Name: Victoria Seitz

Social Justice Group: Disabilities: Access to Education for Neurodiversity (A)

Date of Fieldwork: January 7, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Allison Isbell

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

Walter and I first walked into the room, which felt very welcoming. We first sat down and pressed record. Using the prepared questions it felt easier to be able to listen to Allison and gather information. I found it really interesting how social media came up a lot during the conversation. It made me think on my own how social media may actually be a rising factor in mental illnesses such as depression. It has already been shown how seeing a friend on the phone versus in person is very different.

When we asked Allison about how COVID impacted our topic it started making a lot of sense how mental illnesses uprised during that time. To the fact a lot of people felt lonely, which was understandable because at that point children didn’t even have the chance to be social at school. I really enjoyed and appreciated this interview as it was very helpful and Allison even recommended another person to the interview! He’s a professor and author named Jonathan Haidt which will hopefully be another interview coming soon!