Fostering inclusive higher education through universal design for learning and inclusive pedagogy – EU and US faculty perceptions

ABSTRACT

Academic debate highlights the need to develop suitable teaching and training practices to accompany the implementation of universal design for learning (UDL) and inclusive higher education policies. This study addresses this need by investigating the relationship between knowledge and utilization of inclusive pedagogy, on the one hand, and the degree of implementation of UDL principles, on the other hand. While inclusive pedagogy is uniquely different from UDL, the two hold great value for one another and contribute equally to advancing inclusive education. This research is based on a quantitative analysis of original data from an international survey, comparing US and EU responses. It reveals that all the variance across gender and country of employment in UDL implementation is due to knowledge and utilization of inclusive pedagogy. Therefore, we argue that higher education institutions must invest in increasing faculty understanding and practical implementation of inclusive teaching through professional development to achieve scalable UDL implementation. This will contribute to tackling new developments in international education, such as ensuring inclusive and equitable education for an increasingly diverse student body and preparing students for engaging in social justice and positive global change, in line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

KEYWORDS:

• Universal design for learning
• inclusive teaching
• pedagogy
• international higher education

Acknowledgements

Natalia Timus gratefully acknowledges financial support for this research by the Fulbright Schuman Program, which is administered by the Fulbright Commission in Belgium. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Fulbright Program, the Government of the United States, or the Fulbright Commission in Belgium.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data used in this study is available upon request from the corresponding author.