Students with Disabilities in Higher Education: A Review of the Literature and an Agenda for Future Research

Using Qualitative Research to Document Variations in Student Experience

“…Our study, which took place at a large public research university in the northeastern United States, included 18 students with nonapparent disabilities. We made the decision to focus on students with nonapparent disabilities because prior literature on the higher education experiences of students with disabilities had revealed that public perceptions of disability focused on mobility and sensory impairments (Kimball, Wells, Lauterbach, Manly, & Ostiguy, ). As a result, neither empirical literature nor evidence‐based practice systematically addressed the experiences of people with comparatively high incidence, but nonapparent disabilities like attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and chronic medical issues (c.f., Kimball, Vaccaro, & Vargas, ; Vaccaro et al., ).…”

Barriers to Higher Education for Students with Bipolar Disorder: A Critical Social Model Perspective

“…We stress that institutional standards of accommodation and assistance for students with mental disabilities are in place, and have been in place for decades; however, students with mental disabilities still choose, in overwhelming numbers, to leave their mental disability in the closet. Further, the stigma attached to mental disabilities, lack of knowledge/training/experience among faculty and staff, and a difficult accommodations process deter students from living openly with their disability, thus setting them up for failure (for this neglect of disabled students in general in higher education see the extensive literature review by Kimball, Wells, Ostiguy, Manly, & Lauterbach, 2016; for a detailed treatment of the concept of "stigma", see also Goffman, 1963Goffman, /2009. This failure is shown by the excessive number of student dropouts with bipolar disorder even before they had a chance to apply their abilities in their studies.…”

“…After showing how the ableist assumptions about mental disability by medical and disability services professionals can contribute to the systemic oppression of students with mental disabilities, we make recommendations to university educators for removing these barriers that can prevent the learners with bipolar disorder from achieving their dream of a college degree. While our descriptions of mental disabilities and the discussion of the institutional and pedagogical barriers come from our lived experiences-the primary author is a student with a mental health diagnosis and the second author is a faculty with long-term experience of receiving and giving disability accommodations on six different campuses in the United States-the vast literature on disabled students in higher education documents that many of these issues also materialize in one or other form on college campuses around the globe (Kimball et al, 2016). Likewise, the variations of these issues have been documented in the experiences of disabled faculty in the United States and elsewhere although we limit our discussion here to the concerns of students with psychiatric health diagnosis (Kerschbaum et al, 2013).…”

A Whole New World: Students with Disabilities Transition to Postsecondary Education

“…Given the unique experience of students with disabilities in higher education and the variations across and within disability categories, these models have not adequately addressed the relational dimensions of their educational experience. The relational focus can be specific to the students with disabilities population and provide valuable insights to colleges and universities as they create, optimize, and examine educational practices associated with their respective missions (Vaccaro, Daly-Cano, & Newman, 2015;Trammel, 2009;Kimball et al, 2016).…”

“…Despite the increase in percentage of students with disabilities enrolled in higher education over the last two decades, limited research exists on their experiences in higher education (Kimball, Wells, Ostiguy, Manly, & Lauterbach, 2016). Higher education research focusing on student experiences incorporates disability as a secondary or tertiary variable while magnifying more well-known and studied identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender), while many studies exclude disability completely (Weidman, 1989;Perna, 2006;Hurtado, Alvarez, Guillermo-Wann, Cuellar, & Arellano, 2012).…”