectation and ableism justice/ability justice/ability judgment justice, “a [world] that eliminated irrelevant and/or arbitrary body/mind ability expectations, decreased ability privileges and disablism based on these expectations, and enabled the use of ability expectations and ableism to decrease ability judgment-based oppression, inequity, disablism and privilege” [179] (p. 13).

Many different tools exist to measure incivility, such as the workplace incivility scale [14], the workplace ostracism scales [180,181], the academic incivility scale [182], and Clark’s everyday civility index [56,57]. We also looked at these tools using a disability studies lens, as all these measures could be modified to engage with the incivility and ostracism disabled people face and to fine-tune climate surveys covering disabled people. Microaggressions have been linked to incivility and bad climates. Various studies using a disability studies lens focused on ableist microaggressions [183,184,185,186,187,188,189] and developed microaggression scales related to disabled people, such as the ableist microaggressions scale [190,191,192]. These tools could also be used to enrich the incivility discussions around disabled people and to fine-tune climate surveys so that the specific forms of microaggressions disabled people face are reflected in the surveys.

2.2. Identification of Research Questions

Our background section highlights that incivility, civility, and ostracism not only impact interpersonal climates but also the very social climate in various subareas of society, such as the workplace and everyday interactions. As such, climate surveys are an essential tool to not only unmask interpersonal incivilities within, e.g., an organization, but also incivilities that play themselves out on the broader societal level and the judgment of disabled people as a group and as subgroups of disabled people characterized by specific body/mind characteristics.

It is noted in the incivility literature that research has to cover “research on biases against less commonly studied marginalized identities, including minority religious identification, immigrant status, transgender identity, disability status, language or accent” [43] (p. 257).

The objective of our study fitting this sentiment was to investigate how academic literature on civility, incivility, ostracism, and social climate surveys engaged with disabled people.

To fulfill the objective, the two main research questions we asked were:

Research question 1: How and to what extent does the civility, incivility, and ostracism focused academic literature cover the civility, incivility and ostracism experienced by disabled people?

Research question 2: How and to what extent does the social climate survey-focused academic literature analyze the utility of social climate surveys for disabled people?

Research Questions 1 and 2 are in sync with the fact that it is noted in the incivility literature that research has

“to expand the levels of analysis beyond the individual”, “by including meso- and macro-level constructs such as organizational and national values in analyses, how individual-level experiences of incivility affect perceptions of meso- and macro-level constructs”, and have to include “more non US centered research” [43] (p. 257).

In sync with the above statement that the analysis has to move beyond the individual, we analyzed the relevant abstracts and full texts in more detail, asking 10 more research questions.

Research question 3: What are the year of publication, the country of the authors, the discipline affiliation of the authors, the journal name, the place or focus of the study, and the disability phrases used?

Research question 4: What themes are present in the full texts of the relevant sources?

Within the workplace incivility literature, the concept of selective incivility was coined to highlight how the use of civility and incivility plays itself out for marginalized groups. It was started by [39,40] “to provide an explanatory mechanism for the lower rates of White women and women of color in the upper echelons of organizations” [43] (p. 254). Racism is classified as a form of everyday incivility [41].

Ableism and disablism are isms often experienced by disabled people. “Ableism” is a term used to highlight the sentiment that certain abilities are seen as essential. Individuals or groups who are labelled as ‘lacking’, or are ‘lacking’, these essential abilities are often seen as inferior [45,46,47,48,49]. Disablism is one consequence of this negative ability judgment and is defined in relation to disabled people as a “discriminatory, oppressive or abusive behaviour arising from the belief that disabled people are inferior to others” [50] (p. 9) or in more general terms, “the ability expectations, and ableism oppression (the negative treatment) of the ones judged as impaired as ‘ability-wanted’ by applying irrelevant body ability expectations” [51] (p. 120). As such, ableism and disablism can be seen as a form of everyday incivility. As it is noted

“After struggling with employment bias, poverty, blocked access to the community and its resources, unaccommodating and selective health services, lack of accessible and affordable housing, penalizing welfare policies, and lack of accessible transportation, some may experience what is known in the disability community as ‘‘disability burnout.’’ This term refers to emotional despair engendered by thwarted opportunities and blocked goals. It is aggravated and intensified by years of exposure to disability prejudice and devaluation. In fact, a frequently repeated theme in research interviews with persons with disabilities and illnesses is, ‘‘I can live with my physical condition but I’m tired of struggling against the way I’m treated’ [193], cited in [194].

The reality of disability prejudice and devaluation can be seen as a form of incivility and is a form of maltreatment. So we asked:

Research question 5: Are the term ableism, disablism, and other disability rights-based concepts present?

All three areas of our inquiry intersect. Incivility should be an important aspect of social climate surveys, as should be ostracism, and ostracism is often seen as a form of incivility. So we asked:

Research question 6: Are the terms of focus in one set of documents mentioned in the other two sets of documents?

In sync with the meaning of selective incivility it seems reasonable to assume that if the marginalized identity of disability status intersects with other marginalized identities that the problem increases (for many intersectionality examples, see [168,170]. So we asked:

Research question 7: Is the concept of intersectionality and phrases depicting disabled people who also belong to another marginalized group present?

If incivility and civility are social issues and not only individual ones, then many actors have to be involved in looking at the incivility and disabled people, and with that in the design of useful social climate surveys. This is the aspect we aimed to generate data on with research questions 8–11).

Research question 8: Are terms depicting other discourses that we think, based on the literature, impact the topics we investigated investigated?

Research question 9: Are science and technology governance and technology linked ethics fields mentioned?

Research question 10: Are well-being measures mentioned?

Research question 11: Are indicators used in the well-being measures: OECD Better Life Index, the Canadian Index of Well-being, the Community-based Rehabilitation Matrix, and the Social Determinants of Health [195] mentioned?

Given the broad understanding of civility and incivility and that so many disciplines are engaged with the topic, we asked specifically for the civility/incivility content:

Research question 12: To what extent, if at all, are the different categories of civility/incivility present in the online abstracts we used as the foundation of finding our relevant content covering disabled people and in the civility/incivility set of relevant full texts we downloaded.

2.3. Data Sources, Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria, and Data Collection

We searched on 20 May 2025, the abstracts of the academic databases EBSCO-HOST (an umbrella database that includes over 70 other databases itself), Scopus, and Web of Science with no time restrictions. These databases were chosen because together they contain journals that cover a wide range of topics and areas that could be covered under climate surveys, incivility, and ostracism and originated from journals that covered the breadth of disciplines known to engage with the topics we investigated, such as ethics, political science, psychology, sociology, communication studies, digital culture, and organizational studies. They also covered all the main disability studies journals and many journals with “disability” in the title. The databases we used contain, for example, the following sources that have disability studies in the title: Disability Studies Quarterly; Canadian Journal of Disability Studies; Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies; Review of Disability Studies an International Journal; Disability Studies Reader, Fifth Edition; Journal of Disability Studies in Education; Indigenous Disability Studies; Routledge International Handbook of Critical Disability Studies; Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies; Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Disability Studies; Culture Theory Disability Encounters Between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies and Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities Toward an Eco Crip Theory.

The databases also have many journals that have “disability” in the title, and that cover social aspects of disability, such as Disability & Society.

As to inclusion criteria for obtaining relevant data for the qualitative thematic content analysis and some quantitative hit count results of the relevant data, the searches included (a) abstracts, and (b) scholarly peer-reviewed journals from EBSCO-HOST, reviews, peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, and editorials from Scopus, and Web of Science was set to all document types. As to the selection of the relevant literature for analysis, the abstracts had to contain the terms “civility”, or “incivility”, or “ostracism” or “climate surve*”, and the terms “disabled” OR “disabilit*” OR “impair*” OR “deaf” OR “neurodiv*” OR “dyslexia” OR “ADHD” OR “autism” OR “ASD” OR “attention deficit” OR autistic OR “wheelchair*”. Furthermore, the abstracts had to engage with one of the two main research questions. As to exclusion criteria, abstracts that do not fit the inclusion criteria and were not in English were excluded.

In a separate approach we also searched for some keywords in the full English language text of the articles that contained the terms “civility”, or “incivility”, or “ostracism” or “climate surve*” in the abstracts, using the online search engines of the three databases, and the same article types as mentioned before.

Details of some search strategies used are outlined in Table 1.

Table 1. Search strategies used.

Strategy	Sources	Search Terms	Hits
Strategy 1a	Scopus/EBSCO-HOST/Web of Science	ABS (“civility” OR “incivility”)	5001/12708/3506 = 21,215 (used for hitcount searches)
Strategy 1b	Scopus/EBSCO-HOST/Web of Science	ABS (“civility” OR “incivility”) AND ABS (“disabled” OR “disabilit*” OR “impair*” OR “deaf” OR “neurodiv*” OR “dyslexia” OR “ADHD” OR “autism” OR “ASD” OR “attention deficit” OR autistic OR “wheelchair*”)	51/39/41 = 113 = 0.53%-dup = 63 downloaded of which 1 were relevant; 11 full texts downloaded; (used for qualitative thematic analysis)
Strategy 2a	Scopus/EBSCO-HOST/Web of Science	ABS “climate surve*”	821/2174/648 = 3643 (used for hitcount searches)
Strategy 2b	Scopus/EBSCO-HOST/Web of Science	ABS “climate surve*” and ABS (“disabled” OR “disabilit*” OR “impair*” OR “deaf” OR “neurodiv*” OR “dyslexia” OR “ADHD” OR “autism” OR “ASD” OR “attention deficit” OR autistic OR “wheelchair*”)	20/13/13 = 47 = 1.29%-dup = 22 abstracts downloaded of which 12 were relevant; 12 full texts downloaded; (used for qualitative thematic analysis)
Strategy 3a	Scopus/EBSCO-HOST/Web of Science	ABS Ostracism	2058/4682/1618 = 8358 (used for hitcount searches
Strategy 3b	Scopus/EBSCO-HOST/Web of Science	ABS Ostracism and ABS (“disabled” OR “disabilit*” OR “impair*” OR “deaf” OR “neurodiv*” OR “dyslexia” OR “ADHD” OR “autism” OR “ASD” OR “attention deficit” OR autistic OR “wheelchair*”)	87/60/66 = 213 = 2.548%-dup = 98 downloaded of which 26 were relevant and 26 full texts downloaded; (used for qualitative thematic analysis)
Strategy 4a	Scopus/EBSCO-HOST/Web of Science	ABS (toxic culture*)	145/210/121 (not further used)
Strategy 4b	Scopus/EBSCO-HOST/Web of Science	ABS (toxic culture*) AND ABS (“disabled” OR “disabilit*” OR “impair*” OR “deaf” OR “neurodiv*” OR “dyslexia” OR “ADHD” OR “autism” OR “ASD” OR “attention deficit” OR autistic OR “wheelchair*”)	1/1/1 (the same article) (not further used)

Table 1 shows our search strategies to obtain data for the qualitative content analysis and some quantitative hit count results. Search strategies 1a (civility/incivility), 2a (ostracism), and 3a (climate survey) provide a sense of the overall numbers of abstracts present in the three databases (21,215, 3643, 8358) and were used for some quantitative hit count searches. To hone in on abstracts that could contain content covering the three areas in conjunction with disabled people, we searched the abstracts obtained from strategies 1a, 2a, 3a for the terms “disabled” OR “disabilit*” OR “impair*” OR “deaf” OR “neurodiv*” OR “dyslexia” OR “ADHD” OR “autism” OR “ASD” OR “attention deficit” OR autistic OR “wheelchair*” (strategies 1b, 2b, 3b). We downloaded the set of abstracts indicated (strategy 1b, 2b, 3b) using the citation export function of the databases and the import function of the EndNote 2025 software. The EndNote 2025 software was also used to eliminate duplicates due to abstracts being present in more than one database. After eliminating duplicates between the databases, this led to 63, 22, and 98 abstracts. These abstracts were exported as one Word file for civility/incivility, one for ostracism, and one for climate surveys from the EndNote 2025 software, and each of the three Word files was transformed into one PDF file. The PDF files of the abstracts were read to identify relevant studies, which are abstracts that have content that engaged with disabled people in conjunction with incivility/civility, ostracism, or climate surveys. Many terms, such as “impair*”, could lead to false positives, as impair* is a term used in many ways. The same with “disabled”. After reading the abstracts, we judged 14 (civility/incivility), 26 (ostracism), and 12 (climate survey) focusing abstracts as possibly relevant, and we downloaded the full texts of these sources.

2.4. Data Analysis

To analyze the data, we used three approaches: (a) desktop-based hit count manifest coding of the downloaded full texts, (b) online database search-based hit count manifest coding of abstracts and full texts, and (c) desktop qualitative thematic analysis of the downloaded full texts. The hit count analysis was performed by all authors. No difference showed up for the hit counts between the authors. The analysis of the relevance of the abstracts and the thematic analysis of the full texts were performed by all three authors. Peer debriefing was performed, and the differences that showed up between the authors were discussed and resolved. The thematic coding, the identification of relevant sources, and the comparison between the authors were done in the PDFs using Adobe Acrobat version 2025.

2.5. Trustworthiness Measures

Trustworthiness measures include confirmability, credibility, dependability, and transferability [196,197,198]. Peer debriefing was employed, as already outlined. As for transferability, we give all the details needed so others can decide whether to apply our search approaches to other data sources or whether to use other disability terms and other keywords.

2.6. Limitation

The search for relevant literature for the thematic analysis was limited to specific academic databases, English-language literature, and abstracts. As such, the findings are not to be generalized to the whole academic literature, non-academic literature, or non-English literature. We also did not use every possible disability term. However, the disability terms together with* as a wildcard in words used capture many different disability terms, not medical in nature. We did not search for medical disability terms to obtain sources for the thematic analysis, as many could be seen to lead to false positive results. As such, we also did not use the term “patient”. We also did not use the term “mental health” for the thematic analysis, as most would simply reveal that, for example, incivility or ostracism lead to negative mental health but would not focus in more detail on the topic. However, we gave some hit count results for some medical terms such as “mental health” and “patient” in our quantitative results (Table A1, Table A2 and Table A3, Appendix A). We also used very specific topic terms; for example, we used “climate surve*” and the disability terms, not, for example, “campus climate” and the disability terms, as we were interested in the analysis of surveys, not campus climate as such. However, our findings allow conclusions to be made within the parameters of the searches. Furthermore, the hit count results were also based on sources in specific academic databases and English-language literature.

3. Results

3.1. Years of Publication of Relevant Sources (RQ3)

As to incivility/civility, the years were: one article each in 1994, 2002, and 2019; two articles each in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2023, and three articles in 2022.

As to ostracism, the years were: one article each in 1992, 2001, 2010, 2014, 2020, and 2023; two articles each in 2018, 2019, 2022, 2024, and 2025, and three articles each in 1993, 2015, and 2017.

As to the climate surveys-focused relevant literature, the years were: one article each in 1999, 2010, 2019, 2021, and 2022; two articles each in 2024 and 2025, and three articles in 2023.

3.2. Country of Authors and Discipline Affiliation of Authors, Journal Name, Place or Focus of the Study, and Disability Terms Used (RQ3)

As to the (a) country of authors and discipline affiliation of authors, (b) journal name, (c) place or focus of the study, and (d) disability terms mentioned in the relevant abstracts identified, we found the following (Table 2).

Table 2. Details of the relevant abstracts as to (a) country of authors and discipline affiliation of authors, (b) journal name, (c) place or focus of the study, and (d) disability terms mentioned in the relevant abstracts. We found the following.

Article	Country of Authors and Discipline Affiliation of Authors (If Affiliation Not Available Indicated as -)	Journal Name	Place or Focus of the Study	Disability Group Mentioned
Relevant Sources related to incivility/civility (14 sources)
Archibeque, B., Kustusch, M. B., Genz, F., Franklin, S., & Sayre, E. C. (2018) [199].	USA, Germany/beyond country indicating discipline only given for one author Rochester Institute of Technology	Arxix	Physics education	Deaf or hard-of-hearing students in a pre-matriculation university program designed to help them persist in STEM field
Burns, K. E. A., Pattani, R., Lorens, E., Straus, S. E., & Hawker, G. A. (2021) [200].	Canada/Medical School	PLOS ONE	Medical School as workplace	Physicians; disability a physician characteristic
de Quevedo, R. F., & Andretta, I. (2020) [201].	Brazil/-	School and Developmental Psychology, Psic.: Teore Pesq.	Schools	Deaf Children and Adolescents
de Sousa Pereira-Guizzo, C., Del Prette, A., & Del Prette, Z. A. P. (2019) [202].	Brazil/-	Psico-USF, Bragança Paulista,	Unemployed People with Disabilities	Unemployed People with Disabilities
Griffin, L., & Baverstock, A. (2023) [203].	UK/Medical School, and Musgrove Park Hospital, Somerset Foundation NHS Trust	BMC Medical education	Medical School/education	Medical Students, disability a characteristic
Labelle-Deraspe, R., & Mathieu, C. (2023) [44].	Canada/Department of Psychology, Department of Human Resources	Curr Psychol	Workplace	Marginalized employees. physical disabilities
Meyers, A., Anderson, J., Miller, D., Shipp, K., & Hoenig, H. (2002) [204].	USA/School of Medicine, School of Public Health, he New England Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center, the Center for Health Quality Outcome and Economic Research	Soc Sci Med.	Public places	Adult wheelchair-users in Boston, Massachusetts and Durham, North Carolina, USA.
Minskoff, E. H., & Demoss, S. (1994) [205].	USA; affiliation beyond university name only for second author TRAC Project, Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center,	Learning Disability Quarterly	Vocational education programs	Students with learning disabilities
Nittrouer, C. L., Dean, E. E., & Shogren, K. A. (2022) [206].	USA; Center on Developmental Disabilities,	Book chapter in Generation A: Perspectives on Special Populations and International Research on Autism in the Workplace	Workplace	Autism
Patton, E. (2022) [207].	USA/Department of Management,	Equality, Diversity and Inclusion	Workplace	Invisible health condition
Rhone, C. (2018) [208].	USA/-	Journal of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies	Education	Students of diversity, who are classified as having a disability.
Shiels, T., Kenny, N., Shiels, R., & Mannix-Mcnamara, P. (2021) [209].	Ireland/School of Education, School of Inclusive and Special Education, Student Affairs,	Societies	Education	Neurodiverse Students with Traumatic Brain Injury
Silva, E. F. E., & Elias, L. C. S. (2020) [210].	Brazil/e Graduate Program in Psychology. Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters	Relato de Pesquisa, Rev. bras. educ. espec.	Inclusive education	Individuals with disabilities
Valantine, H. A., Le Fauve, C. E., Morris, K. A., & Riley, W. T. (2022) [211].	USA/corresponding author, Medical Center,	Acad Med	Workplace scientific research environments.	Individuals with a disability
Relevant sources related to Ostracism (26 sources)
Arucevic, S. (2015) [212].	USA/-	Book chapter in Recent Advances in Assistive Technologies to Support Children with Developmental Disorders	General	Children with disabilities
Bhat, L., Khan, N., Vaida, N., Hassan, I., & Tariq Banday, M. (2022) [213].	India/Iinstitute of Home Sciences, overnment Medical College, Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Technology,	Leprosy Review,	Social participation	Leprosy patients
Braddock, B., Twyman, K., Garrity, M., Wang, T., Neary, M., Ezzelgot, J., & Heithaus, J. (2015) [214].	USA/Department of Pediatrics, SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center	Clin Pedriatric	Enrolled in social skill treatment	Autism spectrum disorder,
Cheick Amadou Tidiane, O., Ekene Francis, O., Muhammad Yasir, A., Amina, A. J., & Otto James Alfred, L. (2023) [214,215].	China/Faculty of Education,	Cogent Education	Social ostracism	Children with disability, Mali
Chinyowa, K. C., & Chivandikwa, N. (2017) [216].	South Africa, Zimbabwe/Department of Drama and Film Studies, Faculty of Arts, Department of Theatre Arts,	Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance	Ableist discourse	Albinism
Darroch, H. T. (2018) [217].	Canada/School of Arts and Access	Book chapter Ethics and Affects in the Fiction of Alice Munro. Palgrave Studies in Affect Theory and Literary Criticism	Munro’s books	Intellectual disabilities
Dixon, R. (2007) [74].	UK, Faculty of Continuing Education	Journal of School Violence	Schools	Adults who are deaf retrospective about school time
Fonseca, A., Kral, M. C., Lally, M. D., Boan, A. D., & Macias, M. M. (2019) [218].	USA, Medical school	Children’s Health Care	General ostracism scale	ADHD youth
Gausel, N., & Thørrisen, M. M. (2014) [219].	Norway, School of Health and Social Science and NGO	Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention	Intellectual disabilities and being an inmate	Intellectual disabilities and being an inmate
Gershon, W., & Srinivasan, G. R. (1992) [220].	German Leprosy Relief Association, Germany	Leprosy Review	Community-based rehabilitation	Disability due to Leprosy
Grenda, M. (2024) [221].	Poland/-	Avant from Institute of Philosophy of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University	Society setting; critical art, social change	Disability, illness, old age
Hillman, W., & Teather, S. (2025) [222].	Australia; Office of indigenous Engagement; Arts, Education and Law Group	Disability & Society	Life-experience of women with disabilities in Nepal.	Women with disabilities
Hopkins, Z. L., Yuill, N., & Branigan, H. P. (2022) [223].	UK; Department of Psychology,	Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders	Test for skill	Autistic children
Karten, A. F. (2018) [224].	USA/-	WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment	Socially-able self	Disabled family in rural India
Kaur, H., & Ramesh, V. (1994) [225].	India. National Institute of Immunology	Leprosy Review	Social participation	Leprosy patient
Kowalski, R. M., & Peipert, A. (2019) [226].	USA/Department of Psychology, both authors	Stigma and Health	Workplace; 243 workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, an online crowd-sourcing tool,	Physical versus psychological disabilities.
Lee, T., & Rodda, M. (1994) [227].	Canada/-	Canadian Journal of Rehabilitation	Social ostracism	People with disabilities,
Mead, S., Hilton, D., & Curtis, L. (2001) [228].	USA; consultant and Director, Office of Consumer Affairs New Hampshire Department of Mental Health & Developmental Services	Psychiatric rehabilitation journal	Social and cultural ostracism	Persons labeled with psychiatric disability
Musicka-Williams, A. (2020) [229].	Australia; Creative Arts and Music Therapy Research Unit, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music	Frontiers in Psychology	Social ostracism	Adolescents in special education.
Ran, Z., Chao, Y., & Ferreira-Meyers, K. (2017) [230].	China and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)/Faculty of Economics and Management, The School of Law, he Institute of Distance Education,	International Journal of Stress Management	Workplace	Disabled
Rusnah, F. N. R., Buntoro, I. F., Handoyo, N. E., & Oematan, H. (2025) [231]	Indonesia/Medical departments	Berkala Ilmu Kesehatan Kulit dan Kelamin	Social stigma leads to ostracism	Perceptions of leprosy patients at the a primary hospital in North Central Timor
Shetgiri, R., Espelage, D. L., & Carroll, L. (2015) [232].	USA; Medical faculty and non academic	Book chapter Practical Strategies for Clinical Management of Bullying. SpringerBriefs in Public Health	General setting	Students with disabilities; children with ADHD
Trimmer, E., McDonald, S., Kelly, M., & Rushby, J. A. (2017) [233].	Australia; School of Psychology,	Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders	Physiological Effect of ostracism using cyberball test	Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Twyman, K. A., Saylor, C. F., Saia, D., Macias, M. M., Taylor, L. A., & Spratt, E. (2010) [234].	USA; Department of Pediatrics, Medical University	J. Dev. Behav. Pediatr	Questionnaire focusing on daily life	Children with special health care needs; Children with learning disabilities (N = 34), attention deficit or hyperactivity disorder (N = 100), autism spectrum disorders (N = 32), behavioral or mental health disorders (N = 33), and cystic fibrosis (CF, N = 22)
Wang, R.; Zhang, Y.; Jiang, J. 2024 [235]	China; College of Management; Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology;	Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology	Workplace	Disabled employees’
Wilhite, B. (1994) [236]	USA;-	Educational Gerontology	Daily lives	Japanese with disabilities
Relevant sources related to climate surveys (12 sources)
Aldosary, G., Koo, M., Barta, R., Ozard, S., Menon, G., Thomas, C. G., Lee, Y., Octave, N., Xu, Y., Baxter, P., McEwen, M., Hendrickson, K. R. G., Pollard-Larkin, J., & Surry, K. (2023) [122].	Canada various medical departments in various universities	International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics	Workplace; Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP) conducted its first equity, diversity, and inclusion Climate Survey	Disability as a term
Dawson, K., Burke, L., Flack, J., William F., O’Higgins, S., McIvor, C., & MacNeela, P. (2024) [237].	UK, Ireland, USA, first author Faculty of Education, Health and Human Sciences	Violence Against Women	Education	Students in higher education institutions in Ireland; disability status
Fread, M. (2021) [238].	USA;-	Journal of Student Affairs	College and university campuses	College Students with Disabilities:
Gill, D. L., Morrow, R. G., Collins, K. E., Lucey, A. B., & Schultz, A. M. (2010) [239].	USA; Department of Kinesiology, and non academics	Journal of Homosexuality	Physical activity settings; campus survey	People with disabilities
Gillespie, L. K., Hayes, B. E., & Richards, T. N. (2025) [240].	USA; School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, School of Criminal Justice,	Law and Human Behavior,	Education	College students with disabilities
Jerković, M., & Žic Ralić, A. (2024) [241].	Croatia; Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences,	Hrvatska Revija Za Rehabilitacijska Istrazivanja	Education	Adolescents with learning disabilities
Kirkner, A., Plummer, S. B., Findley, P. A., & McMahon, S. (2022) [242].	USA; first author School of Social Work,	Journal of Interpersonal Violence	Education	Campus Sexual Violence Victims with Disabilities:
Knouse, S. B., & Dansby, M. R. (1999) [243]	USA; Dept of Management and Director of Research Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute	The Journal of Psychology	Workplace	Persons with disabilities)
Marin-Spiotta, E., Diaz-Vallejo, E. J., Barnes, R. T., Mattheis, A., Schneider, B., Berhe, A. A., Hastings, M. G., Williams, B. M., & Magley, V. (2023) [244].	USA; department of heography, Environmental Studies Program, Department of Psychology; Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, NGO Kansas Geological Survey, American Geophysical Union,	Earth Futures	Workplace earth sciences academic	Scientists with disabilities
Saksena, Y., Alarcon, B. O., Simeteys, P., Rahman, R. N., & Inglehart, M. R. (2025) [245].	USA; dental medicine departments	Journal of Dental Education	Dental and allied dental educational environment	Emotionally, cognitively and/or physically disabled persons
Sheridan, J., & Romero, M., & Fitzpatrick, M. E., & Bell, C. F., & Fine, E., & Juniper Neimeko, C., & Fallon, K. (2019) [246].	USA; Executive and Research Director of the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI; Undergraduate Affairs in the College of Engineering	CoNECD—The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity	Engineering students/education	Students with disabilities
Wellum, A., Ramaekers, R., Schepers, J., Welie, J., Lange, G., & Hurks, P. (2023) [247].	Netherlands;-	Journal of Interpersonal Violence	Education	Undergraduate and graduate students with and without disabilities

As to the country of authors, the majority were from the USA and nearly all from Western countries.

As to the discipline affiliation of authors, medical affiliations were the main ones for incivility/civility, medical, psychology, education, and arts for the ostracism ones, and a variety of affiliations for the climate survey ones.

As to journal names, they reflected as the main disciplines: medicine, psychology, and education. Only two journal names could be seen to cover disabled people in our civility/incivility sources (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders and Learning Disability Quarterly); three within our ostracism sources (Disability & Society, Leprosy Review, and Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders), and none in our climate survey sources.

As to the place or focus of the study, the majority covered the workplace and educational settings.

Various disability terms mentioned in the relevant abstracts were identified.

3.3. Quantitative Hitcount Results for the Downloaded Full Texts (RQ5–11)

To obtain our hit count results to ascertain what is there and not there, we performed hit count searches of the three sets of documents we generated from the downloaded texts of the as relevant identified abstracts. We show in Table A1 (Appendix A) the hit counts for the keywords (not reflecting the number of articles) in the three sets of full texts we downloaded covering (a) the presence of cross mentioning of the terms linked to the three sets of documents, (b) different disability terms, (c) some medical terms, (d) intersectional phrases depicting disabled people who also belong to another marginalized group, (e) some disability rights related terms, (f) some other terms linked to important discourses, (g) science and technology governance related terms, (h) well-being measures, and (i) some indicators used in the wellbeing measures: OECD Better Life Index, the Canadian Index of Well-being, the Community-based Rehabilitation Matrix and the Social Determinants of Health [195].

The main findings were:

• The main terms “Incivility”, “civility”, “ostracism”, and “Climate survey” used to obtain the three sets of full texts were rarely or not at all present in the other two sets of articles.
• Other terms used to indicate negative treatment, “stigma”, “bullying”, “harassment”, and “unfair treatment,” were present but to a different extent.
• There was a very uneven presence of disability terms, and people-first was preferred over identity-first phrases.
• “Neurodiversity” as a term was not present in the climate survey or ostracism articles.
• Although the term “patient” was not part of the search, it was the dominant term in the ostracism set of articles.
• Ableism, disablism, and disability rights-related terms were rarely mentioned, including the term “disability studies”.
• Women with disabilities were mentioned a lot in the ostracism set, but this was due to one article.
• The term “intersectionality” was used the most in the climate survey set; most examples of intersectionalities covering disabled people also belonging to other marginalized groups we used were rarely or not at all mentioned.
• Allyship was not a topic engaged with, although all three sets of documents cover areas where allies are needed to rectify the problems.
• EDI/DEI as phrases of full words, so equity, diversity, and inclusion were only mentioned in the climate survey set
• Many other useful terms, such as self-determination, autonomy, interdependence, normalcy, social norm, and solidarity, were rarely or not at all mentioned,
• Well-being measures we looked at (list from [195]) were not present.
• The majority of the non-health indicators we used from 111 indicators of the four composite well-being measures (“The social determinants of health (SDH)”, “The Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIWB)”, the “OECD Better Life Index”, and the “Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) matrix”) [195] had no or few hits.
• Work-life balance had no hits.
• Occupational rights terms were not present.
• Science and Technology governance and Technology-linked ethics fields were not mentioned, although the term “technology” had some hits.
• Global South was not mentioned.

3.4. Quantitative Hitcount Results Using the Online Search Function of the Three Databases Used RQ5–11)

We also searched for (a) different disability terms, (b) some medical terms, (c) intersectional phrases depicting disabled people who also belong to another marginalized group, and (d) some disability rights related terms, in the abstracts that contained the terms (a) incivility or civility (strategy 1a, Table 1), (b) ostracism (strategy 2a, Table 1), and (c) “climate surve*” (strategy 1c, Table 1), using the three databases from Table 1, as another way to see what is there and not there (Table A2, Appendix A).

We found results similar to the ones already described in Table A1.

• There was a very uneven presence of disability terms, and people-first was preferred over identity-first phrases.
• “Neurodiversity” as a term was not present in the climate survey or ostracism abstracts.
• The medical terms “patient” and “mental health” had many more hits for abstracts than the disability terms.
• Ableism and related terms were rarely mentioned
• Disablism-related terms were not mentioned.
• Disability rights-related terms were not mentioned, and the term “disability studies” was only mentioned in the civility/incivility search.
• The term “intersectionality” was used to some extent (the most in the civility/incivility abstracts); intersectionalities covering disabled people also belonging to other marginalized groups we used were not mentioned.

3.5. Quantitative Hitcount Results for Incivility/Civility Using the Online Search Function of the Three Databases Used and Quantitative Hitcount Results for the Downloaded Incivility/Civility Full Texts (RQ12)

We also performed hit count searches for a variety of phrases containing civility or incivility using the databases from strategy 1a, Table 1, and the three sets of relevant full-text documents downloaded (Table A3, Appendix A), as the focus of these incivility/civility areas is linked to disabled people in different ways.

Nearly 90% of the hits in both cases were obtained for the phrase “workplace incivility”. And of the civility phrases, “workplace civility” was the dominant one also. In general, as to phrases, incivility was mentioned more than civility. And the terms “civility” and “incivility” by themselves were mentioned more than in phrases.

3.6. Thematic Analysis of the Full Text Data (RQ4)

3.6.1. Civility and Incivility

We found only 14 abstracts with relevant content. Most of the original 63 abstracts with the disability terms we found were false positives, due to civility/incivility not being used in relation to disabled people or disability terms only being part of a list of characteristics without engaging with disabled people, or for example, due to the terms “disabled” and “impair*” being used with meanings not linked to disabled people, such as “These effects are corroborated by a comparison of how the participants draft their reply when our tool warns them that their conversation is at risk of derailing into uncivil behavior versus in a control condition where the tool is disabled” [248] (p. 1) and “problem Incivility triggers fear and humiliation, impairs clinical judgment and learning, reduces psychological safety, and increases cognitive load” [249] (p. 139). In the end, 14 abstracts suggested relevant content, and all 14 full texts were available for download.

The following themes were found in the relevant 14 sources (Table 3).

Table 3. Themes in the full text data covering civility and incivility.

Theme	Number of Sources	Sub-Themes	Number of Sources
Disabled People’s Capacity for Civility	7	Do disabled people have the skills to be civil?	4
		Disabled people are uncivil	3
Incivility and harassment experienced by disabled people	5	A climate of incivility sets the stage for sexual harassment (covering disabled people and others)	1
		Allies of disabled people targets of incivility	1
		Disabled people are in danger of incivility including selective incivility	3
Risk Factors for Incivility	5	Laws that outlaw discrimination could lead to incivility	1
		Intersectionality a risk factor	2
		Ableism a risk factor	2
How to decrease incivility	2	Training non disabled people what it means to be civil towards disabled people	1
		Research intersectionality	1
Data missing on incivility	3	Studies on the incivility disabled people experience are missing	3
Consequence of Incivility	3	Burnout and lack of professional fulfillment not influenced by incivility	1
		Incivility no impact on self-determination and advocacy, self esteem and mentorship rating	1
		Civility and equity linked	1
Protection factors in dealing with incivility	1	Good Mentorship and self-esteem protection factors dealing with incivility	1

Do Disabled People Have the Civility Skill?

Two studies focused on whether disabled people have the skills to be civil [201,210]. One stated that 82.62% of students with intellectual disabilities tested positive for the civility skill [210], without even stating what they mean by the concept of civility. And the second study stated that deaf adolescents scored higher on civility and altruism by “helping friends in need; being kind to friends in the classroom, and praising a friend than deaf children” [201] (p. 7), also without engaging with these concepts. In general, the authors asked for the assessment of social skills of deaf children and adolescents in various settings [201]. A third and fourth reported on a social skills program for unemployed people with physical disabilities to prepare disabled people for job interviews, and it included teaching about civility [202]; see also for learning disabled people in [205].

Disabled People Are Uncivil

One study blamed disabled people for being uncivil. “As the definition of the disabled expands to embrace behaviors outside the present normal, those students that are labelled as ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘disadvantaged’ are overwhelming the present system and becoming the new normal. The education system is hard-pressed to adjust its production process to reshape the inputs into its system. Thus these ‘disabilities’ are accounting for incivility, lawlessness, antisocial attitudes and behaviors, and need special‘ attention to avoid negative consequences for the next generation” [208] (p. 30). Another argued that disabled people (e.g., autism) should disclose their health issue that leads them to show uncivil behavior because “every health issue was considered an acceptable mitigating factor for uncivil behavior compared to situations where no illness was involved” [207] (p. 1175). In a third study covering first generation (FG) and d/Deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) students, they analysed videos of “two groups (four students in each) developing models for climate change lasting approximately 30 minutes: one group which seemed inequitable and one which seemed equitable based on previous work using quantitative measures of equity” [199] (p. 1083). Using scores for (in)civil behavior across nine axes, they concluded that both groups were exhibiting uncivil behavior [199].

Incivility Leads to Harassment

In one study, it was argued that “those who had experienced sexual harassment… were also more likely to have experienced incivility, bullying, and intimidating behaviors in the workplace” [211] (p. 364) and that the organizational climate of incivility has to be changed, as “sexual harassment often takes place against a backdrop of incivility or an environment of generalized disrespect” [211] (p. 365). And that study gave the following numbers: “Among those who had been sexually harassed in the 12 months preceding their participation in the survey, 85% said they had experienced incivility compared with 42% of those who had not been sexually harassed” [211] (p. 367) and stated without given numbers that “women, sexual and gender minorities, younger respondents, trainees/students, and individuals with a disability were more likely to experience sexual harassment” [211] (p. 366).

Disabled People Are in Danger of Incivility, Including Selective Incivility

In one study, it is argued that employees with physical disabilities “are more likely to experience incivility in organizations” [44] (p. 5163) and that the theory of selective incivility therefore should be applied to disabled people [44]. This study had a whole section called “An extension of the theory of selective incivility: the situation of physical disability” [44] (pp. 5166–5167). The study found that physical disability was positively associated with co-workers’ incivility and direct supervisor’s Incivility. Furthermore, having a physical disability, co-workers’ incivility, and direct supervisor’s incivility were all significantly and positively associated with higher levels of psychological distress [44] (p. 5169), and the authors concluded from their data that “some disrespectful behaviors represent a discrete form of discrimination based on a person’s physical disability” [44] (p. 5171). Neurodiverse students with traumatic brain injury in Ireland were also seen in increased danger of incivility, and this incivility was linked to the organizational culture of higher education [209]. It was argued that “Access to education is more challenging for those who grapple with traumatic brain injury. To have those challenges further exacerbated by incivility and by ‘disability-unaware’ regulations, systems, and processes is to add a further layer of incivility (both interpersonal and institutional) to an already deeply challenging experience. Incivility in most situations was fostered by ableist assumptions. Participants recognized the hierarchical nature of power and understood it as something inevitable and to be endured” [209] (p. 8). In one study, as part of the discussion of their findings, it was noted that incivility is “frequently directed at people with ASD and their allies” [206] (p. 59).

Laws That Outlaw Discrimination Could Lead to Incivility

In one study, the argument was made that laws that outlaw outright discrimination could lead to an increase in incivility, as it is less obvious and more [44].

Intersectionality a Risk Factor

In one study, it was noted that the theory of intersectionality is important and that the relationship of intersectionality identity dynamics and incivility in relation to, for example, being a woman with a disability should be investigated to decrease incivility [44]. A second study covering medical students noted that disabled people and other marginalized groups were targets of “discriminatory incivility” [203] (p. 1) and that intersectionality increased that danger “The intersectionality of disability, race and religion can make placement a place of perpetual bullying. I’m always on edge.” (P48, fourth-year) [203] (p. 4).

Ableism a Risk Factor

Only two studies used ability judgment linked language one stating, “Ableist behaviour involved objectifying participants as ‘practice’ patients with one participant described as “the damaged goods” [203] (p. 4), and “This discrimination often demeaned students by calling into question their abilities to become doctors: “…nurses and doctors have told me I should consider another career. One doctor told me patients don’t want patients looking after them” [203] (p. 4), and “Experiences of selective incivility targeting students’ protected characteristics comprised the majority of reported incivility. Participants’ accounts of discrimination spanned racism, sexism, ableism and homophobia” [203] (p. 5) and the second one stating “Incivility in most situations was fostered by ableist assumptions” [209] (p. 8).

Incivility No Impact on Self-Determination and Advocacy, Self-Esteem, and Mentorship Rating

One study looking at the impact of incivility on self-advocates and found that the hypothesis that “if self-advocates have experienced incivility in the workplace, this will also have a “negative correlation with their (e) self-determination, (f) advocacy, (g) self-esteem, and (h) mentorship ratings” was not supported [206] (p. 55).

Good Mentorship and Self-Esteem Protection Factors for Dealing with Incivility

One study looked at the impact of incivility on self-advocates or allies who advocate for those with ASD, and found that incivility is more present and had a positive and significant relationship with mentorship and self-esteem [206]. They suggested that the finding might be due to “those who experience better mentorship and have higher self-esteem are more willing to put themselves at risk in a work environment in which there is more incivility, which may be—unfortunately—frequently directed at people with ASD and their allies. It is possible that good mentorship and self-esteem may buffer people with ASD and their allies even as they experience direct negative effects from experiences of incivility” [206] (p. 59).

Training Non-Disabled People on What It Means to Be Civil Towards Disabled People

In one study, it is argued that non-disabled people should be trained in civility towards disabled people, whereby the study saw the action of assisting disabled people without exhibiting condescension or contempt as a form of civility [204].

Studies on the Incivility Disabled People Experience Are Missing

Two studies flagged that more research is needed. In one study, it was noted that studies on the incivility that employees with physical disabilities experience are missing [44]. Although this study is from 2023, the authors noted that they are the first study to look at that problem [44], and they outline studies showing various negative sentiments towards disabled people. A second one flagged the need for more data on the relationship between incivility and (a) self-determination, (b) advocacy, (c) self-esteem, and (d) mentorship” [206] with a specific focus on participants with ASD and on “the impact of strategies used by self-advocates with ASD and their allies to promote the hiring of individuals with ASD alongside efforts to reduce incivility and promote disability campaigns and other business-side practices to diversity hiring, as well as supports (e.g., accommodations) provided to employees” [206] (p. 59).

Civility and Equity

One study saw civility as part of equity [199] but did not give data specific to disabled people.

Incivility and Organizational Culture in General Do Not Impact Burnout and Low Professional Fulfillment of Disabled People

One study covering physicians, including disabled physicians, investigated the relationship between organizational culture and both professional fulfillment and burnout [200]. The authors found in general that fulfillment and burnout were associated with physicians’ perceptions of efforts “to promote a diverse and inclusive workplace and the level of workplace respect/civility, while confidence in addressing unprofessional behavior without fear of retaliation was correlated with a lower risk of burnout” [200] (p. 7). However, they then report that “unlike gender and URM status, the relationships between disability and both professional fulfillment and burnout were not attenuated by factors related to organizational culture suggesting that the effect of disability on both metrics may be through different mechanisms related to environmental barriers [35] or the effort required by disabled physicians to complete work-related tasks” [200] (p. 8).

3.6.2. Ostracism

As to ostracism, we found only 26 relevant abstracts. Most of the sources did not indicate an in-depth engagement with the topic but simply highlighted that the problem exists. But nevertheless, we downloaded the 26 full texts. In four of the 26 full texts, ostracism was only mentioned in the abstract. In many cases, the theme was already mentioned in a given abstract, and no new theme was present in the full text. The themes found in the full texts were (Table 4).

Table 4. Themes in the full text data covering ostracism.

Theme	Number of Sources	Sub-Theme	Number of Sources
Existence of Ostracism	60	Disabled people experience ostracism	26
		Disabilities linked to ostracism	23
		Disabled people experience higher level of ostracism than non-disabled people	6
		Numbers for ostracism	3
		People with psychiatric disabilities experience higher ostracism than people with physical disabilities	1
		Disabled people more sensitive to ostracism	1
Risk factor for ostracism	3	Being an activist increases danger of being ostracized	1
		Assistive technologies add to ostracism	1
		Ableism leads to ostracization	1
Consequences of Ostracism	6	Ostracism decreases self esteem and has other negative social consequences	4
		Fear of being ostracized as a non disabled person	1
		If ostracism does not work bullying is the next tool	1
Dealing with/decreasing Ostracism	5	Coping mechanism	2
		Treatment of disabled person to avoid ostracism	1
		Preparing the disabled child for the reality needed	1
		Economic role decrease danger of ostracization	1
Make Ostracism visible	11	Arts to counter make visible ostracism	2
		More research needed/future research	9
		Disabled people should be heard	1

Disabilities Linked to Ostracism

Leprosy was covered in four abstracts as a reason for being ostracised [213,220,224,225,231]. Other disability related wordings were, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other severely socially limiting disabilities such as deaf-blindness and schizophrenia [224], TBI [214], children with disabilities [215], albinism [216], intellectual disability [217], adults who are deaf [74], psychological disabilities [226], Children with cystic fibrosis, learning disabilities, and behavioral or mental health disorders [234], Youth with developmental disabilities or special health care needs [218], disability, illness, and deteriorating, ageing, dying bodies [221], women with disabilities [222], people with disabilities [227,235], persons labeled with psychiatric disability [228], adolescents in special education and adolescents with intellectual/developmental disabilities [229], the disabled [230], ADHD [218,232], Autism Spectrum Disorder ASD [218,233], children with special health care needs [234], disabled employees [235] and older Japanese with disabilities [236], those with impairments, such as visible disabilities or physical and mental illnesses [235], children with neurodevelopmental and behavioral disorders [214].

Numbers for Ostracism

As to concrete numbers the following where found, “Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are almost four times as likely to be victimized by bullying as children without ADHD; relational bullying and ostracism are particularly prevalent in this group” [232] (p. 17), “numbers are more than half of children with social skill deficit experienced ostracism” [214] (p. 1192), “Of all the groups, children with ASD had the highest percentage reporting an ostracism experiences score of 9 (i.e., average score on these three items greater than “sometimes”) as shown in Table 2 and were eight times more likely to report significant ostracism over the NoDx group (OR 8.00) 95% CI _ 2.60–24.58)” [234] (p. 5). However, nearly all sources stated that disabled people are experiencing ostracism to a greater extent than non-disabled people [218,226,230,233,234].

For example, a specific subgroup of disabled people

“However, as a kind of repeated exposure to unjust events (i.e., both exclusion and impairments), workplace ostracism harms individuals with disabilities who have higher BJW to a greater extent, leading to lower self-esteem and more workplace deviance. The indirect effect of workplace ostracism on deviance via self esteem is also strengthened by BJW” [235] (p. 9) (BJW = belief in a just world).

As to numbers in one article, it is outlined that people with psychological disabilities experience more ostracism and exhibit a lower level of self-esteem and disclosure rate than people with physical disabilities [226].

Disabled People Are More Sensitive to Ostracism

“Employees with disabilities may possess a heightened sensitivity to perceived ostracism particularly in ambiguous situations.”

[235] (p. 9)

Treatment of Disabled Persons to Avoid Ostracism

In one source, the treatment of the person’s characteristics to avoid ostracism was proposed [214].

Arts to Counter Make Visible Ostracism

In two sources, it was proposed to use the arts to counter and make visible the problem [216,221].

Assistive Technologies Add to Ostracism

In one source, it was noted that assistive technologies often add to the ostracism [212].

Ostracism Decreases Self-Esteem and Has Other Negative Social Consequences

As to the negative consequences of ostracism, one study noted that “workplace ostracism had a detrimental effect on the self-esteem of disabled employees” [235] (p. 1) and “Ostracism is particularly devastating for the self-esteem of employees with disabilities” [235] (p. 3). Another study noted that “Social stigma, also triggered by misperceptions, leprosy symptoms, and disability, leads to discrimination, and ostracism, even in family circles and places of worship. Patients experience negative impacts on their self-esteem, social life, and economy” [231] (p. 34). Workplace ostracism correlated positively with Workplace Family Conflict [230].

People with ASD are reported to be able to identify when they are ostracized and can identify threats to their needs caused by ostracism equal to the control group [233].

If Ostracism Does Not Work, Bullying Is the Next Tool

In one study, it was noted that bullying was the next stage if ostracism did not work [74].

Being an Activist Increases the Danger of Being Ostracized

Being an activist was seen to increase the danger of being ostracized stating, “employees with disabilities held stronger believe in a just world, they tended to experience more significant adverse effects of workplace ostracism, resulting in lower self-esteem” [235] (p. 1), but at the same time it was argued in another study that advocacy is needed to decrease societal ostracism of children with disabilities [215].

Preparing the Disabled Child for the Reality Needed

To give the quote for this theme, “We also found out that preparing children with disability for socio-cultural life integration is as important as preparing society itself to welcome and receive these children. Parents and monitors need increased multifaceted support from government, social services, and relevant organizations to overcome difficulties and issues related to children’s disability and their socio-cultural integration” [215] (p. 1).

Coping Mechanism

Copying others was seen as a way to avoid social ostracism [229] and it was argued that persons labelled with psychiatric disabilities who have become victims of social and cultural ostracism consequently have developed a sense of self that reinforces the ‘patient’ identity [228].

Fear of Being Ostracized as a Non-Disabled Person

To give the quote consisting of this theme,

“Negative attitudes toward people with disabilities are among the most significant barriers hindering the successful social integration of such individuals. The origins of negative attitudes toward people with disabilities are complexly intertwined. They appear to stem from faulty information about disability, information originating from pervasive sociocultural conditioning, the spread phenomenon, and the fear of social ostracism. The lack of social exposure to individuals with disabilities further fosters these negative attitudes by creating anxiety and confusion when people, who are able-bodied, are interacting with individuals who have disabilities. Based on Fishbein and Ajzen’s framework of attitude formation that an attitude toward an object is a function of beliefs about that object, it is postulated that effective attitude modification requires a combined strategy of (i) delivering accurate information about disability and (ii) enforcing rewarding contacts between ‘nondisabled’ and people with disabilities.”

[227] (p. 229)

Economic Role Decreases Danger of Ostracization

In one source, the argument is made that inclusive development projects should move beyond medical rehabilitation and education to facilitate an economic role of stigmatized members of the community, whereby they mention gender, caste, and disability, which they see as facilitating being treated with respect in the community [224].

Ableism Leads to Ostracization

Only one source used ability judgment-related language, arguing “This article focuses on how ableist discourses and practices seek to ‘normalize the disabled body which is deemed to be ‘deviant’. This leads to acts of normalization that expose disabled bodies to precarity, conceived here as the lived experience of marginalization, ostracism and vulnerability” [216] (p. 51).

Disabled People Should Be Heard

The source with this theme covered women with disabilities in Nepal, arguing that their voices need to be heard so they can influence policies and be in control of their lived realities [222].

More Research Needed

Various studies indicated the need for more research [219,226,234,235], such as on different disabilities [226,230], “differentiating ASD and alexithymic traits” [233] (p. 2333).

Future research “should establish what—for autistic children—disrupts the relationship between ostracism and increased affiliative behaviour that is seen in the typical population” [223] (p. 1938). Research should be done on the two concepts of “Belief in an unjust world” and “Belief in a just world,” and their impact on the ostracism of disabled people [235].

3.6.3. Climate Survey

As to the original research question that looked for an evaluation of the usefulness of climate surveys for disabled people, we found not one source that was relevant. We found 12 abstracts that engaged with some data on disabled people, focusing on specific climate surveys. As such, the following are themes reflecting that reality (Table 5).

Table 5. Themes in the full text data covering climate surveys.

Theme	Number of Sources	Sub-Themes	Number of Sources 12
Experience of negative climate by disabled people	11	Disabled people experiencing negative climate more than others	8
		Disabled people and other marginalized groups experience negative climate more so than others	3
Risk factor for bad climate	3	Ableism	1
		Intersectionality	2
Perception of Climate	6	Perception of climate more negative by disabled students	4
		Perception by others about the reality of disabled people	1
		Disabled people causing problems other marginalized groups don’t	1
Data missing/no analysis of data	7	Data missing in general	4
		Response rate of disabled people given (relevance of the demographic set up not discussed)	3
Improving climate	3	Action needed	2
		Seeking support	1

The following themes were found.

Response Rate of Disabled People Given (Relevance of the Demographic Setup Not Discussed)

To give quotes with the response rates in the three sources. “Respondents who identified as disabled or with a disability were 7% of the total, comparable to a survey of earned U.S. doctorates in engineering (National Center for Science & Engineering Statistics, 2019)” [244] (p. 4). One climate survey does not give results specific to disabled participants, although they state that “there were no identifiable members of URGs who reported negative EDI climates” [122] (p. 312), and “When respondents were asked if they had a disability or health condition, 49 of 214 (23%) responded “yes,” with 17 (32%) of those respondents stating they had an emotional or mental health condition or illness [122] (p. 308). None of these sources discuss the validity and consequences of these numbers. In one source, it is stated that “the low response rate in our sample and cross-sectional nature of the data makes the results not generalizable though this is common among campus climate surveys,” [242] (p. NP7171) and they noted that a “common challenge with campus climate surveys is the use of different demographic identifiers related to “disability status” [242] (p. NP7171).

Disabled People and Other Marginalized Groups Experience Negative Climates More than Others

In one source covering geosciences, it is stated that marginalized groups, including disabled people, experience negative climate more so than others, whereby they used this list: “scientists of color, women and non-binary individuals, scientists with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, pansexual, and asexual (LGBQPA+)”. The negative climate included negative identity-based remarks. As to numbers, the source stated, “Overall, 14% of all respondents experienced sexual harassment in the previous year. Rates were greatest for historically excluded groups: non-binary (51%), LGBQPA+ (33%), disabled (26%), women (20%), and geoscientists of color (17%)” [244] (p. 1).

A second study showed that sexual minorities and people with physical disabilities are particularly the targets of a negative climate, curtailing their participation in physical activity [239]. A third study noted in the abstract that “previous climate surveys in the CoE demonstrated that underrepresented students (women of all races, nonwhite men, students with disabilities) report harassment and an unwelcoming environment in these student spaces more often than they do in other spaces within the CoE (e.g., classrooms)” [246] (p. 1) but than did not cover disabled students in the full text but only other marginalized groups.

Disabled People Are More Impacted than Others

The prior theme and this theme could also be under one header. The prior theme gave data on disabled people mentioned together with other marginalized groups. Here we give data that only covers disabled people. And we give the actual quotes, which are all from six sources.

“Disabled geoscientists were more likely to hear negative identity-based language than those who did not disclose a disability” [244] (p. 1). “Disabled respondents were less likely to experience someone noticing when they did their best possible work or having someone expressing interest in their work-related opinions, although rates were still high (85% and 93%, respectively) (Table S3 in Supporting Information S1)” [244] (p. 5). “All measures of interpersonal mistreatment were greater for respondents with a disability (Figure 2). Almost half (46%) experienced devaluation of their work and efforts; 43% experienced bullying or intimidating behavior; and more than half (57%) experienced insulting, disrespectful, or derogatory remarks. Disabled respondents were also more likely to fear for their physical safety (17% vs. 11%). Others have documented hostile climates and perceptions of STEMM as unwelcoming and inaccessible for disabled students (Bettencourt et al., 2018; Lawrence, 2022)” [244] (p. 6). “Disabled respondents were more likely to hear negative remarks about race (41% vs. 28%), physical and mental health (41% vs. 24%), gender (41% vs. 27%), and sexual orientation or transgender identity (31% vs. 17%) than those who did not disclose a disability. Approximately a quarter (26%) of those who experienced sexual harassment identified as disabled. They were more than twice as likely to experience gender harassment (27% vs. 13%) and almost three times as likely to experience unwanted sexual attention (7% vs. 2.5%) than those who did not disclose a disability (Figure S3 in Supporting Information S1)” [244] (p. 8). “Disabled geoscientists were more likely to skip a professional activity (33% vs. 20%) or to consider a career change (41% vs. 29%) than those who did not report a disability. They also were more likely to consider leaving their discipline (29%) compared to those who did not report a disability (18%)” [244] (p. 10).

“According to the 2019 Association of American Universities (AAU) Campus Climate Survey by Cantor et al. (2019), students with no disabilities experienced nonconsensual sexual contact at a rate of approximately 9.4% whereas students with disabilities were at an average rate of 17%.”

[238] (p. 42)

Then one study reported from higher education in Ireland that “having a physical disability increased the risk of [sexual harassment victimization] SHV by 2.5 times in comparison with those who did not have a disability. Having a cognitive/mental health disability increased the risk of SHV by 1.4 times in comparison with those without a disability” and “the interaction effect between identifying as gay or lesbian and reporting a cognitive disability was statistically significant and were 8.5 times more likely to experience SHV than their peers” [237] (p. 334). The study also found that disabled students received less institutional support than non-disabled students [237], “identifying both gay or lesbian and having a cognitive disability places someone at particular risk of SHV” [237] (p. 336).

In one source [240], the authors covered in the background of their study three studies that focused on specific disability types in examining sexual victimization among college students and four studies that covered disability in general. All these studies reported that disabled students had a higher likelihood of experiencing sexual victimization than students without disabilities. In the same source, the authors found the same results by investigating the 2019 AAU Campus Climate Survey results [240], and they found “Among student survivors, students with disabilities were more likely to report their victimization to at least one program/resource than students without disabilities [240] (p. 140). As to specific numbers, they stated “Overall, 13.14% of the weighted sample experienced sexual victimization since they enrolled in college; 47.00% of student survivors had a disability. The most common disability among the full sample of respondents was mental health (13.31%), followed by two or more disabilities (not specified; 6.44%), ADHD or other type of disability (5.28%), and medical conditions (1.82%)” [240] (p. 145).

Another source, also using the 2019 AAU Campus Climate Survey, reported these numbers: “the rate of victimization among students with disabilities varied depending on the type of disability; the highest rate was seen in students with a chronic mental health condition such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety disorder at 26.3%. Additional rates for disabilities noted in this study are attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at 15.2%, chronic medical conditions (e.g., diabetes) at 12.6%, and other disabilities like Autism Spectrum Disorder, mobility-related disability, and sensory-related disability (e.g., blindness) at 13.6%” [238] (p. 43).

One study using data from 2018 and using as sample students who completed a sexual violence module found that “students with disabilities had a statistically significant higher likelihood of sexual violence victimization before coming to campus and while at the university, with much higher rates for precollege victimization than students with no disabilities” [242] (p. 1).

Using the digital version of the Association of American Universities (AAU) Campus Climate Survey for a Dutch university the study found that people who identified as having a disability were in higher danger for “any kind of sexual assault: OR = 1.75, p < .002; sexual touching: OR = 1.84, p < .001; and rape: OR = 2.22, p < .00” [247] (p. 12224) but without engaging with the disability topic further.

Negative Perception of Climate

“Based on a systematic literature review, Hunt et al. (2023) highlighted that students with disabilities report more negative perceptions of school climate compared to TD peers. Students with disabilities often report being bullied and victimised, feeling unsafe at school, and receiving limited peer support (Hunt et al., 2023). A less positive perception of the school climate among students with disabilities compared to TD peers was also found in the study by Hoffmann et al. (2021).”

[241] (p. 67)

“Physical activity climate ratings were mid-range, but multivariate analysis of variation test (MANOVA) revealed clear differences with all settings rated more inclusive for racial/ethnic minorities and most exclusive for gays/lesbians and people with disabilities”

[239] (p. 895)

“Adolescents with LD reported significantly lower levels of interest among teachers in their academic success, significantly lower safety at school, and significantly less pride shown by their parents.”

[241] (p. 65)

“The Pride group gave more extreme climate ratings by rating gay/lesbian, older and disabled groups as more excluded, but racial/ethnic minorities as more included, than did the ESS exercise and sport science students groups.”

[239] (p. 908)

Perception by Others About the Reality of Disabled People

29.8% did not agree/agree strongly that their school/program was supportive of “emotionally, cognitively and/or physically disabled persons (29.8%) [245] (p. 623).

Ableist

“Disproportionately negative experiences are likely influenced by ableist perception of geoscientists.”

[244] (p. 6)

Disabled People Causing Problems Other Marginalized Groups Don’t

In one study disabled people are blamed. To give the quotes from that one source, “The gender and minority, but not persons with disabilities, categories showed increases in perceived work-group effectiveness at the 11–30% diversity level” [243] (p. 486) and “For the persons with disabilities category, however, as the percentage of persons with disabilities increased in the group, perceptions of organizational affect and effectiveness declined in a linear manner” [243] (p. 491).

Data Missing and Research Needed

One source noted the “noticeable lack of research on the connection between the school climate and internalised problems observed among adolescents with LD” [241] (p. 67).

Another stated that their “study on the perceived climate in physical activity settings provides information that can be used for more “research and professional programs, and may ultimately contribute to creating safe, inclusive environments” [239] (p. 901).

The second source asked for research on the topic of “whether a higher proportion of persons with disabilities in the group truly does depress group effectiveness (or at least the perception of it by group members). If this effect holds, special team-building training may be necessary, so that groups containing members with disabilities may be able to function more effectively. Such training may involve changing not only how the members react to their fellow members with disabilities but also how each person (including those with disabilities) reacts to each other person in terms of beliefs, reactions, and job performance expectations (Stone & Colella, 1996)” [243] (p. 492).

And a third stated: “Disability should be a demographic included in research and surveys distributed by institutions so that institutional leadership and student affairs professionals can better inform their practices. Future research should further investigate how other aspects of a student’s identity can affect their experiences and if students with disabilities who also hold another minoritized identity face higher rates of violence than those who do not. This can help higher education institutions create and shape resources that better fit students’ needs” [238] (p. 47).

Action Needed

One study argued that action is needed by professional associations and funding agencies on data collection on “ability status” [244] (p. 11). Efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion need to address accessibility, which includes addressing the high rates of hostile behaviors experienced by disabled geoscientists [244]. Another that higher education institutions can play an active role in protecting disabled students against IPV and sexual assault but fail to do so [238] (p. 42) that “professionals need specific training to understand “the unique needs of students with disabilities, [the] different types of disabilities and how individuals may experience them, how students may define disability, [and] framing disability as an identity beyond a diagnosis [238] (p. 47) and that Violence Prevention offices and Disability Services could help in safety planning in education campus, in designing language for marketing resources and services [238] (p. 47).

Seeking Support

Student survivors who were registered with the campus accessibility office had a higher likelihood of reporting to each program/resource examined” [240] (p. 140).

Intersectionality

Two sources mentioned the need to look at the intersectionality of disabled students [242] see [238] under Section Data Missing and Research Needed.

4. Discussion

The topic of civility and incivility has been discussed for over 100 years through the lens of different academic disciplines. Different types of incivility and areas where incivility takes place have been identified, and it is seen as an interpersonal and societal phenomenon. Incivility is a common occurrence [60,250,251,252,253] and is setting the stage for more obvious and severe forms of disrespect, harassment, and bullying, such as at the workplace [11,12,13]. It is argued that as more and more laws outlaw outright discrimination, incivility can become more prevalent as a less obvious alternative [44]. The concept of selective incivility was coined within the organizational setting, where incivility often targets marginalized populations. Given the importance and consequences of incivility on the interpersonal and societal level, and that one can make a case that every problematic aspect of civility and incivility impacts disabled people, it is problematic that we found only 14 relevant sources. The same problematic lack of engagement was also evident for the term ostracism, which is a form of incivility.

Climate surveys are widely used as tools to unmask toxic environments in workplaces, schools, and communities, including the mistreatments mentioned [254]. We suggest that, if designed appropriately, such surveys could be useful to identify all forms of toxic environments and mistreatments disabled people face. As such, it is a problem that we found only 12 relevant sources. If done wrong, these surveys might add to the incivility and other toxic climates disabled people experience.

In the remainder of Section 4, we cover first the incivility results, under which we also cover ostracism, and then the climate survey results.

4.1. Incivility and Ostracism

As to the thematic analysis of the 14 full texts, the main theme, with half of the sources covering it, was about whether disabled people can be civil or that they are uncivil. Ableism was mentioned only once [203], ableist was mentioned once [209], and disablism was not mentioned at all. Most of the sources were from the USA, and the medical affiliation was the main one. Only two journal names can be seen to focus on disabled people (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders and Learning Disability Quarterly), and the main setting was the workplace and the education system, focusing on workplace and interpersonal incivility. As such, the coverage of incivility in relation to disabled people did not reflect the breadth of incivility and civility research performed in general. Furthermore, many of the themes evident in the few sources are problematic.

4.1.1. Disabled People Being Blamed

That seven of the 14 studies looked at whether disabled people are civil with three studies investigating whether disabled people have the skill to be civil [199,201,210], two studies covering social skill learning endeavors for disabled people [202,205] and two studies claiming that disabled people are uncivil [207,208] seems to support the critique that the term is used to oppress marginalized groups [66], in this case, disabled people who don’t fit the behavior norm. That 50% of the relevant articles see disabled people as the culprit, we suggest, is a form of being uncivil, if indeed “civility reflects concern for others” [11] (p. 455). And one wonders what mutual respect for others means in workplace civility, defined as “a behavior that helps to preserve the norms for mutual respect in the workplace” [11] (p. 455). One also wonders how this theme would play itself out in other areas of incivility beyond the workplace, such as the digital realm.

4.1.2. More Research Needed

Two studies flagged that more research is needed [44,206]. Both focused on the workplace. But our findings show that many studies are needed in all areas of engagement with incivility and civility. Indeed, our findings suggest that there might be no study to start with that covers disabled people in many civility/incivility areas based on phrases for incivility/incivility depicting different areas (Table A3, Appendix A). It is stated in the incivility literature outside of our relevant sources that “more non-US-centered research” is needed and that “research on biases against less commonly studied marginalized identities, including minority religious identification, immigrant status, transgender identity, disability status, language or accent” [43] (p. 257) is needed. Our findings provide evidence that not much is produced in relation to disabled people, and our relevant literature also comes mostly from US sources.

That more studies are needed is also evident based on some findings in relevant studies we covered. In one study it is argued that their findings suggest that although there was a positive impact of good workplace culture on professional fulfillment and level of burnout for gender and URM physicians but not for disabled physicians [200] and they suggested that the effect of disability on professional fulfillment and burnout “may be through different mechanisms related to environmental barriers [35] or the effort required by disabled physicians to complete work-related tasks” [200] (p. 8). This finding is just one set of data that highlights the need for more research. Because as worded, the authors suggest that it’s external factors or the deficiency of the disabled person that are the problem. The study and its interpretation raise many issues. What dynamics play themselves out internally for gender and URM physicians that are not applicable to disabled physicians? Are efforts required by disabled physicians to complete work-related tasks due to a system that adheres to irrelevant ability norms and promotes ability privilege? Given the atrocious treatment of disabled physicians by patients and physician colleagues [255], how can it be that a decrease in such toxic workplace culture has no effect on burnout or professional fulfillment, as their study found? What would be the numbers in their study for the problems listed in the quote from [255]?

To quote

“The majority of physicians with disabilities reported at least one type of mistreatment (64 percent; data not shown). Compared to nondisabled physicians, physicians with disabilities reported relatively more experiences of all types of mistreatment both from coworkers and from patients (exhibit 1). Compared with nondisabled physicians, a higher percentage of physicians with disabilities reported having received threats of physical harm from coworkers (27.6 percent versus 4.8 percent) and patients (39.9 percent versus 22.6 percent), and physicians with disabilities also more often experienced actual physical harm from coworkers (24.6 percent versus 1.8 percent) and patients (26.3 percent versus 5.3 percent). In addition, 31.3 percent of disabled physicians reported unwanted sexual advances from coworkers and 39.9 percent from patients in the previous twelve months.”

[255] (p. 1368)

How are the findings in [200] are impacted by the problem that only 3.1% of physicians identify as disabled people [256], and which disabilities are making up the 3.1%?

In another study it was found that incivility had a positive and significant relationship with mentorship and self-esteem [206] and the authors suggested that the finding might be due to

“those who experience better mentorship and have higher self-esteem are more willing to put themselves at risk in a work environment in which there is more incivility, which may be—unfortunately—frequently directed at people with ASD and their allies. It is possible that good mentorship and self-esteem may buffer people with ASD and their allies even as they experience direct negative effects from experiences of incivility.”

[206] (p. 59)

If this is the case, the question arises of how one obtains good mentorship and high self-esteem in a climate of incivility.

Disabled people often do not out themselves due to the many negative consequences linked to outing oneself. It is noted that “defensive silence (i.e., self-protective withholding of opinions and information)” [41] (p. 859) is a response by Black employees. One could label not outing oneself as a form of defensive silencing. Disabled people, who can be identified as disabled people, such as wheelchair users, cannot hide, but they also often perform defensive silencing by not disclosing their needs out of fear of stigmatization [257].

In one study, it is noted that often decisions were made by the person with ASD and their allies not to disclose the ASD, and the authors suggested that people with ASD might want to avoid jobs where they cannot be who they are, given the many benefits of being able to be who one is [206]. But that puts the burden on the disabled person, and given the already high number of disabled people who cannot find work, we suggest this is not a sustainable course of action.

Many studies link burnout to incivility [258,259,260,261,262]. At the same time, being forced to camouflage to avoid incivility and other negative treatments towards them often leads to burnout [194], such as autistic burnout [194,263]. It might be useful to ask disabled people who feel burned out what role incivility played for them in feeling burned out and what forms of uncivil treatment.

4.1.3. Making Use of Existing Incivility Scales

Many scales are used to look at different forms of incivility. For example, as to academic incivility, the epistemic exclusion scale is used to cover academic incivility, for which the authors modified various other scales, such as the workplace incivility scale and the workplace ostracism scale, and generated new questions [264]. The epistemic exclusion scale is used with the focus of formal epistemic exclusion, such as formal faculty evaluation processes, and informal epistemic exclusions that focus more on day to day informal interactions and include the denial of “a scholar’s competence, expertise, or credibility” and “by questioning the importance or impact of their work (e.g., critiquing a scholar’s work as lacking significance because of its topic)” [264] (p. 2). This study covered as demographics race and gender but not disabled people [264], adding to the epistemic exclusion of disabled people.

Many of the statements listed in Tables 3 and 4 in [264] could be used as are to cover disabled academics.

The academic incivility scale [182] is another measure that could be modified to cover more disability related language to analyze the teaching experience of disabled academics, which is an area that is seen to have problems based on the experience of teachers from other marginalized groups, but lacks data [265].

The content of instruments, such as the “workplace incivility scale” [14], the “workplace ostracism scales” [180,181], the “academic incivility scale”, the “epistemic exclusion scale” [182], and the “Clark’s everyday civility index” [56,57], could be used to ascertain incivility, and ostracism faced by disabled people.

All the existing scales used to obtain data on different forms of incivility could be modified to cover disabled people as a group and specific body/mind characteristics of disabled people by using language from the “disability inclusion scale”, the “employers’ stigmatizing attitudes toward people with disabilities scale” [266], the “symbolic ableism scale” [267], the “symbolic intersecting ableism and racism scale” [268], the “internalized ableism scale” [269], the “ableist microaggressions scale” [190,191,192], the “ableist microaggression impact questionnaire” [190,191,192,270,271], the “attitudes to disability scale” [272], and the “attitude towards disabled persons scale” [273,274].

4.1.4. Being Made Invisible

Being made invisible is a tool of incivility [275]. The academic discourse could be seen as a tool of incivility towards disabled people if one takes into account that it is suggested “to expand the levels of analysis beyond the individual” and to include “meso- and macro-level constructs such as organizational and national values” [43] (p. 257). There are many studies, like the one we presented here, that show the academic invisibility of disabled people within the context of other social groups experiencing a specific problem. That the incivility disabled people experience is so under-researched can be seen to reflect organizational and national values in the research agendas and their funding, and could be seen as epistemic exclusion [264]. It could be seen as a reflection of a problematic social climate towards disabled people, which does not look at disabled people in the same way as other marginalized groups. The epistemic exclusion of disabled academics outside of the department could be investigated by rewording many of the epistemic exclusion scale items in Tables 3 and 4 in [264] or linking them specifically to disabled people, such as “because of my scholarly focus, I cannot produce the types of scholarly products expected in my department’s evaluation standards”; “my scholarly development has been limited by my department’s narrow evaluation standards”, and “to better fit my department’s evaluation standards, others have discouraged me from publishing in the outlets (e.g., journals, presses) most favorable to my scholarly work” [264] (p. 8).

The invisibility is not limited to academic engagement. “Nothing About Us Without Us” [276,277,278,279,280,281,282] reflects the sentiment that disabled people want to be heard on topics that impact them [283,284,285,286,287,288,289,290] but think they are often ignored [289,291,292,293,294,295,296]” cited from [297] (p. 4) and could be classified as systemic cultural incivility. This invisibility might be one reason why disabled people do not see themselves as full citizens [298,299,300,301], and this invisibility is also present around the push for one’s citizens to become digital citizens without looking at the barriers disabled people face, including attitudinal barriers [297].

4.1.5. The Impact of Incivility on Identity

Studies looked at the impact of incivility on the identity of the target of the incivility [302], and it is argued that what is seen as uncivil towards others of a group depends on which group they belong to [303]. And it is stated: “selective incivility, as a modern form of discrimination, is a social embodiment of implicit values that privileges certain identities and groups over others” [43] (p. 257). For disabled people, how one is labeled is part of the identity issue and deserves much more coverage. Ability judgment-based incivilities are rampant, and with that a sense of ability identity insecurity (that one can not feel at ease with one’s set of abilities [304]. Many words depicting a given lack of ability as problematic are used for negative actions against disabled people and others. Such words allow the user to depict others as inferior and are used against disabled people and many marginalized groups [304]. Using derogatory words is part of the incivility repertoire [305].

However, there are many aspects around language beyond the blatant use of derogatory words that need attention in conjunction with incivility and disabled people. Disabled people differ vastly in how they perceive their own body/mind characteristic that classifies them as belonging to the disability community. Some see themselves as impaired, others as simply a different way of being (see deaf culture and neurodiversity, for example). The social climate and narrative, however, do privilege the deficiency/not healthy narrative of disabled people. So is it uncivil to classify a disabled person in a certain way, whether they agree with this classification or not? Is it uncivil if they are demanded to accept a negative imagery of themselves, whether they agree with it or not? We suggest that the lack of self-determination of their identity is an uncivil action, as labelling disabled people as deficient is often used to justify seeing them as inferior [50] (ableism), which in turn is often used to justify negative actions (disablism), such as incivility and ostracism towards disabled people based on seeing them as deficient, as defective due to not fitting irrelevant norms. Another example of the need for self-determination is the discussions around whether to use “disabled people” or “people with disabilities”. The use of the term “people with disabilities” is often justified by saying, “People-first language is the standard for respectfully addressing people with chronic disease, rather than labeling them by their illness” [306] (p. 1211), but its use is questioned [307]. Although the ‘People first” phrase was not created as a tool of incivility, what if one does not see oneself as ill or having a chronic disease? What if one questions the negative connotation as done within the Deaf culture and neurodiversity culture?

Then abilities expected from humans constantly change, and with that the scope of the uncivil use of ability-judgment-based words and their targets, and the very composition of who is seen to belong to the disability community. The official term “learning disability” has only existed in North America since 1968, and was coined with the meaning of neurological disorder in response to the perceived need to add new ability expectations of students in schools [308,309,310,311]. As the use of incivility is often linked to the perpetrator seeing the target as ability inferior, it seems plausible that in a world moving towards more forms of technology and genetic-based ability enhancements of the body/mind beyond the species-typical, this will lead to new ability expectation judgment-based exhibitions of incivility, including new derogative words for the ones who can not obtain or do not want to obtain the new abilities [312,313].

4.1.6. The Issue of Privilege

To call for civility is seen as a way by the privileged to keep the status quo [69] and that “willful ignorance plays in maintaining systemic privilege and oppression, and how calls for civility are demands for dominant group comfort that protect willful ignorance from challenge” [69] (p. 719). Furthermore, “selective incivility, as a modern form of discrimination, is a social embodiment of implicit values that privileges certain identities and groups over others” [43] (p. 257).

Abilities are often used to justify social hierarchies and to privilege one group over another [51]. Being seen as ability inferior; for example, the claim that some are cognitively (an ability) inferior to others [314] was and still is used to justify incivility and other forms of maltreatment [315,316]. Selective incivility is often justified by the privileged who are setting the ability norms. As such, it is essential to look at how ability-based judgments are used to justify incivility.

Interestingly, it is argued that those with “social privilege can display civility as a sign of fundamental moral respect for each and every human person, particularly for persons with less social power and privilege” [317] (p. 207). The question is what action such civility might require.

In relation to disabled people, language is often used in ways to hide the privilege. There are ways to shape language that hide actions as uncivil. For example, the term “accommodation” is often used to note, for example, that disabled people need special things and that others must go out of their way to provide them. For example, the wheelchair washroom is seen as an accommodation for the wheelchair user. However, the very washroom is an accommodation for the human physiology. The ability-privileged, in this case, the majority of “leg people”, “people with legs”, take the “accommodation” of their washroom needs as a given and do not see themselves in need of an accommodation. There are many ability-based double standards where the ability-privileged use language that puts the non-ability-privileged into the other category, with the consequence of being able to hide their uncivil actions.

4.1.7. Moving Beyond the Individual Interactions

As already mentioned, it is argued that one should expand the levels of analysis of incivility beyond the individual to include, for example, organizational and national values [43]. Social hierarchies linked to incivility are playing themselves out on micro, meso, and macro levels. We suggest one tool that allows one to identify incivility dynamics linked to social hierarchies. The BIAS FREE Framework (Building an Integrative Analytical System For Recognising and Eliminating inEquities) developed by Eichler and Burke [318,319] poses 20 questions that indicate biases that help maintain social hierarchies in three main sections: H-Maintaining and Existing Hierarchy; F-Failing to Examine Differences; and D-Using Double Standards. To expand the levels of analysis beyond the individual [43] means one should look at the linkage between incivility and disablism, which is the systemic discrimination based on being negatively ability-judged [168] happening within society on micro, meso, and macro levels. Disablism experienced within society impacts the reality within organizational settings and vice versa. If one gets away with disablism-linked incivility in an institution, one might apply the same behavior to disabled people outside of the institution. And if one gets away with disablism-linked incivility in general life actions, one might apply the same behavior to disabled people inside institutional settings. Furthermore, if one is constantly experiencing disablism and the incivility actions linked to it, many will internalize that disablism (for literature on internalized disablism, see [170,320,321,322,323,324,325] and, with that, internalize the incivility that comes with it.

If one should move to a system analysis, then many actors have to be involved in looking at the incivility disabled people experience. This aspect we aimed to ascertain with research questions 8–11, when we looked at various terms linked to important discourses such as allyship, burnout, EDI/DEI as phrases, good life, occupational rights-related terms, self-determination, social good, social norms, solidarity, stereotype, science and technology governance-related terms, well-being measures, and some indicators used in the well-being measures: OECD Better Life Index, the Canadian Index of Well-being, the Community-based Rehabilitation Matrix, and the Social Determinants of Health, that might be impacted by and impact the topics we investigated (Table A1, Appendix A). For many of these terms, the hits were low or zero. This is a problem. For example, if the equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) literature aims to make workplaces and other settings better, it needs to deal with incivility. It is interesting that one article focusing on selective incivility as discrimination in organizations was published in “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal” [43]. And it is noted that “selective incivility poses challenges for organizational practices related to equity, diversity, and inclusion” [93] (p. 2643). Disabled people in organizations face many EDI issues [265] and incivility issues; as such, the EDI discourse should engage more with the incivility disabled people experience. Allyship is an important topic for disabled people. Disabled people face so many challenges that they can not deal with them without allies. But allies might be discouraged from being allies of disabled people if they become targets of incivility and other forms of negative treatment. One can make a case that incivility impacts the topic and that the discussions of the topic impact incivility for all the words we looked at.

The lack of linkage to the science and technology governance discourses is a problem, to just give one other example. Advancements in science and technology constantly change how we judge each other as humans, and as such, new forms of incivility appear. Advancements in science and technology also enable new forms of incivility, such as cyber, digital, and online incivility [27,28,29,30], including selective cyber incivility [326]. People at the receiving end of cyber mistreatment, such as cyber incivility and cyber aggression, often feel powerless to make it stop [28]. At the same time, techno-solutions are proposed to fix the problem [141], although problems are noted [30,142]. For disabled people, it is problematic that AI is proposed as a tool to decrease incivility or to govern incivility, given the bias AI has towards disabled people based on the biased information it has access to [327,328].

4.2. Climate Surveys

Climate surveys are an important tool for disabled people, given the many ‘climate’ issues they face. Within the 22 sources and the 12 downloaded full texts, we found no source that engaged with an evaluation of climate surveys besides saying that data is missing. Eight sources gave data stating that disabled people are more impacted than others [237,238,239,240,241,242,244,247]. Four of our sources made the case that more climate data related to disabled people is needed [241,243,329,330]. Indeed, beyond academic literature engaging with climate surveys, when we searched Google and Google Scholar for the phrase “disability climate survey”, we found only one survey, namely the “UIC disability climate survey” from the University of Illinois at Chicago [129]. This UIC disability climate survey from 2018 noted that “general surveys of campus climate have included a few items about disability, the items have not been substantive or comprehensive” [129] (p. 17). A similar takeaway was also reported in [331]. Looking at climate surveys we found through Google, we found a few that covered disabled people as part of a general climate survey, but the quality of these surveys is vastly different. The data and design of the questions that covered disabled people raise many questions in need of critical analysis. As such, it is problematic that we found such a lack of academic engagement with climate surveys through the lens of disabled people.

The designs of disability climate surveys and general surveys that cover disabled people need to be informed by deep knowledge of the lived reality of disabled people and to be academically up to speed on discussions within disability studies. Various pitfalls in the design of survey questions might pose problems specific to disabled people.

For example, microaggressions have not only been linked to incivility but also to bad social climates and play themselves out in unique ways around disabled people, such as ableist microaggressions [183,184,185,186,187,188,189]. We already mentioned many instruments that could be employed to modify various incivility scales. The same instruments could be used and built into climate surveys to generate content informed by the lived reality of disabled people [190,191,192,266,267,268,269,270,271,272,273,274,332,333].

In the remainder of the discussion of the climate survey literature we covered, we highlight missed topics and areas that need critical engagement to generate surveys that are useful for disabled people and for policy initiatives, such as “equity, diversity, and inclusion” that aim to improve the situation of disabled people within universities and other workplaces. For this, we make use of some existing climate surveys we accessed through Google Scholar [54,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137], including the only one we found that was a climate survey specifically for disabled people, the “UIC disability climate survey” [129].

4.2.1. The Issue of Language

The discussion around the very term “disability” has a long history and is ongoing. And disabled people differ in their views depending on, for example, their history and their body/mind reality, which adds them to the classification of disability.

To give the quote from the UIC disability climate survey [129], the only source we could find that highlights the issue of language to some extent.

“1We acknowledge that using person first (e.g., people with disabilities) or identity-first (e.g., disabled people) language is a continuous and contentious debate in the disability community and beyond. The Survey Subcommittee of CCSPD decided to use identity-first language with the exception of names and titles (e.g., Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities). We made this decision because we are subscribing to a minority and social model of disability rather than a psychological/medical one. The minority model centers power differentials between the dominant and minority groups; disabled people form an oppressed group like any other oppressed group (i.e., racial minorities; Goodley, 2014). It is actually the largest minority group in the United States. From this model, the label ‘disabled’ is not pejorative, but actually denotes an identity and culture of which one should be proud. Thus, identity-first language promotes the construction of positive disabled identities and highlights disability culture, which promotes connection, shared consciousness, struggles, and purpose among the diverse range of disabled people. In addition, identity- first language highlights the ways in which a person is disabled by society; it denotes that disability is a function of social and political experiences taking place in a world arranged largely for non-disabled people. We acknowledge that disability is also an individual experience and that the extent to which disabled people identify themselves with disability culture varies according to their own disability identity development. For a further discussion on this topic read Brueggemann, 2013; Davis, 2013; Dunn & Andrews, 2015; Gill, 1997; Goodley, 2011; Longmore, 2003; Shapiro, 1994).”

[129] (pp. 1–2)

We agree with the sentiment in [129]. However, we suggest this is not enough. In order to give disabled people self-determination over their identity, demographic questions around disability have to be more differentiated than offering “person with a disability” and “disabled person” as options. The term “disability” is used for two different discourses: one that defines the body/mind and the other that defines the origin of the disablement.

For the first area of how they see their body/mind that differs from the ability norm, disabled people have two options: they can see it (a) as an impairment/defect, or (b) as a variation of being. Then there is the second area, which is about where they see the disablement they experience originating from. For that, they have three options: (a) their body/mind characteristic, (b) how they are treated by society, or (c) both. What is chosen from the above options differs between groups of disabled people and every individual disabled person. Then a disabled person can have many different body/mind differences, and each of them might be seen by the person differently. For some, they might use the divergent label, for others, the impairment label.

So a good demographic section has to give the option for how the participant classifies their body/mind, and for where they see their disablement originating from.

Another problematic use of language that showed up recently is that demographic sections of surveys and documents start to offer neurodiverse/neurodivergent as a term, but leave otherwise disability as a term with the assumption of impairment [136] (the same with the class 4–6 survey). This sets a social hierarchy among disabled people where one group obtains the diverse/divergent label and others are stuck with the impairment label. If neurodiverse/neurodivergent is offered as a demographic option, as it should be, then that demographic section also has to offer, for example, mobility/sensory/auditory/cognitive/psychological diversity/divergence as options [170].

In a recent study and teaching suggestion on the intersectionality of disabled people, survey questions that allow disabled people to give a differentiated picture of how they see themselves are proposed [168,170]. A recent chatbotting exercise [334], specifically engaged on its first 100 pages of chatbot output, with what chatbots would offer as “disability” demographic options in surveys. For a climate survey, one would have to add all the options to give the person self-determination about their identity.

4.2.2. The Issue of Disclosure

The issue of wording is not an academic exercise, but an essential aspect of the climate disabled people experience. Wordings are often linked to perceptions. The UIC survey, for example, found that

“Most respondents do not feel comfortable disclosing disability to anyone at UIC. Disabled staff were the least likely to report that they feel comfortable disclosing their disability” with “the most frequent reasons for not disclosing disability were “not wanting to be treated differently” (45.3%), followed by fear of discrimination (36.3%)” [129] (p. 12), fear of stigma and because they “struggled with internalized ableism, and admitted shame or embarrassment about their disability [129] (p. 51) and the “high risk of being doubted [129] (p. 53) and “due to this lack of understanding and empathy, disclosure became a source of emotional labor and a forced violation of privacy.”

[129] (p. 54)

In another survey, 63% classified under disability agreed to “I feel like I need to hide some aspects of my identity to fit in”, with the number for racialized being 65% and overall 45% [134].

Burnout due to masking and camouflaging who one is, is a well-known problem for many disabled people [194]. However, none of the other surveys we found online covered the issue of disclosure of one’s identity, and none of the climate survey sources engaged with this issue.

4.2.3. The Issue of How Many Disabled People There Are

How many disabled people are there? This question seems to be simple, but it is far from being simple. For example, it is stated that 27% of people in Canada were disabled in 2022, and the numbers for the different disability categories were: pain-related (61.8%), flexibility (40.3), mobility (39.2%), mental health-related (38.6%), seeing (27.4%), learning (20.7%), hearing (20.7%), dexterity (18.4%), memory (18.2%), developmental (5.7%) and unknown 2.86% [335]. The numbers for youth were the following: 20% had a disability in general, and the top three categories were mental health-related (68%), learning (46%), and pain-related (34%) [335].

However, if one looks at the numbers given by organizations in Canada linked to a specific disability, the number of 27% for disabilities in general and, for that matter, 20% for youth seems to be low. For example, the prevalence of diabetes among Canadian adults aged 20 to 79 is given as 9% by Statistics Canada [336], and according to Diabetes Canada, 30% live with diabetes or prediabetes and 10% live with diagnosed diabetes [337]. Eight million Canadians, so around 23%, are reported to live with chronic pain, and 20% of youth and children [338]. In 2023, 26% of respondents aged 16 to 21 years rated their mental health as low or fair [339]. “According to the International Dyslexia Association, 10–20% of the population has a language-based learning disability” [340]. These are just four items that fall under disability. If one tallies up every characteristic that falls under “disability” in climate surveys when they look for different categories of disabilities, we argue that the numbers will be so high that one could say that 70–80% of people covered by climate surveys fit the disability demographics. However, we found no source in our study that critically examined the percentage numbers assumed.

4.2.4. How Many Are There According to the Surveys

Few of the surveys we found gave disability related demographic numbers, and the numbers we found varied widely: 6.28% were reported for disability in general, and 5.84% did not want to say [135]; one that only focused on students gave the number of 11.7% [134]. One that gave sub numbers (N = 2880) “G6. Do you have any of the following diagnosed disabilities or conditions? (Mark all that apply.)”, reported 8.1% ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), 0.8% autism spectrum disorder, 1.6% blind/low vision, 0.9% brain injury, 2.8% chronic health, 0.7% deaf/hard of hearing, 1.4% cognitive/learning disability, 1.2% orthopedic/mobility disability, 20.1% mental health and 6.3% prefer not to answer [137], which suggests that over 30% fall under the disability category. According to the Student Experience at the Research University (SERU) survey as reported in the “SERU dataset, 17.7% of undergraduate students at large, public research universities have (or perceive themselves to have) some form of disability” [55] (p. 132), which the authors see to be in sync with the CDC rates of 15.6% of younger adults [55], although we suggest that the same issue we outlined for Canadian numbers applies. The authors highlighted further from the dataset that “Across all SERU institutions, 1.0% of respondents reported having a physical disability, 3.30% indicated they have a learning disability, 8.1% reported having a psychological condition, and 3.2% of students reported experiencing multiple disabilities” [55] (p. 133). And the authors stated further, “Considering only students reporting a disability, more than 72% claim a psychological condition either alone (52.5%) or in combination. This compares with 40% reporting a learning disability (21.3% for learning disability only) and 11.2% reporting a physical disability either alone (5.4%) or in combination. Among the several institutions, among those reporting having at least one disability, the rate of physical disability ranges from 4.7 to 11.3%, learning disabilities occur from 17.0 to 45.2%, and psychological conditions range from 47.4 to 76.4%” [55] (p. 133). So the overall disability numbers are even below what the societal numbers are, according to Statistics Canada and other sources, which we argued are too low to start with.

Then, most surveys we could see online with results clearly focused on disabled students. The ones that also covered disabled staff and disabled faculty showed that their participation rate is much lower. For example, “The majority (65.9%) of respondents were disabled students. Disabled staff contributed in larger numbers than disabled faculty at 24.1% and 9.7% respectively” [129] (p. 9). Studies could have engaged with the problem of numbers and response rates and investigated the best way to obtain numbers that are actually based in reality, and suggested that disabled people answered the survey. That, for example, the response rate went down from disabled students to disabled staff to disabled faculty could indicate that staff and faculty felt they had too much to lose. It would also be interesting to see how many and which “disabilities” one can hide, so as not to disclose, on which level, job-wise, and how the climate survey answers would differ for these two groups.

4.2.5. Acceptance for Who One Is

Being accepted is an important part of belonging. Therefore, we decided to give some data from online surveys we found. One survey asked, “Are you comfortable being yourself in class? The results recorded were”, and “13% reported that they had experienced being singled out in class because of their identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, or religious or spiritual affiliation). Twenty-seven percent of students who completed the survey reported hearing faculty members or instructors express stereotypes based on identity” [134] (p. 25). They also reported, “A lack of closeness and connectedness was cited as one of the main reasons why 21% of students who completed the survey said they had seriously considered leaving the school. This concern was more pronounced among nonbinary, Two Spirit, and students with disabilities. Forty percent of non-binary or Two Spirit students and 36% of students with a disability who completed the survey said they had seriously considered leaving school” [134] (p. 27). At the same time, they asked, “How comfortable are you with people different from yourself?”, but did not give results for disabled people [134].

A North Carolina State University survey from 2019 [137] asked, “The following question asks about different types of interactions you might have had with various students at NC State. Please check the box for each interaction you know you have had in the past year (or since you have been enrolled [as a graduate student] at NC State if less than that)” The options were, “Yes—Had a meaningful conversation; Yes—Hung out together with a small group of friends; Yes—Were room/suite/housemates; Yes—Worked together outside of class on a class project/assignment or on a research team” [137]. The answers given by undergraduate students (PDF called undergraduate student) [137] covered race/ethnicity, social/economic background, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, primary language, transgender, and disability. For disabilities different from the person answering, the percentages were 39.7%, 26.5%, 8.0% and 20.5%. With that, the disability options generated the second lowest score, whereby lower means there is a problem. Beyond that the result is problematic, here one would also need to know (a) the disability and (b) the reason. Is it so low because they never meet one? As many disabled people do not out themselves for a few of these four options, the person might not even know. The numbers for graduate students were similar (see PDF called Graduate Students) [137]. One survey using the question “Thinking about UofL as an institution, rate how socially integrated various groups are at Uof”, the answer “very integrated” was one of the lowest for disability [135]. The “yes” for “accommodation and accessibility for disability” were also below 50% [135]. One study covering the Student Experience at the Research University (SERU) survey reported for the question “I feel valued as an individual at this campus” that 45.4% of non-disabled students responded with either of the top two response options (“Agree” or “Strongly Agree”) but only 32.1% of students with a disability responded with those same positive responses and students with a disability reported a significantly lower value for the measure of campus climate [55] (p. 135). For the question “Students with a disability like mine are respected on this campus,” of the 36,946 responses, 69.6% agreed for “no disability”, 49.7% for physical disability, 57.0% for learning disability, 37.4% for psychological disability, and 32.8% for multiple disabilities [55] (p. 138).

Given these answers, many academic studies could have been done to fine-tune these questions but also to question the many online surveys about disabled people that do not cover this topic and to question that these questions see disabled people as a homogeneous group, whereby people related to different “disabilities” in different ways.

4.2.6. From Incivility to Harassment

Harassment was covered in many surveys. In some cases, it’s about gender harassment, harassment based on sexual orientation, and racial/ethnic harassment, but the same given survey did not ask about harassment against disabled people (e.g., [135]). For surveys that also covered disabled people, we found: One survey asking, “Has anyone shunned, ignored, or intimidated you, or acted directly or indirectly toward you or your community in an offensive or hostile manner?” found a yes answer of 47% for Non-Binary or Two Spirit, 32% for Black, and 31% for Disability, with a 17% overall [134] (p. 17). And on another webpage covering their survey results, it was stated, “Yet, concerns emerged when we combined the rates of some of these categories: 38% of disabled faculty, 34% of disabled staff, and 33% of disabled students have experienced a moderate, a lot, or a great deal of discrimination” [129] (pp. 58–59).

However, the questions around discrimination and harassment are very general for the surveys we found. Options were not given that could have covered the forms of incivility and ostracism and bullying and the many different forms of harassment beyond sexual harassment. And the surveys did not segregate the answers for the type of “disability”. One survey asked many questions around bullying, harassment, aspects of incivility (without using the term), and how one perceives one’s situation (valued, can do my job…) [135] (pp. 19–42). Unfortunately, none of these questions are reported segregated by who the participants are. Studies come up with many items on incivility [96,103]. All these items in [96,103], which could have been used also in relation to disabled people [96,103], were not used to cover disabled people. For example, in [96], many items linked to bullying, harassment, assault, civility and psychological safety are given in an XLSX supplementary file, but the results did not cover disabled people.

4.2.7. Intersectionality

With respect to intersectionalities, one study segregated numbers: 22% of student participants with disabilities also identified as being racialized, and 38% of students with disabilities identified as non-hetero/non-straight [134]. But in general, intersectional identities, including “disabilities”, are not covered, something else academic evaluations of climate surveys could have flagged.

4.2.8. Outside Influence

None of the literature we found and none of the survey questions in the surveys cover outside influences. In a study focusing on incivility, it is argued “to expand the levels of analysis beyond the individual. By including meso- and macro-level constructs such as organizational and national values in analyses” [43] (p. 257). For example, if the national funding system is biased towards certain research questions covering disabled people, that would have an impact on their workplace and would be a challenge for action of the institution. Or if a disabled person is constantly experiencing systemic discrimination based on being negatively ability-judged (disablism) outside an institution, that must have an impact on the climate within the institution. But none of the surveys looked at the outside influence also work-life balance is an established organizational concept.

5. Conclusions

The existing non-disability-focused academic literature clearly outlines the importance of engaging with the topic of incivility, civility, and ostracism not only on the interpersonal level but also on the level of societies as a whole and on the level of subgroups. It shows the danger of using concepts such as civility and incivility against, for example, marginalized groups and the importance of covering the impact of incivility on the social climate and vice versa. The long and differentiated academic engagement with civility and incivility also suggests that social climate surveys have an important role to play if done right to produce evidence on the problem of incivility, and ostracism in all their facets.

Disabled people are one marginalized group impacted by all aspects of incivility, and ostracism covered in the academic literature and should be included in the academic inquiries focusing on climate surveys, incivility, civility, and ostracism. That our empirical evidence shows that this is not the case is a problem that must be fixed. But one wonders why this gap exists. Is it because the systemic problems disabled people experience, as highlighted by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [10], led to a social climate within and outside of academia that decreased the interest and feasibility of researching topics in relation to disabled people, such as the one we focused on? There are many topics one would expect to be investigated academically in conjunction with the social reality of disabled people but are not. Indeed, it’s a long-time critique that data on the social reality of disabled people are not produced [10,341,342,343,344]. That our topic was also not covered by disability studies related journals, degrees, and scholars suggests that there are some systemic issues that influence this production in a negative way.

However, the missing data should be produced by all academic disciplines and research areas that already cover incivility, civility, ostracism, and climate surveys. This should also be done especially in discussions of topics that have as a focus to make the social environment better or to prevent a worsening of the social environment (e.g., equity, diversity, and inclusion discussions; science and technology governance discussions; social determinants of health and well-being discussions).

Research studies are needed on the theoretical, lived experience, policy, and practical level, and the diversity of gaps we found suggests the usefulness of many different studies.

For example, one can take the 111 indicators of the four composite well-being measures (OECD Better Life Index, the Canadian Index of Well-being, the Community-based Rehabilitation Matrix and the Social Determinants of Health) to investigate how incivility, civility and ostracism are seen to impact any of the indicators. This can be done for disabled people in general, for different body/mind realities covered under disability, and for different disability identities intersecting with other marginalized identities or lived realities. This approach was already used by asking about the impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning on a given indicator [345], framing it as indicators of the ability to have a good life, fitting with the narrative of “AI for good” and “AI for social good”. The same could be done using different intersectionalities, like it’s done in [346], where the impact of belonging to another marginalized group on top of being a disabled person/person with a disability was asked for, for each of the indicators.

Then one could use the 154 action items of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [170] to ask participants about these action items through the lens of incivility and ostracism.

One could use the BIAS FREE Framework [318,319] as a tool to link incivility, civility, and ostracism to the problem of social hierarchies and to societal values.

We used in our study concepts linked to ability judgments, and we mentioned the importance of achieving ability justice. The ability-judgments-based concepts could be used to enrich the theoretical and practical discourse around civility, incivility, and ostracism, not only in conjunction with disabled people but in general, as ability judgments, and the need for “ability justice” (short for “ability judgment justice”, for “ability expectation and ableism justice”), is a general cultural reality (see, for example, sexism justified by claiming wrongly that women do not have the ability to be rational, or other ability judgments used to justify other negative isms [48,304]). Furthermore, what we see as needed abilities constantly changes. The very process of whose ability judgments counts is a power by itself and is shaped by the powerful [48,49,173].

To give you a quote from the 2003 computer game DEUS EX Invisible Wars, which has human enhancement as one tool to move the storyline.

Conversation between Alex D and Paul Denton

Paul Denton: If you want to even out the social order, you have to change the nature of power itself. Right? And what creates power? Wealth, physical strength, legislation—maybe—but none of those is the root principle of power.

Alex D: I’m listening.

Paul Denton: Ability is the ideal that drives the modern state. It’s a synonym for one’s worth, one’s social reach, one’s “election,” in the Biblical sense, and it’s the ideal that needs to be changed if people are to begin living as equals.

Alex D: And you think you can equalise humanity with biomodification?

Paul Denton: The commodification of ability—tuition, of course, but, increasingly, genetic treatments, cybernetic protocols, now biomods—has had the side effect of creating a self-perpetuating aristocracy in all advanced societies. When ability becomes a public resource, what will distinguish people will be what they do with it. Intention. Dedication. Integrity. The qualities we would choose as the bedrock of the social order. (Deus Ex: Invisible War) [347].

Our study also has educational implications. All the above studies, we suggest, could be performed with students as pass/fail survey assignments, and the very answers could be used as part of teaching about incivility, civility, and ostracism by discussing the answers the class gave in the survey. Using the ability judgment framing would be a useful educational tool, as it can be used to show that everyone can be at the receiving end of incivility based on being negatively ability-judged. It allows also to look down the road for potential new ways of and areas for incivility, for example, enabled by science and technology advancements. Such strategies would be of use in many courses but in particular in courses that are linked to citizenship education, inclusive pedagogy [348,349,350], intersectional pedagogy [170,351,352], disability studies, and any other course that has as a premise that students are social change agents, such as in science and society programs [353].

As to policy implications, the lack of data we identified suggests that policy makers have a problem informing themselves on the realities and what to do, and filling the gaps we found and generating instruments to fill the data gap will allow policy makers to make better decisions.