“Everyone Is Normal, and Everyone Has a Disability”: Narratives of University Students with Visual Impairment

Abstract

University students with visual impairment in Israel and worldwide face multiple academic and social barriers and must develop techniques, strategies and skills to adjust to the university environment. The current article is based on a longitudinal qualitative study aimed at incorporating students’ voices and offers some insight into the ways students experience their academic journeys. The research method combined grounded theory with the emancipatory disability research paradigm, which draws explicitly from people with disabilities’ collective experience and thus directly challenges this group’s widespread social oppression. This combination allowed the researcher to focus on students’ initial experiences as subjectively perceived. Sixteen students all defined as legally blind, from four universities in Israel, were interviewed over a 2-year period of their studies. The findings present two complementary narratives the interviewees used while configuring their identities. The article will focus on findings that suggest that during their academic journeys, students needed to manage a process of integrating their identity both as disabled and as students, choosing when and where to perform each identity and determining what the implications of each choice were along with each one’s related costs and benefits. The study’s implications and recommendations can help professionals and support services improve inclusion and equality in higher education.

How does a sense of belonging develop in postsecondary? A conceptual Belonging in Academia Model (BAM) from sighted perspectives

“…Almog (2018) pointed to the importance of developing a positive disability identity in the academic journey for students who are blind or partially blind. Having a stigmatized social identity is likely to cause distress and burden by negative stereotypes associated with an identity (Inzlicht and Good, 2006).…”

“…Dagaz' report resonates with our finding that sharing the same space (affiliation) over time allows for informal conversations and interactions to occur which fosters a sense of familiarity. Almog (2018) pointed to the importance of developing a positive disability identity in the academic journey for students who are blind or partially blind. Having a stigmatized social identity is likely to cause distress and burden by negative stereotypes associated with an identity (Inzlicht and Good, 2006).…”

“…Overall, there is insufficient evidence about the experiences and specific factors that contribute to developing a sense of belonging in Canadian academic institutions. This is a problem as researchers who have examined belonging in university students who are blind and partially blind assert that sense of belonging is a fundamental factor in creating and sustaining participation in academia (Almog, 2018; Bodaghi et al., 2016; Bodaghi and Zainab, 2013). Researchers have also put forth that sighted people shape the academic environment, and therefore research should also examine sighted perspectives in order to address potential biases and knowledge gaps which affect people who are blind and partially blind.…”

Facilitators and barriers along pathways to higher education in Sweden: a disability lens

“…While giving voice to students with disabilities is crucial and provides valuable insights, these studies have generally relied on single interviews or surveys to capture students' experiences. There have been few longitudinal explorations of people with disabilities in HE, but those existing (Almog 2018) have tended to restrict themselves to students' experiences and to neglect what they actually encounter. Moreover, most of our existing knowledge comes from students who are already participating in HE.…”

Editorial: Students with Disabilities in Higher Education

“…Research by Almog (2018) reveals a lot about "identity constructions" of students in higher education as both being disabled and being a student. The costs and the benefits related to the chosen positions are balanced in an article that depends heavily on the lived experiences and expertise of the students themselves.…”