Manuel Madriaga

Enduring disablism: students with dyslexia and their pathways into UK higher education and beyond

This paper presents some of the findings derived from a UK Aimhigher South Yorkshire research report on disability and higher education. Many of the students who shared their life histories for this project found that there was a lack of information in making choices about their futures, especially information about pursuing higher education. Without information to make informed choices, disabled students not only experience stress and anxiety, but also difficulty in preparing themselves for higher education study. This is, perhaps, reason for the low proportion of disabled learners in further and higher education. There are many reasons to explain this disparity. Many factors are inextricably linked to disablism institutionalized within many sectors of education. The education arena is not being singled out here. However, it does serve as further notice of the pervasiveness of disablism existing in wider society.

Confronting similar challenges? Disabled and non‐disabled students’ learning and assessment experiences

The article presents evidence from a systematic survey of disabled (n = 172) and non‐disabled (n = 312) students regarding their learning and assessment experiences within one higher education institution in the UK. This study builds upon previous work in the sector, with the aim of gathering evidence to inform inclusive policy and practice for the benefit of all students, disabled or non‐disabled. The findings indicate that, while disabled students confront barriers of access in their learning and assessment, there are similar difficulties they share with non‐disabled students.

‘I avoid pubs and the student union like the plague’: Students with Asperger Syndrome and their negotiation of university spaces

Research was conducted to gain insight into the lives of students with Asperger Syndrome (AS) during their transitions into higher education. Eight students were recruited from across the United Kingdom to partake in a year-long longitudinal study that incorporated life-history interviews. In their responses, the majority of interviewees identified spaces within their universities as being inaccessible. They found obstacles locating themselves in spaces where other students generally tend to congregate (e.g. student unions, pubs, libraries) due to their sensory impairments. As a result, a number of respondents experienced difficulty engaging socially in university life. This paper explores how students with AS and hypersensitivities negotiated these barriers. While some experienced a sense of ease, others were not as successful. This difference in experience, as argued here, reflects the diversity of individuals who have AS. Reflecting upon this diversity, it is hoped this paper will contribute to raising the profile of young adults with AS and wider questions about disabled student support provision in higher education.

Moving beyond the minimum: socially just pedagogies and Asperger’s syndrome in UK higher education

A year‐long longitudinal study was conducted to gain insight into the lives of eight students who had a label of Asperger’s syndrome during their transitions into higher education in the UK. Reflecting on life history data, the findings suggest that universities might actually be maintaining and (re)producing barriers that perpetuate the exclusion and ghettoisation of disabled people. The analysis goes beyond an acknowledgement of institutional disabling practices to pinpoint the subtle impacts of issues of pedagogy, learning, teaching, and assessment. It is argued, therefore, that inclusive education needs to engage more directly with the specific issues faced by learners with the label of Asperger’s syndrome. However, rather than viewing this as an issue of special education for distinctly impaired learners, Asperger’s syndrome must be understood with reference to wider questions of how higher educators respond to diversity and difference.

Marking-out normalcy and disability in higher education

This article advocates for socially just pedagogies in higher education to challenge senses of normalcy that perpetuate elitist academic attitudes towards the inclusion of disabled students. Normalcy is equated here with an everyday eugenics, which heralds a non-disabled person without ‘defects’, or impairments, as the ideal norm. This article attempts to mark the pervasiveness of normalcy in higher education by presenting findings from a systematic experience survey of disabled students and non-disabled students within one higher education institution in the United Kingdom. The findings indicate that disabled students who have institutional disability support express more difficulties in their learning and assessment than students with no known disability. However, it was found that there was no significant difference in academic achievement between the two cohorts of students. In relation to the latter point, the evidence also shows that disabled students who do not receive institutional disability support underperform.

What Students Value as Inspirational and Transformative Teaching.

Evidence presented here stems from an analysis of student comments derived from a student-nominated inspirational teaching awards scheme at a large university in the United Kingdom (UK). There is a plethora of literature on teaching excellence and the scholarship of teaching, frequently based upon portfolios or personal claims of excellence, and often related to monetary reward or promotion. However there is a paucity of research into student-nominated awards and the student perception of inspirational and transformative teaching despite a growing number of student-led schemes in the UK. This article seeks to address this gap in knowledge at the same time presenting some of the challenges in managing a student-nominated teaching awards scheme.

Awarding teaching excellence: ‘what is it supposed to achieve?’ Teacher perceptions of student-led awards

ABSTRACT Although there is lack of agreement as to what constitutes teaching excellence, there remains a steady effort to make an intangible, ambiguous, multifaceted concept incarnate in the form of ‘student-led’ teaching awards schemes within higher education institutions. What teaching staff say about such schemes have largely been ignored. This article attempts to address this gap in knowledge by accounting for the extent that academic teaching staff at one higher education institution in the UK value and perceive their teaching awards scheme. At the same time, this article presents some challenges in implementing a student-led teaching awards scheme for higher education institutions.

Why American nationalism should never be considered postnationalist

This article demonstrates that American national identity is symbolic, subjective and ambiguous to the extent that it encapsulates senses of both similarity and difference. Citing evidence from life-history interviews with American military veterans from different ethnic groups, the article shows how some Americans can identify with being racially excluded and still share in a sense of national belonging. It is argued here that this feature is and has always been embedded in the processes of American national identification. In making this argument, this article rejects Ramsey Cooks notion that achieving a sense of similarity between universal and particular interests within a national community is hallmark of postnationalism.

Understanding the Symbolic Idea of the American Dream and Its Relationship with the Category of 'Whiteness'

This article examines the impact the category of ‘whiteness’ has on individual interpretations of the American Dream. Via twenty-five life-history interviews, this article presents how US military male Veterans have varying interpretations of the collective idea according to their ethnic and racial background. The evidence presented in this article shows that the idea of the American Dream has racial dimensions or aspects. It suggests that ‘whiteness’ is taken-for-granted in this symbolic idea. For most ethnic minority respondents, this association between American Dream and ‘whiteness’ places them in a position to straddle the boundaries of American-ness and Otherness. This has implications in their everyday lives and sense of belonging. This article highlights a wider question regarding the extent ‘race’ shapes the boundaries of American national identity.

Antiblackness in English higher education

ABSTRACT This article highlights antiblackness pervading English higher education. This antiblackness is attributed to a majoritarian view, which not only upholds the view that education is value-neutral, meritocratic, colour-blind, but also has a cultural disregard for those racialized as Black Minority Ethnic (BME). There has been considerable attention drawn to the achievement gap issue in English higher education in which those racialized as BME are less likely to obtain a ‘good honours’ degree than those identified as white upon graduation. However, there is no critical work, as of yet, which examines university responses to addressing it. This paper sets out to investigate this, as well as the extent of institutions embracing a majoritarian view of race inequalities in education. This is done through reframing the issue by examining race equality action plans of six English universities. These six universities all received positive national recognition for their race equality work. A reframed reading of these institutional policy documents concludes that colour-blind interpretations of inclusion reproduce not only a misrecognition of differences of students of colour but also a rejection of their humanity.