{"title":"Negotiating access and belonging in a higher education institution: a postqualitative narrative","authors":"Ben Whitburn, Priscila Riffo-Salgado","doi":"10.1007/s10734-024-01263-5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The purpose of this paper is to foreground accessibility as a necessary aspect of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). We go about this by highlighting shared experiences of negotiating institutional ableism together, as a disabled scholar employed at a HEI in the UK, and a non-disabled, culturally and linguistically diverse individual employed to bridge inaccessible spaces. Drawing upon Wong’s (2023) conceptual framework of spatial belonging in higher education, which traverses the intersecting terrain of physical, digital, relational and structural spaces, we develop a postqualitative narrative demonstrating the limitations of narrowly defined legal protections that fall short of implementing inclusive ideals. The narrative draws attention to the ways that ‘access intimacy’, understood as shared commitments to accessibility, develops informally, which excuses HEIs from taking responsibility to institutionalise it. We contemplate accessibility as a relational concern and build an argument for learning from our experiences to inform the development of key accessibility considerations into institutional ways of working and relating to difference. The paper is significant for engaging principles from critical disability studies as conceptual means by which to consider accessibility, and the relational account provided contributes a collaborative perspective frequently experienced but not widely considered in higher education research for strengthening EDI.</p>","PeriodicalId":48383,"journal":{"name":"Higher Education","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Higher Education","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01263-5","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to foreground accessibility as a necessary aspect of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). We go about this by highlighting shared experiences of negotiating institutional ableism together, as a disabled scholar employed at a HEI in the UK, and a non-disabled, culturally and linguistically diverse individual employed to bridge inaccessible spaces. Drawing upon Wong’s (2023) conceptual framework of spatial belonging in higher education, which traverses the intersecting terrain of physical, digital, relational and structural spaces, we develop a postqualitative narrative demonstrating the limitations of narrowly defined legal protections that fall short of implementing inclusive ideals. The narrative draws attention to the ways that ‘access intimacy’, understood as shared commitments to accessibility, develops informally, which excuses HEIs from taking responsibility to institutionalise it. We contemplate accessibility as a relational concern and build an argument for learning from our experiences to inform the development of key accessibility considerations into institutional ways of working and relating to difference. The paper is significant for engaging principles from critical disability studies as conceptual means by which to consider accessibility, and the relational account provided contributes a collaborative perspective frequently experienced but not widely considered in higher education research for strengthening EDI.
期刊介绍:
Higher Education is recognised as the leading international journal of Higher Education studies, publishing twelve separate numbers each year. Since its establishment in 1972, Higher Education has followed educational developments throughout the world in universities, polytechnics, colleges, and vocational and education institutions. It has actively endeavoured to report on developments in both public and private Higher Education sectors. Contributions have come from leading scholars from different countries while articles have tackled the problems of teachers as well as students, and of planners as well as administrators.
While each Higher Education system has its own distinctive features, common problems and issues are shared internationally by researchers, teachers and institutional leaders. Higher Education offers opportunities for exchange of research results, experience and insights, and provides a forum for ongoing discussion between experts.
Higher Education publishes authoritative overview articles, comparative studies and analyses of particular problems or issues. All contributions are peer reviewed.