From access to inclusion: a call for a cultural shift in higher education

Abstract

This study explores accessibility barriers in higher education (HE), by centering the voices of 50 disabled students. Drawing on the frameworks of critical disability studies (CDS) and in particular disability justice, we argue that access without belonging is not enough; disabled students need to be fully included in institutional life. Weaving these two frames allows us to simultaneously examine individual experiences and the impacts of systemic ableism within institutions and social structures. From the standpoint that all people have strengths, knowledges, challenges, and barriers and that accessibility and disability are constructed, we examine whose bodies and knowledges are included, whose bodies and knowledges are excluded, and whose bodies and knowledges are dependent on institutional approval and accommodations to be included. We see the participants as knowledge holders, whose experiences give them a perspective that might be hidden from those who design and run HE institutions. This is reflected in the structure of the paper in which, after each section that identifies barriers to access, the participants share their ideas and suggestions. We focus on four main issues of access to (1) receiving and (2) implementing accommodations, (3) physical accommodation, and (4) pedagogy and curricula. This study argues that it is not enough to grant disabled students access to HE by providing limited academic accommodation; rather, it is necessary to listen to disabled students to re-imagine all facets of HE with inclusion in mind.