Students with disabilities at university: benefits and challenges from the best faculty members’ experiences

ABSTRACT

This article presents the results of a study that gave a voice to 119 faculty members of 10 Spanish universities, who were recommended by their students with disabilities for carrying out an inclusive pedagogy. Following a qualitative methodology, two interviews were held to analyse different areas of inclusive pedagogy: beliefs, knowledge, designs and actions. The data were analysed through an inductive system of categories and codes. The results show the positive aspects and benefits highlighted by these faculty about their experiences regarding the presence of students with disabilities in their classrooms, as well as the main challenges they encounter when attempting to achieve the social and educational inclusion of these students.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive pedagogy
• faculty members
• students with disabilities
• higher education
• qualitative methods

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The study presented in this paper is part of a research project funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain ‘Inclusive pedagogyin the university: faculty members’ narratives’ [EDU2016-76587-R, IP. AnabelMorin˜a, 2016–2021].