“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?