Enacting disability policy through unseen support: the everyday use of disability classifications by university administrators

Abstract

In the United Kingdom (UK), Higher Education Institutions share with other educational providers the duty to provide reasonable adjustments for students who disclose disabilities. The role of academic administrators in the operationalisation of legislation-driven policy related to disability within the university context is overlooked within empirical and theoretical literature, and explicit recognition of the administrative role is often reduced to descriptions of bureaucratic processes and training requirements. This paper makes an empirical and theoretical contribution by explicitly recognising the unique operational and personal practices of educational administrators as they undertake disability-related work. Drawing upon a larger ethnographic study that employed observation, in-depth qualitative interviews and discourse analysis, the findings start to reveal the subtle interactional practices that administrators undertake during their everyday work with people disclosing of a disability; these revelations offer indicators for future staff training and development.

Student voice in higher education diversity policies: A systematic review

“…Those for whom diversity policies were developed and initiated (e.g., students with low SES, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ students) should be the ones who rate their respective effects and outcomes. Unfortunately, a large proportion of the empirical studies identified in the screening process failed to give students a voice and were therefore excluded (e.g., Garces and Cogburn, 2015;Cox, 2017). Indeed, a number of studies have been published which focus on faculty perspectives or explore the opinions of members of faculty (sometimes in key positions) regarding the effect of diversity policies on students, yet do not ask the students themselves.…”

“…However, a large proportion of empirical studies in this field fail to give students a voice (e.g., Zimdars, 2010;Haapakoski and Pashby, 2017)-a fact also criticized by applied critical race theorists (Knaus, 2009). A number of them focus on faculty perspectives or key informants on how diversity policies affect students, without actually asking students themselves (e.g., Garces and Cogburn, 2015;Schmaling et al, 2015;Cox, 2017;Casado Pérez, 2019). Some make use of document/policy analysis to explore the effects of diversity policies on students: King (2009), for example, reviews programs in the United States that promote access for underrepresented students, stating that until 2009 "no programs targeted students from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds with disabilities, nor did any studies question college access programs' neglect to target or measure outcomes for minority students with disabilities. "…”

Do educational support policies always favour overcoming inequalities? The situation in Spain

“…A recent study on educational support discourses conducted in Finland's upper secondary education shows how stigmatization and individual deficit discourse resulted in organizing the support individually and privately, even though their educational policies promote a communal and collaborative support (Niemi and Laaksonen 2020). This same individual attribution is what prevents us from adopting organizational or institutional policies and actions that could be more effective than the individual support itself (Cox 2017;Puigdellívol et al 2017). This partially explains why, despite the promulgation of 'inclusive policies' in so many countries, inequalities are persisting.…”