‘Managing’ disability: early experiences of university students with disabilities

Abstract

Recent UK legislation, operational from December 2006, places a duty on all public authorities, including higher education institutions, to actively promote equality of opportunity for people with disabilities. The university studied here has a number of initiatives in place to develop good practice in this area, but how do students themselves experience that provision? Research about people with disabilities has sometimes alienated them by failing to reflect their own perspectives. This study, explicitly aimed at incorporating students' voices and using interview and video data, offers some insight into students' experiences of the aids and obstacles to an inclusive learning environment at one university.