











“Did know there was disability support to get help, had to get a test, got a diagnosis. Was a process – long winded and distracting from studies. Can be really useful, and glad it exists, as other places it doesn’t exist. But you do have to have the confidence, or to feel entitled enough in the first place to seek out that diagnoses and seek out the assessment, As there’s so many factors to do with race, gender, other intersecting factors that may prevent you from believeing you deserve to access disability support, so many people do fall through the cracks. – Black young men and boys, failing in education – so felt there was that layer, where people were not so willing to provide disability support for a masculine person of colour.
Not much spectrum in understanding the nuances of the impact of disability – binary between completely disabled and unable to anything by themselves – to other end of scale which is fully able and absolutely fine, no need for any support – services found it hard to distinguish anything in between” – my summary of one of the answers
There were lots of instances where some of the first hurdles that staff noted an obstacle to disabled students, was that so many students don’t know they are disabled in the first place, and why they are struggling. There are even instances where help was suggested to students, but because of the stigma for asking for help, it was refused, or declined. It was seen as something to be ashamed of.
Several comments on disabled staff struggling, and had instances where it had been easier ask for help when they were themselves students, as that’s recognised that students are under pressure and need help. But in a professional context to disclose, would be to jeopardise ones reputation or undermine the reason you are good enough for the job, this was compounded or amplified if the disabled staff member was of multiple marginalised identities. This precarity further amplified feelings of being discredited or ‘not taken seriously’ and that to hide the disclosure or disability did nothing to protect them, other than hinder their access needs being met/fulfilled.
All staff did the regular practices of shorter sessions, breaks, accessible class rooms, creating course schedules together with students, making note of ISAs and access requirement that may get overlooked – I.e is the lift working, – is there a lot of noise or any sensory factors to be accounted for? etc – Making deadlines or crits, optional for those students whose talking in front of a class at crits would find hard. Things like sourcing equipment like microphones when using masks, etc etc. Lots of technical and logistical notes, but as I said in the previous posts, access intimacy in classrooms isn’t only about opening doors and logistics, even thought that is yes a huge part of it, to put access into practice, i.e ramps, and different ranges of media, and freedom of movement, and embodied classrooms, that aren’t focused on long lectures.
But it was more than just recognising the modulations to heavy reading list material; it was asking questions, and opening up the possibility of accommodations and taking the time to learn about what changes might be required to allow everyone the tools to participate. How might these practices also deepen the existing relationships, between students and tutors, their communication and the whole concept of society within the class as a group together? Not as something only an individual must bear, singled out on their own as a negative, but as a practice of universal design, to inform everything in the course, with that set up, to ensure liberatory access models that empowered students to feeling happy and entitled to accommodations without shame or fear of being thought of as less able.
“(For students) it would seem like a failure to ask for more time, or it’s seen as a negative so they don’t ask for more time in a way that feels empowering or feels like “I deserve that! I’m entitled to that!”
Answer from questions in research from Participant 1
Where removing ableism – and really thinking about what it means to literally create barriers in higher education as a form of testing/measure – how removing these can liberate in a social justice framework, and it becomes about the possibility of the teaching space, one that could return to education as a root for radical remapping how we relate to each other. I have seen this in practice on the PG cert course, and in courses in Chicago where certain lecturers get it.
They abolish the need to shame students in order to categorise them to serve the institutional structure/rules/ – things like attendance, flexibility, different models of submission etc. These modulations not only impact those with disabilities, but carers, mothers, people who are working several jobs to get by etc.
Many times disabled staff noticed their own experiences weighed in on heavily with them knowing and understanding and relating to their students and recognising students who were struggling
“sometimes it’s kind of like a mirror like you can see how someone else is like struggling in the same ways just like lack of motivation lack of interest lack of like being able to like meet deadlines like seeing those things yeah I think that’s probably like having that insight from someone who experienced it then it just becomes more obvious when like a student is going through that”
Ultimately knowing there will be access needs, to make room for them, and to know they may have to learn more about physical disabilities if they are not as familiar with those access needs. They noticed that other staff may be more likely to embody the institution and not be cognisant to the nuances of struggling students as much. But there are lots of positives to having disabled staff members that students can see, experience their care in their teaching, and as one participant said, it all depends on which teacher you get, whether you are lucky or not. It does make a difference.
But one issue is that some staff members also felt a burden for having to reroute the system, that no matter what they did, the buildings, the institutional academic setting was warped and unable to ever be truly accessible, no matter what changes were made. And if they ever veered on being too radical, they felt they were on the fringes and unable to practice their values and teaching practices. And felt it shouldn’t be left to only disabled staff or a few staff members who make these changes, especially as they often navigated their own disabilities as well as teaching – but for the move to have these changes built through the system, and as accepted practice across the board. Ultimately certain staff take an individual stance on how they operate. But it is far from a collective wide movement and these inconsistencies in the practices, is what makes it even more of a lottery and minefield for disabled students during their educational career.
Which brings us to abolition, instead of action research, and that yes we may make small changes to benefit all students in small way, and recalibrate set ups, make information clearer – but no matter what we do, at the end of the day we are stuck in a system where the university is inherently colonial, hierarchal, where the students pay fees, they are in debt, they are “customers”, and we are workers serving them, the relationship between lecturer and student is frayed, standards are slipping, and people’s education is under threat. I still believe in higher education – and design training. But when it comes to supporting disabled students, of intersectional experience, of race and disability and class, they are already facing an educational environment that is more likely to be crushed by the experience and trauma of trying to survive the institution/art school. Trying to change it within, even if for the better ever so slightly may not be enough. Always trying to make it more and more accessible, instead of transforming the system itself completely. Liberatory access should be about transforming and building the worlds that we want to see ourselves in, not only resisting against the ones that were not built for us. Mingus, M. (2017)
Are there braver ways to learn, to feel supported to feel valued?
Bailey, J., Steeves, V., Burkell, J., Shade, L. R., Ruparelia, R., & Regan, P. (2019). Getting at Equality: Research Methods Informed by the Lessons of Intersectionality. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919846753
Brown, N., & Leigh, J. (Eds.). (2020). Ableism in Academia: Theorising experiences of disabilities and chronic illnesses in higher education. UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv13xprjr
Chaudhry, V. (2019). Centering embodiment in disability research through performance ethnography. Qualitative Social Work, 18(5), 754-771. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325018767728
Kara, H. (2015,) Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences : A Practical Guide, Policy Press, Bristol. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. (accessed 1 Dec 2023)
Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., Nixon, R. (2014). Introducing Critical Participatory Action Research. In: The Action Research Planner. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-67-2_1
Kerschbaum, S.L. & Price, M. (2017,) “Centering Disability in Qualitative Interviewing”, Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 98-107.
Leigh, J., & Brown, N. (2020). Internalised ableism: Of the political and the personal. In J. Leigh & N. Brown (Eds.), Ableism in Academia: Theorising experiences of disabilities and chronic illnesses in higher education (pp. 164–181). UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv13xprjr.16
Mingus, M. (2017) Access Intimacy, Interdependence and Disability Justice –https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/access-intimacy-interdependence-and-disability-justice/ accessed 3 Dec 2023
Schalk, S. (2017). Critical Disability Studies as Methodology. Lateral, 6(1). https://www.jstor.org/stable/48671697
Strunk, K. K., & Locke, L. Ann. (Eds.). (2019). Research methods for social justice and equity in education / Kamden K. Strunk, Leslie Ann Locke, editors. (1st ed. 2019.). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05900-2
Thanem, T., & Knights, D. (2019). Embodying interviews and conversations. In Embodied Research Methods (pp. 78-91). SAGE Publications, Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529716672
“Access for the sake of access is not necessarily libratory, but access for the sake of connection, justice, community, love and liberation is. We can use access as a tool to transform the broader conditions we live in, to transform the conditions that created that inaccessibility in the first place. Access can be a tool to challenge ableism, ablebodied supremacy, independence and exclusion. I believe we can do access in liberatory ways that aren’t just about inclusion, diversity and equality; but are rather, in service of justice, liberation and interdependence.” Mia Mingus (2017)
Data – so I can start by sharing some of the answers to some of the questions from some participants. I know we weren’t meant to share our data, but I’m not sure how else to prove I did the studies. I transcribed them from the voice notes to text dictation. And then I listened to them and wrote my take aways from the key points.
I would say this type of qualitative data is harder to visualise or be creative with, so I will comment on that aspect I wish I could have found more visual ways to communicate the findings. And also to make more concluding ideas around what and how these findings can influence specific action research cycles. This really has been about mapping a landscape.
Q -What were the main obstacles you faced that had the biggest impact on your experience as a disabled student?
A1 – “As a disabled student and I was a student at ual, they have this huge policy of like inclusion and diversity and all this kind of public speak around that and I think many universities have their speak, but when it really comes down to it they don’t really make their main curriculum and their main points of educational learning kind of accessible to disabled students or it didn’t it wasn’t for mine, and I think it’s a difficult thing.
I don’t think it’s always possible to do everything and get it for everyone but I just get the sense that they’re not really that interested in really making things accessible. Thinking about even just basic things you know – of like it being a colonial curriculum for a start – it is not accessible.
Then other things around how you engage with the materials. It depends on the teacher right, but I’ve had some really like old fashioned teachers who want you to read really extensive books or extensive chapters. They print out badly scanned copies, and the problem is that it’s not legible. You know just kind of little things that really actually have a big impact when you’re when you’re disabled student, and you know when you have a disability, that impacts you, you have a lot of workload right, you’ve got a lot of work to do, got a lot of things and even if it’s like an hour reading something that’s then going to take you two or three hours will put you off doing it completely that’s just one example but I would say those were kind of the the the obstacles were like everything is kind of geared against people who have disabilities actually and there’s not many and this was when I was a student which was 2015. I just feel like it’s also super dependent on who you have as a teacher so that’s the main thing. Also yeah it’s not really a comfortable environment for you to ask or disclose you know.
For example if they’re handing out this chapter, they don’t ask is that is this OK for everybody are there is there anyone who’s struggling with this or a way to not have to disclose in front of everybody either. So I feel like it just becomes impossible it’s like you just get overlooked and you need to have that confidence to be able to speak up to say that.
Even in situations where I disclosed, I have to know to go to the disability support. There are situations where you’ve disclosed to them (teachers) and they should have that information on record, but it seems like sometimes, the tutors or teachers wouldn’t even know. So there’s kind of like gaps or failures there that things are not reaching or being connected in some way.’
A2 –
“ah OK so I’ll start with what were the main obstacles.
I think to be honest the main obstacle was just not not knowing I was disabled. I just didn’t know that I had dyslexia or ADHD. But I just knew something was wrong. So I think I like struggled a lot with motivation – which is actually an ADHD thing but I guess it disguises anxiety and depression – so someone told me that if you have like mental health struggles (you can get support) and I was on like medication for anxiety, so that’s kind of how I approached it and I had to pay the GP to write me a letter. and then yeah I was able to like get disabled students support. But yes I did it through mental health but looking back I’m like ‘oh it was actually ADHD’
so I guess one of the obstacles was paying for a letter. And I think generally just it was something I had to navigate on my own like it wasn’t really thing that was talked about which is more like a societal thing ’cause it’s like either no you’re disabled and you’re already should know”
Q What obstacles or barriers have you witnessed disabled students navigate?
A3 I’ve just come across students who haven’t been aware that they need support you know, and sometimes I guess with other tutors who maybe are less aware, it wouldn’t be on their radar. Sometimes I kind of I think, I realised things and I tried to check in on them, and that’s my student so you know I don’t know what’s happening with the rest in terms of that. I think things get really overlooked and sometimes it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, but it is because that student isn’t aware or doesn’t know. So that, even the teachers are not looking out for it with staff members. I’ve seen that happen a lot. I feel I’ve seen that students get caught up in the kind of ableist ideology of like ‘I shouldn’t ask for more time.” or ‘I don’t want people to feel sorry for me,’ to take pity.
(For students) it would seem like a failure to ask for more time, or it’s seen as a negative so they don’t ask for more time in a way that feels empowering or feels like “I deserve that! I’m entitled to that!”
So a lot of the times, even when I’ve kind of offered that to students and try to say
“you know if you can’t give this in on time just let me know and we can, you know, work around that, or hand it in later you know.“
I can, I will, and I will be prepared to do that work for them on their behalf, to kind of negotiate that with the other systems that need be with in institutions.
I found that they were bit reluctant, a bit ashamed. But I think it’s also so tied into English culture as well. I mean English behaviour around avoidance and not being direct and things like that.
So I think I’ve definitely noticed that. I’ve also witnessed kind of barriers to some of this. Some of the things that you need to do when I needed to teach, that we have to do crits for example, and during the crits it means you’re in a group and then one person speaks. And sometimes people who are neuro-diverse/autistic can’t do that and it becomes very hard. Even with me kind of trying to make it as accessible as possible. It becomes very hard for people with those kind of disabilities, to really participate and I’ve seen, I’ve noticed that students just won’t attend and instead of maybe just saying “you know what, this format, this system doesn’t work for me” they just you know, kind of don’t attend or skip or whatever.
I do make it optional you know, and I try and change the crit format and stuff like that, so that it is more accessible, but there’s only so much you can do within a institutional system that already has its its its systems, and in its ways of working.
So I’ve kind of struggled with that as a teacher. As well as students struggling or never trying to navigate those kinds of systems. I think also when you know the colonial education system is like that. Students are having to be in these kind of hierarchical scenes, are looking up to the teachers and tutors as people who know more – so they’re not necessarily able to challenge the systems in place. It’s not like an equilibrium kind of knowledge exchange or sharing everything. It is hierarchical where marginalised students, and then disabled students who are also navigating other kinds of marginalisation, they are less able to speak up to teachers and to name things, to disclose, to challenge and all of those things right.
Q When you experience barriers to learning for students, are there any modulations or social justice practices that you embed to counter institutional frameworks?
A4 I’ve had like times when the tutorial turns into just talking about all this stuff and bringing my own experience into, it which can be quite like vulnerable talking about all this stuff, but getting them to understand the wider like social problem with ableism, to understand they’re not alone in it. That it’s part of a bigger systematic framework.
It is a kind of shame that it only comes out when it’s like student is really struggling, and they really need help at that point. And that it’s like a one to one thing rather than it being embedded in the wider curriculum. I have that done lectures that included disabled artists. And I have tried to bring it into my lectures but it was in no way like encouraged – well maybe I guess it was encouraged but it wasn’t embedded in the curriculum – I think it is that classic lack of intersectionality. Where I think at the moment that there’s a lot more concern about racial equality but like racial representation I guess in the curriculum. And I think everything else often gets left out such as trans issues or disability.
I felt when I was teaching, that I was really trying to do it through this intersectional lens, where I included all of these identities, but I think it becomes really exhausting, because then I know that the other lecturers who don’t have those personal experiences (of disability, race, gender) who might not make that effort. I think that’s yeah, that can be quite like mentally exhausting to think about how do you use your own pedagogy or employ teaching practises
Mingus, M. (2017) Access Intimacy, Interdependence and Disability Justice –https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/access-intimacy-interdependence-and-disability-justice/ accessed 3 Dec 2023
When I started writing the questions down, it became more of a stream, and I was worried I needed it to be like normal research, where you needed to verify every single correct fact/piece of information.
I followed advice and concentrated on what questions I wanted my participants to respond to, and focus on the variables that were important.
I did narrow it down, but I still did repeat myself quite a bit, and one question confused both the participants, but it lead to further conversation breaking it down, and in the end was generative for the data and end responses.
“Figuring out what questions to ask in an interview or a conversation is not only a matter of content. The ways we ask questions may have a big impact on the interview too: on how participants experience the situation, and on what they decide to share” Thanem, T., & Knights, D. (2019). Embodying interviews and conversations. In Embodied Research Methods (pp. 78-91).
I had initially wished to create a focus group with staff at UAL, test research questions, identify the specific areas addressing disability and access within the teaching environment, that could be worked on or possibly changed.
After these initial findings, a second set of research methods would test these findings in a discussion, and I would then bring practitioners and educators together in the same room using participatory action methods to put these findings into practice. Use them in the classroom, and see if the changes worked.
I may eventually decide to do this specifically within an action research context, to measure impacts or changes to learning within the curriculums. But the focus group seemed too large a task whilst navigating my health, and I wanted to concentrate on small case studies to first investigate what issues were at play, for disabled staff, and the impacts of their experience on their teaching. I of course reflect that this was a constraint on the methods of research that were used, and the research could have been different if using the other forms of research initially, but this may prove possible in the future for further action research cycles.
The methods I used, were recorded audio interviews, long form questionaries and conversations carried out over voice notes, with a fixed set of questions.
These long form questionaires, allowed in depth recorded audio responses, that allowed the participants some distance, and space, but we could have the audio recordings which allowed for richer, longer responses that enabled the participant to focus on the responses they felt connection to.
There were a number of ethical concerns to working and using action research with students themselves with this topic, and it was deemed too sensitive. The premise of the work was to focus on Disabled staff, and hone in on particular findings, to then take to put into practice itself. My hope and approach is to work with other educators, and disabled faculty/staff to find out the kinds of approaches they use themselves, have worked on, and have been seen to work, and to also map the commonalities and failings that students are experiencing, in the hope they may be addressed in future cycles of action research, to positively test ways that shift and transform teaching practices that create social justice.
Academics with chronic illness, disabilities or neurodiversity are practically unseen and starkly under-represented in comparison to students with disabilities or disabled people in the general public (Brown and Leigh 2018).
There are not that many small scale studies on disabled staff themselves, bearing in mind UAL has a large number of disabled students who are neurodivergent as an arts school, which would lead us to thinking that there must be a large set of disabled staff members also, which we don’t often or are able to be cognisant of.
Transforming teaching practices with social justice, is not only incorporating the ways disabled students can succeed and thrive – and not only measured as ‘ just receiving disability support, and having accommodations put in place’ but for ‘liberatory access’ and universal design to be seen as way to radically transform the inherently ableist systems that formal education has primarily built into its design.
Within this, disabled staff play a huge role, as they navigate institutional violence as well, and potentially are re-traumatised just by working here. But they are able to be a particular bridge, they can see students struggling, they can witness the systems that are failing, and also what is needed to short circuit, rewire and reconfigure. We can also argue there is no fixing and tweaking, there is no use to only focus on logistics, as Mia Mingus says, but to focus on the relationships that are at the heart of making and practicing access. Social justice isn’t just about opening a door a little wider, so more people can enter or sit at the table, and have dictation software. It’s about the system itself that was not made for disabled students, and no tweaking here and there is ever going to fully provide the full transformation we seek. It is about understanding that there are no single interpretations of a disabled student’s experience, that a student with multiple marginalised identities such as race or of trans experience or that intersect with class, will be different experience of disability altogether with someone from a more privileged class background.
Kerschbaum, S.L. & Price, M. 2017, “Centering Disability in Qualitative Interviewing”, Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 98-107.
Disability under protected human rights legislation includes neuro-diveregence, mental health conditions, long term chronic illness and physical impairment/disabilities, visual/sensory impairments and d/Deaf communities.
Mingus, M. (2017) Access Intimacy, Interdependence and Disability Justice –https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/access-intimacy-interdependence-and-disability-justice/ accessed 3 Dec 2023
This initial project researches the lived experience of disability in relation to teaching practices at UAL and arts higher education, and institutional ableism. What does practising solidarity and inclusion with disabled staff and students look like? Can we interview staff about their experiences as students as well as their practice as faculty today, to initiate and map future Action Research cycles that hone in on current failings?
What are the ways disabled staff lived experiences, counter the current climate of embedded ableism within teaching and learning in higher education within arts education? With disabled students still falling through the cracks every day in higher education and pushed out of educational spaces, how does the experiences of disabled staff themselves, serve to impact the teaching and learning experience for disabled students today?
Brown, Kirsten & Evans, Nancy & Broido, Ellen & Wilke, Autumn. (2017). Disability in Higher Education: A Social Justice Approach.
I returned to finish the PG Cert, after a break from the course because of a bereavement, and began thinking through how I could use the Action Research format to further the research idea I had started in 2022. I had taken a break from teaching, so I could not rely on a study that I could test this year, but instead would lean towards building upon the themes and tests in other areas of my PG cert.
I was keen to embed a social justice frame work, within a beginning set of action research cycles, that could then be tested at a later date.
Areas of research I have previously looked at, were de-colonial/anti-colonial tool kits in design pedagogy and changed textile design curriculums to focus not on euro centric ideas of design as a hierarchy above making, but to start from the body instead as tool of embodied knowledge. After changing these curriculums we noted what worked, what didn’t and what could be built upon. A paper was written and shared at a national conference about turning some of these educational models, in built into textile education, on their heads.
In previous projects I have tried to create interventions within UAL that bring students of colour together, and within specific brave spaces, and focus on disability. I have written previously on the failure of UAL systems to capture and retain disabled students and intersectional disabled students, who bear the impact and pressure of formal education.
I had noticed that other staff did not pick up on smaller cues that drew attention to students who may not be passing deadlines and hand ins, due to possible disabilities, that the student may not be aware of. I was confounded with a grading system that didn’t account for the missed opportunities due to students who were under the radar of services, and that there was a greater correlation between students of intersectional experience, navigating neuro-divergence and/or mental health conditions.
I was reminded of my own time at UAL, and how as a physically disabled student with invisible and very visible disabilities, the whole architectural environment, space, building, infrastructure digital and non-digital, people/hierarchies within in the school, systems, navigations through the city to get to school, an explicit inaccessible public transport system (a student who was using crutches and couldn’t walk) there were barriers upon compounded barriers that I had to navigate, with help or without it. I often now encounter disabled students, 10 years later, still struggling with similar issues and navigating the institutional systems at university. I wanted to measure or create a social justice inquiry into the cycles of barriers of education, what had changed, what has to change, and what possible futures could we suggest to transform the environments we were operating in.
I now as a staff member then had to navigate what it means to be a disabled staff member; teaching students and trying to do that well with heavy workloads and the double experience that lent me. I wanted to interview disabled staff members about their experiences as disabled students, and how this operates within the class room, what do they notice, and how similar is it to their own experience?
Disabled staff are negotiating the institution as well. Dealing with hardships/ the fall out gap between getting their access needs met and the fear of asking for their access needs to be met in the first place, – for having to ask for help- as well as trying to perform within a job to the best of ones ability.
The discrimination and shame that comes with living with disability your whole life, the internalised ableism, that somehow you are lesser than, and not good enough to be in your job, and ultimately your contribution to the world does not suffice compared to others. This structural and institutional ableism is within all of us, as any capitalist society, depends on those within in to function within it, work, be of use and sell your labour and contribute to society – pay your taxes – and therefore your worth is tied to your labour, and your ability to be productive according to capitalist notions of labour, and if you cannot fit within the confines of the rules set out, like everyone else then your value must be less.
My social justice practice that is within my teaching, and evidently in others as well, is universal access and design, lifts everyone up, and the parameters of operating within the systems and structures we teach in, need to be transformed themselves completely to truly address the fall out in education as we see it today
Baldridge, D. C., & Swift, M. L. (2013). Withholding Requests for Disability Accommodation: The Role of Individual Differences and Disability Attributes. Journal of Management, 39(3), 743-762.
Leigh, J., & Brown, N. (2020). Internalised ableism: Of the political and the personal. In J. Leigh & N. Brown (Eds.), Ableism in Academia: Theorising experiences of disabilities and chronic illnesses in higher education (pp. 164–181). UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv13xprjr.16
Make note of changes, observations and repeat.