scholarly journals The construction of under-representation in UK and Swedish higher education: Implications for disabled students

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabet Weedon
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Performance Indicators ◽  
Participation Rate ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Uk

This article examines the inclusion of disabled students in the UK and Swedish higher education systems. In the United Kingdom, performance indicators focus on the participation rate of disabled students in comparison with those of non-disabled students, while in Sweden there are no specific performance indicators relating to disabled students. The article notes that in both countries there is a dearth of intersectional data, recognising the heterogeneity of the disabled student population. It is argued that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who are also disabled may suffer a double disadvantage in accessing university and progressing through their studies. UK data show that disabled students are more likely to come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, although this is due to the preponderance of dyslexic students who are disproportionately drawn from middle class backgrounds. The data also show that disabled students have lower progression rates than non-disabled students and that labour market outcomes differ in relation to type of impairment. The article advocates a greater focus on intersectional analysis in relation to ensuring effective support for all irrespective of impairment and social background.

scholarly journals ‘Dreaming in colour’: disabled higher education students’ perspectives on improving design practices that would enable them to benefit from their use of technologies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Seale ◽  
Chetz Colwell ◽  
Tim Coughlan ◽  
Tali Heiman ◽  
Dana Kaspi-Tsahor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Design Practices ◽  
Technology Products ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Current Design ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Academic Potential

Abstract The focus of this paper is the design of technology products and services for disabled students in higher education. It analyses the perspectives of disabled students studying in the US, the UK, Germany, Israel and Canada, regarding their experiences of using technologies to support their learning. The students shared how the functionality of the technologies supported them to study and enabled them to achieve their academic potential. Despite these positive outcomes, the students also reported difficulties associated with: i) the design of the technologies, ii) a lack of technology know-how and iii) a lack of social capital. When identifying potential solutions to these difficulties the disabled students imagined both preferable and possible futures where faculty, higher education institutions, researchers and technology companies are challenged to push the boundaries of their current design practices.

scholarly journals Gender inequality and disabled inclusivity in accounting higher education and the accounting profession during financial crises

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 335-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suman Lodh ◽  
Monomita Nandy
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
Wage Gap ◽  
Accounting Profession ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Accounting Professionals ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
And Gender

In this article, the authors find that, during financial crises, the wage gap between female and male accounting professionals declines and gender inequality in higher education is affected. In addition, less support and lower wages for disabled accounting professionals demotivate disabled students in accounting higher education. Because of budget cuts during financial crises, universities limit their support to women and the disabled. The authors consider 104 universities from the database of the United Kingdom’s Higher Education Statistics Agency for 2005–2011. Their theoretical and empirical findings establish that there was a growth in female students and a decline in disabled accounting students during the recent financial crisis. The established link between the higher education and the accounting profession enriches the accounting literature and may help policymakers to identifying better ways of enhancing equality and the inclusion of disabled students in accounting higher education to address inequality and non-inclusivity in the profession, especially during periods of financial crisis.

scholarly journals Contemporary Social Theory as a Tool to Understand the Experiences of Disabled Students in Higher Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 107-115
Author(s):  
Jonathan Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Contemporary Social Theory

This is a conceptual article which seeks to consider the use of contemporary social theory to help understand the experience of disabled students in higher education. The use of social theoretical insights has been criticised by many as demonstrating a lack of engagement with the everyday experiences of disabled people. Work which strives to embed theoretical insights into the study of disability has also been criticised for lacking engagement with the ‘reality’ of impairment. In this article I intend to address some of these criticisms by suggesting some ways in which the use of contemporary social theory may provide an explanatory tool which disentangles confusion regarding the journey undertaken by the disabled student. I will discuss how the writings of several social theorists may be helpful in making sense of disabled student journeys. I will begin by discussing why the work of Jacques Derrida can be useful in this regard. These writings will be considered alongside a debate which draws on the writings of Michel Foucault on the use of power in contemporary higher education institutions. I will critically discuss the theoretical insights of Deleuze and Guattari and their offerings on the notion of ‘becoming’. I will then critically interrogate the work of Rosi Braidotti and apply these to a re-imagining of the disabled student journey. The writings of these important theorists have been used before to explore the experiences of disabled people. However, this article is unique in that it proposes that these writings can be used to demystify the experiences of disabled students in higher education. I suggest some ways the work of Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari and Braidotti enable a greater understanding of my personal student journey. I suggest that they could be used to make sense of a far wider range of student journeys. I conclude the article by offering a model which utilises some important aspects of these theoretical insights.

scholarly journals Roadblock on the Way of Disabled Students in the Higher Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-102
Author(s):  
Aditi Pandey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Educational Institution ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Locomotor Disability ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Disabled

The development of any nation depends on its citizens. Every citizen has their contribution to the development of a nation even the disabled person. They also have an equal rights to get a higher education. Higher education increases the chance of employability, thus, affirming dignified life for persons with disabilities. As per Census 2011, in India, out of the 121 Cr population, about 2.68 Cr persons are ‘disabled’ which is 2.21% of the total population. But it has been seen that very few of these people reach higher education. According to census 2011, 61% of the disabled children aged 5-19 years are attending an educational institution, 12% attended educational institutions earlier while 27% never attended educational institutions. That makes the author think and ask about how our higher education institutions are accessible for disabled students. How inclusive are our higher education institutions? In the light of the above-mentioned problems the present paper has discussed the education of children with special needs in higher education specifically with respect to visual impairment, hearing impairement, locomotor disability, and speech-related impairment. The discussion starts with what all kind of legal provisions and reservations which are there for them in higher education and how many are utilized and used by them. What all things are there in the new education policy for them specifically in higher education, whether their needs have been realized in detail or it has been just touched superficially and at the end, few suggestions related to all these issues have been discussed.

scholarly journals Reconceptualising fair access to highly academically selective universities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vikki Boliver ◽  
Pallavi Banerjee ◽  
Stephen Gorard ◽  
Mandy Powell
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Procedural Fairness ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
Distributive Fairness ◽  
Selective Universities ◽  
The Uk ◽  
First Time ◽  
Fair Access

AbstractThe higher education regulator for England has set challenging new widening access targets requiring universities to rethink how merit is judged in admissions. Universities are being encouraged to move away from the traditional meritocratic equality of opportunity model of fair access, which holds that university places should go to the most highly qualified candidates irrespective of social background, in accordance with the principles of procedural fairness. Instead, they are being asked to move towards what we term the meritocratic equity of opportunity model, which holds that prospective students’ qualifications should be judged in light of the socioeconomic circumstances in which these were obtained to enhance distributive fairness, a practice known in the UK as contextualised admissions. In this paper, we critically discuss the theoretical underpinnings of these two competing perspectives on fair access and review the existing empirical evidence base, drawing together for the first time insights from our ESRC and Nuffield Foundation funded studies of fair access to highly academically selective universities in England. We argue that reconceptualising fair access in terms of distributive fairness rather than procedural fairness offers a more socially just set of principles on which to allocate valuable but scarce places at the most academically selective universities in England, unless or until such time as the vertical stratification of higher education institutions is reduced or eliminated entirely.

Reflections on Personal Experiences of Staff Training and Continuing Professional Development for Academic Staff in the Development of High Quality Support for Disabled Students in Higher Education

2014 ◽  
pp. 1301-1318
Author(s):  
Alan Hurst
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Professional Development ◽  
Staff Development ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Continuing Professional Development ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Made In

Despite the progress made in the development of policy and provision for disabled students in Higher Education since the issue first received attention in the UK in 1974, there is still some way to go before a state of genuine inclusion is reached. The key to further improvement and enhancement of quality is seen to lie in training for staff. After presenting evidence showing the need for more and better training, a number of issues relating to initial training and continuing professional development are discussed. A number of sample tasks for inclusion in staff development sessions are described.

Paying for University: The Impact of Increasing Costs on Student Employment, Debt and Satisfaction

2005 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 106-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Metcalf
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Student Satisfaction ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
Student Employment ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Student Debt ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Course Characteristics ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

The costs of higher education in the UK have shifted increasingly from the state to the student (and students' families). In 1998, a fee contribution of £1,000 per annum was introduced for new entrants to full-time degree courses. This paper examines its effect on debt, term-time employment and student satisfaction. The analysis uses data from a survey of two cohorts of students and identifies how the impact varied with student and course characteristics. Fees led to an increase in student debt (particularly for disabled students and for students who did not receive financial support from their families) and a decline in student satisfaction. No general impact on term-time employment was identified, but term-time employment increased for students who did not receive financial support from their families. Whilst for these two groups inequality was increased, fees appeared to lead to greater equality, in terms of term-time employment, between children of graduate and non-graduate parents. The paper discusses the implications for the introduction of top-up fees in 2006.

scholarly journals Respeaking certification Bringing together training, research and practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Romero-Fresco ◽  
Sabela Melchor-Couto ◽  
Hayley Dawson ◽  
Zoe Moores ◽  
Inma Pedregosa
Keyword(s):  
International Standards ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Certification Process ◽  
Quality Assurance Process ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Certification Standard ◽  
Training Research ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Assurance Process ◽  
The Uk

Research and training in respeaking are still lagging behind professional practice. One of the consequences of this lack of training opportunities is the UK government’s refusal, in 2016, to use the Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA) to provide for respoken subtitles, arguing that respeaking was not a qualified profession. In order to tackle this issue, the Galician Observatory for Media Accessibility set up LiRICS, the Live Respeaking International Certification Standard, which aims to set and maintain high international standards in the respeaking profession. In 2019, after assessing the online certification process proposed by LiRICS, the Department of Education in the UK concluded that it meets their requirements and that LiRICS-certified respeakers are eligible for Disabled Students’ Allowances funding. This article outlines, first, the current provision of respeaking training around the world and the assessments of live subtitling quality carried out to date, both of which inform the LiRICS online certification process presented here. The focus is then placed on the actual certification process, including a description of the tests, the platform used and the quality assurance process. This is followed by an analysis of the respeakers’ performance, which has been shown to be in line with current professional standards.

Can we measure the impact? An evaluation of one-to-one support for students with specific learning difficulties

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-134
Author(s):  
Claire Graham
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Learning Difficulties ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Higher Education Act ◽  
One To One ◽  
Education Act ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Specific Learning

In recent years, there have been changes to the way in which the UK Government funds support for disabled students in England. Higher education providers (HEPs) are increasingly encouraged to embed support for their disabled students and adopt responsibility for funding their own models of support. This has led to questions at institutional level about the impact of the support that is offered and the role of that support in student retention and success. Against a context in which the Office for Students (OfS, 2018) has identified reducing the attainment gap between disabled and non-disabled students as a strategic priority, it seems timely to consider the role of specialist one-to-one support and the potential impact of this for students. Drawing on an analysis of attainment data, as well as questionnaire responses from service users, this research project sought to evaluate the impact of one-to-one study skills support for students with specific learning difficulties (SpLDs) in one, pre-92 university (established prior to the introduction of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992). When comparing the attainment data of students with SpLDs who had accessed one-to-one support, compared to students with SpLDs who had not, 10% of the students who had not accessed support had withdrawn from their studies. None of the students who had accessed support withdrew, and there was a positive correlation between the number of support sessions attended and attainment.

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