Responsibility and participation in transition to university – voices of young people with disabilities

Abstract

Students with disabilities are quantitatively under-represented in higher education. In this paper, focus is on access to and processes in transition to the initial period at university. The article is based on an empirical study examining young people's points of view, and the overall aim is to draw attention to experiences regarding responsibility and participation. Four narrative configurations represent the voices of how young people with disabilities experience the nature of the responsibility, the distribution of the responsibility and the timing that emerges. Experiences in the university context are categorized into proactive, ambivalent, reactive and non-existent community structures. Representatives of the universities are perceived as taking various levels of responsibility for the difficulties experienced by the young people. Genuine participation seems to be affected by collaboration qualities involving both the surrounding environment and the individual. This could have long-term consequences for the individual identity of a young person, as well as for society.

Keywords:

• higher education
• narrative configurations
• participation
• responsibility
• voices of young people

Acknowledgement

The study was financed by Norrbacka-Eugeniastiftelsen.