The Cobblestone Path to and within HE for Disabled Students and Staff
Despite the advances in made in recent years to open access and participation in higher education (HE) to marginalised groups, disabled people are still under-represented (Sheridan & Kotevski, 2014). HE has opened to students with disabilities (SWD) but they carry much of the responsibility to carve a path to a positive experience in HE. Ahead of SWD lies a cobblestone path. The stones uneven, giving lack of continuity of how best to navigate HE. The gaps between these stones then too often stunt the HE journeys. Gaps in knowledge amongst staff, and SWD themselves, and more importantly, HE practices and policy. SWD become stuck navigating through these, meaning they may not get to the degree they are aiming for. Regarding disabled staff in HE, the path into and through HE is somehow more arduous. This has caused the potentially well-intentioned actions of non-disabled staff to translate into misguided attempts that ultimately make HE less open for both disabled staff and students.
Disabled Students
In recent years, we have seen an increase in students identifying as being disabled. In the UK, since 2014/15 there was a 47% increase in students who reported a disability. This reflects the progress made on a societal level to reduce the stigma around being disabled. With the increase of SWD in HE, there will also be an increase in students seeking accommodations, or reasonable adjustments, to aid their learning HE.
However, some research has taken a critical approach to this increase and suggest that there is a Matthew effect at play; meaning that the ones who require the most support, are least likely to receive it. Weis and Bittner (2022) analysed the aftermath of the implementation of various disability acts in America. They dissected the increased percentages of SWD with accommodations in HE, that seemingly arose after the acts were introduced. In community colleges, access to accommodations remained significantly lower (2.7%-3.6%) than that of elite institutions (3.9%-15.3%). This correlational relationship implies that mainly wealthy students benefitted from these new laws. One of the main explanations for this was that wealthy students in America have enough “cultural capital” (knowledge that accommodations are available), “social capital” (a network that encourages accommodations to be sought out), and “economic capital” to pay for supporting documentation. All of which strengthens their case for accommodations (Weis & Bittner, 2022). This concept of ‘capital’ being influential in accommodation acquisition for SWD, spotlights the intersectionality that occurs during this process and how this can affect how SWD navigate their journey in HE. SWD will enrol to HE without any prior knowledge, experience, or documentation of having a disability. According to the Disability Advisory and Support Service (DASS) website for the University of Manchester, over 19% of students are disabled. These numbers might not be accurate as many could be undiagnosed or are not disclosed. Subsequently there could be a larger demographic of SWD who are trying to navigate their own disability, which is possibly unknown to themselves, within the foreign environment of HE.
Non-disabled people tend to believe that once SWD are registered with disability services, accommodations are met with ease, staff are always understanding or at least endeavour to do so, and their path through HE is automatically more comfortable. Huang et al. (2022) discovered that autistic students tend not to disclose their disability with their education provider; due to the belief that disclosure would not improve their situation, and instead it would invite prejudice. Similarly, Sniatecki et al. (2015) found that HE staff tend to have negative attitudes towards students with learning disabilities than physical ones. From this, we can discern that even those with formal diagnoses may not engage with disability services to gain the equitable experience of HE that they are legally allowed to have. SWD are often invited into institutions such as HE, only for their journey to be jarred by inadequate systems, and hair-splitting processes that rely on excessive self-advocacy; which only provide flimsy protections and potentially invite discrimination that will further complicate their journey (Young, 2023). All of this will accompany the same difficult time management among assignments and learning that non-SWD face, as well as SWD’s own challenges that their disability will bring them.
Nevertheless, SWD who choose not to disclose their disability to avoid prejudice, still risk being mistreated if their disability/conditions are not registered with disability service. There is an expectation that SWD should “fill in the form” and “declare their status” to fully access HE. This is concerning when you consider the attitude towards divergent behaviour that runs rampant within HE. This medium article demonstrates this by claiming that a staff member’s combative behaviour to a SWD using a laptop would not have occurred if their disability was registered. This is a harmful notion as it seemingly justifies any harmful behaviour made by staff towards students who do not fit into the “norms”, as simple ignorance. Focus should shift from SWD being registered, to creating an inclusive HE environment that disabled people can both access and participate in. For instance, not allowing the academic to ban laptops, or running a hybrid classroom that would allow students who need laptops to do so in their own space.
Gaps in HE practices.
This is by no means a call to abolish disability services in HE or remove the processes altogether. Instead, it is a call to implement effective practice to support SWD fully. HE needs to go beyond the bare minimum. This includes but is not limited to applying universal design (UD) into HE practices creating an inclusive curriculum. UD is the concept that there should be multiple ways in which students can interact with HE that suits their needs and their lifestyle. Research (Collins, Azmat & Rentschler, 2019; Bunsbury, 2020; Weis & Bittner, 2022) supports the implementation of UD in HE, and suggest that it can remove the process of asking for reasonable adjustments for many SWD. Weis and Bittner (2022) push further to say that there should universal access to accommodations; particularly during the exam season in HE.
More open and inclusive practices that require no prior processing should be introduced and made the norm in HE. Currently, specialist software to assist SWD is only available to download unless a lengthy process of being registered to DASS, and sometimes with the government. One of these practices could be enabling assistive software on exam desktops (e.g., ScreenRuler/Claroview) by default. Similar to the Curb Cut effect, when added by default, anyone who needs the assistive software will have access to them, removing the administrative burden and reliance on professional service staff in HE. This will account for SWD that emerged or became diagnosed during the process of acquiring a degree, not before. Thus, removing the strain on the student to be registered with DASS and advocate for such accommodations before the exam period starts. Within my role, I have seen it too many times where a student has turned up to their exam, only to find that the assistive software that they are entitled to, is not available on the exam account students are required to use to log onto the exam computer. Behind the scenes there is a fumble to see whether the student is registered with DASS and are “entitled” to have access to such software. Then a scramble as to whether our team were made aware so the accommodations could be put in place. In essence, a blame game. It seems to me that in HE, we would rather gatekeep assistive software to risk SWD not having access to their disability aids under the notion of “equality and fairness” in procedures, than allow SWDs who “did not fill the form in time” to access to them. This lack of acknowledgement to students’ conditions changing during their degree and expecting students to navigate their studies alongside learning the complicated processes of registering to disability services makes HE less open for participation for SWD.
Gaps in Policy
Going further than UD, comprehensive policies detailing what inclusive support is are needed to create an open HE environment that SWD can fully interact. Vague policy fails to translate into meaningful action that offers authentic accessibility to the people it is all supposedly for. For example, the National Autistic Society gives detailed examples of different types of discrimination, one of which includes deciding to exclude an autistic student from an activity as the staff decide that the student will not reap much benefit from the activity. While this example involves autism, it can also be applied to any disability. This highlights the need for comprehensive policy as this could be a well-intentioned act, but ultimately leads to social exclusion for SWD and thus ableism (Campbell, 2012).
Having comprehensive policy means there needs to be staff who are engaged with such issues to understand the complexities of how disabilities can present in people, but also what could alleviate issues they face. One way this could be address is by utilising disabled staff within HE to give insights. However, this may be more difficult than we anticipate.
Disabled Staff
Research does mention how most staff who work in disability services tend to be White and highly educated (Weis & Bittner, 2022). This could be because of a lack of access for disabled staff members to work in such institutions. This medium article documents the poster’s experience with being interviewed at multiple universities, and how each university responded to accommodations their physical disabilities required for an equitable interview experience. Whilst they ended up in a supportive workplace, this highlights the discrepancy between what are effective accommodations, and what translates into practice to those receiving them. The only people who have these valuable insights, are disabled people themselves. Which increases the urgency to introduce efforts to hire disabled staff.
Even when disabled staff are hired, UNISON HE delegates at the 2023 National HE Conference state that they tend to be in lower grade positions; thus likely to not be able to influence or enforce new practices. This phenomenon is referenced by Brewster, Duncan, Emira and Clifford (2017) whereby there is a “paradox of relying on leadership to deliver diversity”, or in this case equitable experience of HE, “when leaders tend to come from homogenous backgrounds”. Of course, there are some universities which have staff from “homogenous backgrounds” that are committed to ensuring open access for disabled staff and students. This piece by no means is trying to discredit their work. The goal of highlighting this is to direct attention to how experiences of disabled students could be improved by addressing difficulties disabled staff face during their access and participation within HE.
UNISON HE delegates also assert even when disabled staff do progress, “they reach plateau and do not progress at the same rate as their non-disabled counterparts”. Lack of upward mobility for disabled staff members could be due to a lack of accommodations being made by HE institutions (HEI). Olsen, Jason et al. (2020) documents disabled staff accounts of their experiences HEI, who attest that HEI adopts a neoliberal ethos which tends to view people as “earners” or “costers”. Disabled staff are viewed as “costers” due to the amount of investment required to integrate them into the HE workplace. This leaves disabled staff being viewed as a burden rather than an asset to the organisation. Additionally, these accommodations tend to be seen to deal with a staff member’s inability to do work, rather than a way to cope with their impairment(s) which prevents them from carrying out the work in a socially acceptable way (Stone, Crooks, & Owens, 2013).
Expectations of HE staffs continue to remain ableist, despite progressions made to try to accommodate for all students no matter their background. Saltes (2020) demonstrates this by examining the experience of graduate students within HE. They argue more emphasis in HE literature and practice has been placed on ensuring the diverse needs of the growing student population are met. Graduate students hold a dual role within HE of student and teacher, completing research whilst teaching students themselves. They found there was more confusion on how to obtain disability accommodations as a teacher, and little to no institutional support offered to assist with the transition from student to teacher. In their journey to become an educator and contributor to HE, disabled graduate students fall through the cracks and often must turn back or remain stuck between the cobblestones. Linking back to the “costers” and “earners” analogy that Olsen, Jason et al. (2020) referenced, students are viewed as “earners” by default in HE institutions, because “they pay tuition” (Olsen, Jason et al., 2020). The architecture within HE is still being ran and controlled by those from homogenous backgrounds, who, if not prejudiced, may not have a deep enough understanding of how to holistically create an open environment that disabled people can both access and participate in.
Conclusions
All in all, openness within HE systems for disabled people is incredibly complex. Reality of disclosing or being open about a disability diagnosis may outweigh the benefits of the little support that could be offered promptly to improve the experience of HE. This muddies the water for the position the university takes in offering accommodations, and usually the stance of “it should be raised with DASS, and they can take it from there” is adopted. This attitude is arguably like a disbarment. It removes the responsibility of everyone in the organisation to create an inclusive space where opportunities to interact and contribute are as open as possible for everyone. Dolmage (2017) make a compelling observation about how accommodations for disabled people are often met with a “loss” mentality, when it highlights how “nothing has ever been designed to be accessible”, including HE. I feel sometimes it is only staff members who either personally tackle these difficulties or know someone who does, that endeavour to create those spaces effectively. Even then, without central documentation and policy, it is hard to funnel this into widespread practice.
This is why I chose the analogy of a cobbled stone path to describe the experience of being a disabled within HE. While it is not impossible for a wheelchair to navigate across cobbled stones, it’s takes considerably more effort and pushing from the user, and can sometimes end up with the user being frustrated if they attempt to move too quickly. Although it can be understood that accommodations should be given to those who absolutely require it, it seems that in HE it is acceptable to risk the inclusion of disabled staff and students in the hopes of not wasting precious money or effort.
For meaningful change to occur, HE needs to let go of the nostalgia towards traditional working and teaching methods. The cobblestone paths that are seen as foundational to the “success” of HE. The physical and psychological architecture of HE needs to be changed to holistically create an environment that disabled people can both access and participate in. This starts with utilising disabled staff already employed to address accessibility gaps within HE policies and practices to improve the experience of HE all disabled members, especially as campus activities return after the pandemic (Saltes, 2020).
