Mairin Kenny

Participation in higher education for students with disabilities: an Irish perspective

Third level institutions have been encouraged to facilitate greater access and participation for people from marginalized groups who have traditionally been excluded from higher education. In Ireland, as elsewhere, people with disabilities have been included in this process. Few studies have explored the quality of access and participation for students with disabilities within higher education, and this small scale qualitative study aimed to explore this issue. Students with disabilities reported variable access experiences within higher education and physical access remains a serious obstacle to full participation. Generally, there was a low level of awareness of student needs in relation to assistive provision and assessment. A positive and informed staff/college attitude proved crucial in ensuring access and equitable treatment. This research highlights the inherent limitations in the current piecemeal institutional response to provision for students with disabilities. A comprehensive access service is required that addresses the needs of all marginalized groups and becomes an integral part of the third level institution.

Curriculum Access for Pupils with Disabilities: An Irish experience

For young people with physical disabilities in Ireland, gaining access to a school represents only the first tentative step on the way to full participation in the curriculum alongside their peers. While government policy explicitly favours the inclusion of young people with disabilities within mainstream education there is little evidence of planning at a systemic level to facilitate this process. This small scale, qualitative study attempts to ascertain the reality of inclusion within mainstream settings for young people with physical disabilities. The results indicate that the young people often experienced exclusion from full curricular access. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to developing inclusive structures that facilitate curricular access for young people with disabilities within Irish post-primary schools.

Normality and Power: Desire and Reality for Students with Disabilities in Mainstream Schools

The move to integrated schooling for students with disabilities, begun in the 1960s, initially focused on meeting ‘special needs’ within the mainstream, without consideration of overall system change. Recent policy documents promote respect for diversity but integration remains weighted towards ‘accommodating’ minority needs within an increasingly strained old discourse of normality that serves the interests of the dominant majority and informs school policy and practice in Ireland. An exploratory research project called ‘Hidden Voices’ aimed to register for the first time how young Irish people with disabilities read their experience of mainstream second level schooling. This paper presents findings on two interrelated aspects of their experience – mobility and peer relations. It will emerge that constructs of normality that inform schools’ built environment profoundly distort the school experience, social and academic, of students with disabilities. A new paradigm of normality is called for.

Access routes to higher education for young people with disabilities: A question of chance?

Abstract In the last decade access initiatives have been designed to facilitate greater access and participation for people from marginalised groups who have traditionally been excluded from higher education. In common with international trends, young people with disabilities in Ireland have been included in this process. However, people with disabilities remain under‐represented in higher education. This study explored the quality of access to higher education for young people with disabilities through existing access routes. Both the young people and the professionals (career guidance teachers) agreed that access routes lack transparency. There was a dearth of professional knowledge about the options available to young people with disabilities leaving school. This lack of professional knowledge combined with the opaqueness of access routes forced the young people to rely on parental support and/or disability agencies for information and guidance. It can be concluded that goodwill and compassion are no substitute for an informed system that ensures equitable access for young people with disabilities to higher education.

Book Review: Travellers and Ireland: Whose Country, Whose History?LaughlinJim Mac, Travellers and Ireland: Whose Country, Whose History?Cork: Cork University Press, 1995, 102pp., paper £4.95.

exclusion, given that power plays and resource differences also exist at the local level. The reader interested in this question of local government reform and partnership structures should consult Commins and Keane (1994), and for a somewhat different perspective, NESC (1994). Overall, this is a useful report, and in addition to addressing difficult questions about social exclusion and poverty, it debates other issues of general relevance to EU programmes; partnerships, the process needed to establish programmes, the value basis of development and civic rights, the need to integrate programmes at a local, national and EU level, and above all, the need for a common understanding of what a programme entails, accompanied by a political will to execute social programmes and learnings from the lessons of the programmes. The report is cleverly presented, beginning with case studies, and then moving on to conceptual analysis. There is no target audience specified at the beginning of the report. Clearly it is of interest to those formulating policy and actively involved in EU programmes. It will also be of interest to social policy analysts, particularly those interested in rural social policy, European policy, and ofcourse, those conducting research on social exclusion.