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In South Africa, access to education is regarded as a right enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution yet issues of inequality, poor access and exclusion remain as intense as they have always been for students with disabilities. When universities closed due to Covid-19, all students suffered in one way or the other but those with disabilities suffered the most as their support is not mainstreamed. This highlighted the need to create a seamless system of student support if we are to leave no student behind. To do this, the paper proposes the adoption of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework that supports inclusive teaching and learning. Adopting UDL is critical in ensuring curriculum access and in addressing fragmented student support. Supporting students with disabilities should be everyone's responsibility and the sooner we adopt the principles of UDL, the better the learning outcomes for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sheds light on how to develop inclusive pedagogy in higher education, from the point of view of 42 inclusive faculty members from 6 Spanish universities. A qualitative methodology was used through semi-structured in-depth interviews. Data analysis was inductive, using a system of categories and topics. The results reveal that the faculty members which develop inclusive pedagogy in general have beliefs linked to the social model of disability and inclusive education approaches. They do not usually have specific training or knowledge about disability. They design their curricula in a flexible and open way to accommodate all students. They show a positive attitude toward students with disabilities and use diverse and participatory teaching methodologies, giving prominence to students. These data are consistent with those found in previous studies and offer keys to those faculty members who are interested in developing an inclusive pedagogy at the university. This paper examines in detail how faculty members of six faculties of educational sciences develop a theoretical framework comprising beliefs, knowledge, designs and actions. The research has found that faculty members hold beliefs about disability based on the social model of disability and inclusive approach. In general, inclusive faculty members' knowledge of disability and attention to diversity issues is scarce. The design of courses and teaching programmes led by inclusive university faculty is characterised by being open, flexible and providing clear and detailed information to students. Faculty who develop inclusive pedagogy use varied, participative and active methodologies, which are combined with a positive and approachable attitude towards students with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents guidelines for student perspectives section like from 2014 student perspective papers will be free to access along with peer review and work can be submitted as a student perspectives paper during course of study.

Inclusive education has often been fronted as the panacea in the education of disabled children. Governments have made efforts for disabled children to access schools with their nondisabled counterparts. However, inclusive education should go beyond the mere presence of disabled children in mainstream schools to the participation and achievement of such children. This paper uses the theoretical approach of Disability Studies in Education to explore the extent that the traditional schooling system is willing to go in the pursuit of inclusive education for disabled learners. Can the schooling system change from the current cohort based model to an individual based model? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information about the invitation to submit completed doctoral theses in the field of disability studies. The author mentioned that the theses submitted will be an important reading resources for research in the said field. It would also provide the names of the new colleagues who recently joined the discipline. The format of the information needed for submission like the name of the author and title of the thesis, name of the university which awarded the degree, and where to send the theses are also presented.

The value of, and need for, parent-professional partnerships is an unchallenged mantra within policy relating to 'special educational needs'. In spite of this, partnerships continue to be experienced as problematic by both parents and professionals. This paper brings together the different perspectives of two disability researchers: one a parent of a disabled child while the other was a teacher for 20 years of children with the label autism. The paper deconstructs the concept of partnership and then, drawing on the expertise of parents, suggests how enabling and empowering parent-professional relationships might be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper contextualizes the recent process of development of the New National Curriculum (NNC) for use in Greek-Cypriot public schools. Using content analysis, it pays particular attention to the degree to which the language, performance expectations, and suggested materials described in the NNC take account of disabled children. Notwithstanding the human rights and anti-discrimination rhetoric that surrounds the process of creating an inclusive NNC, the findings presented herein suggest that the curriculum falls short of addressing the rights of disabled children in inclusive education. On the basis of this finding, the paper discusses the dangers inherent in implementing the proposed NNC in its current form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Deaf time, or imagined futures of Deaf communities, as we question the efficacy of a rights framework to support the social relational model of Deaf childhood, which positions Deaf children within Deaf cultural discourses. We probe a disability rights discourse where the inclusion movement promotes the right of all children to high quality education and full participation in society. However, there is a gap between rhetoric and practice in early childhood education, which has often been a site of disablement for Deaf children and their families. In addition, legal recognition of the right to sign language in several contexts has not prevented a decline in numbers of Deaf children learning sign language. In planning for future Deaf communities, we examine Deaf cultural childhoods through the development of a parent ASL curriculum that is aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The curriculum is contextualized in relation to disability rights, sign language rights, and the rights of children outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By making use of a disability studies perspective informed by phenomenology, this paper interrogates the social process of reading news articles that depict disability as if it is only limit. The paper begins from my experience of reading an article that assumes reader‐willingness to imagine disability as a kind of limit without possibility, without life. I go on to consider how the meaning of disability is actually produced by normative forms of cultural perception that recognize certain bodies as a kind of negation. Reading, a common mode of perception within literate western cultures, is used to problematize how mainstream media configures embodiment. Finally, the paper raises the ever present possibility that the ways in which impaired bodies are typically limited may contain the possibility of alternatives that disturb and re‐make the everyday modes of perceiving disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students with disabilities are under-represented in higher education (HE) institutions in Botswana. The number of students with disabilities is on the rise but parity has not been attained. The struggle of students with disabilities to access and participate in HE remains an issue of great concern for disability activists and researchers. This paper sought to document the experiences of university students with disabilities in their struggle to access and participate in HE. Seven students with disabilities took part in the study. Data were gathered through semi-structured focus group interviews. Later on these data were triangulated with an access-audit of facilities. Constant comparison methods were used for data analysis. Six themes emerged, namely: attitudinal barriers; resource barriers; structural barriers; policy related issues; lack of support mechanisms; and lack of skills and knowledge. Implications of the findings to institutions of higher learning are discussed in order to promote wider participation for students with disabilities in HE in Botswana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the friendships of disabled youth in forthcoming doctoral research raised many unsettling questions. Members of academic and disability communities thoughtfully asked how the researcher could legitimately understand, interpret and represent the experiences of disabled youth. The initial impulse was to rely on nearly two decades of clinical practice with children and youth with disabilities; however, the futility of this strategy quickly surfaced. Uncertainty about how to proceed arose. A colleague and mentor suggested that a careful reading of Sandra Harding, Donna Haraway and Mats Alvesson and Kaj Skoldberg might provide the conceptual tools required to address these concerns. This paper presents a student's stumbling, hesitant and sometimes 'harried' attempts to grapple with their unfamiliar arguments while simultaneously exploring tentative connections with disability studies. The evolutionary cycle of queries, responses and reflections from a series of e-mails demonstrate a transition in thinking about research and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disabled people report dissatisfaction with their contact with health professionals and their educational systems. This paper reports on a study into disability within a curriculum leading to initial professional nursing qualification. The 'case study' design involved collecting data from the curriculum document, from students via questionnaire, and a total of 16 semi-structured interviews with both students and teachers involved in delivering the curriculum. Disability appeared as the inequality of inequalities in the planning and delivery of this curriculum. Simulation was employed to teach about disability, yet there was little confidence that students emerged with the necessary skills to deal with a disabled person who happens to become a patient. There was some indication that nurses may be ready to adopt a more socially orientated view of disability. Such optimism remains tentative and there may be a long way to go before nurses play a key role in challenging discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a review of the literature on initial teacher education for inclusion published from 2000 to 2014. The analysis uncovers a number of aspects of concern to academics, researchers, teacher educators, and policy-makers. Making informed decisions about the design of initial teacher education courses and units of study for inclusion depends upon addressing some fundamental issues (i.e. the legacy of special education, and the challenges faced in different regions) and making a balanced and informed assessment of the value of content-infused, single-unit, and school placement/experience approaches. The article discusses the implications of this literature review’s findings for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Early school leaving (ESL) is a serious concern for education authorities in many countries such as Spain. This investigation is aimed at identifying the weak points of educational support policies and making proposals to strengthen them. The article reviews more than 40 documents, including state-level and regional-level laws and regulations about educational support. The analysis of the legal framework was based on three relevant axes for the educational support configuration: support needs attribution, support strategies and agents of support. These three axes shed light on how education policies can prevent education systems from guaranteeing inclusive education. Findings show the need to de-assign the individual attribution of needs that remains directly or indirectly underpinned by Spanish regulations. Regarding support strategies, policies should foster learning acceleration rather than adaptive and low expectation strategies. Finally, more legal guidance is needed to scaffold support agents' real involvement. Despite having high rates of early schooling, Spain is not among those countries that have lower rates of early school leaving (ESL). The implementation of support measures is key to overcoming inequalities. This review of education policies found that the guidelines addressed to Spanish schools include statements that are ambiguous or contradict the inclusion principles. This article provides a useful framework for schools and policymakers to analyse policies and guidelines regarding educational support based on how these address students' needs, strategies and measures implemented, and all the people involved. The analysis of Spanish official documents shows a tendency to attribute learning difficulties to the students themselves, especially when they are diagnosed with any disability. Support policies are crucial to promote inclusive educational support. However, support guidelines are still influenced by clinical models, over reliance on curricular adaptation and student segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We welcome Forshaw's reply to our paper because it opens up debate about psychology and its relationship with the development of an emancipatory disability studies. In our paper we aimed to: (1) raise possibilities for disability studies researchers' engagement with psychology (rather than psychology colonizing disability studies); (2) trace some of the epistemological journeys we underwent in carrying out disability research and community psychology research; (3) consider these possibilities and journeys in relation to previous literature on emancipatory disability research. Forshaw's reply appears to ignore aims (2) and (3) and instead focuses on the ways in which we (mis)represent psychology. He suggests that we: present an inaccurate account of qualitative research in contemporary psychology; make a divisive argument for a 'breakaway group' of community psychologists; epistemologically contradict ourselves because of our concern with 'reality' and social constructionism; argue for only adopting participatory action research; not least, adopt 'simplistic' and 'outdated' views of psychology. We will respond to these criticisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until comparatively recently blind/vision-impaired young people were generally assigned to particular education settings based on their impairment. Restructuring of the education system commenced in the Republic of Ireland in the 1990s, resulting in significant changes in special education including a language of inclusive education within policy initiatives. In the research upon which this article is based, the educational experiences of blind/vision-impaired people, the factors that impacted on these experiences and how these facilitated or inhibited their future opportunities were the primary foci for the study. This article explores the themes of how the post-primary school curriculum was experienced by blind/vision-impaired students and their future expectations and aspiration. In terms of policy development and practice, it is paramount to ensure both effective curriculum participation and transition opportunities are enabled rather than disabled for these students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learners with disabilities remain under-represented in higher education and courses, such as medicine, that grant access to ‘the professions’. National and professional legislation, policy and guidance have changed over the last few decades in response to reforms in the way disability is viewed and valued by society. Principles of equal rights and equality of opportunity inform the negotiation of widened participation in the professions. However, drawing on the example of medical education, it is possible to see that widening participation agendas may be insensitive to the needs of learners with disabilities. Analysing the development of practice and policy from a participation perspective suggests that tokenism may have played a role in deprioritising the voices of individuals with disabilities, rendering policy disconnected from the needs of marginalised groups. The concept of participatory parity may provide an opportunity to readdress this misrepresentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is based on a historical study aiming at analysing the historical determinants for the academic content of the special educational discipline-regarding both ideological attitudes against disability and segregation and more concrete initiatives of action-as it appeared when the expert-function of special education was established during the 1920s and 1930s in Sweden. As the determinants I consider the nineteenth, as well as the twentieth cetury's socio-ideological, educational political and educational philosophical discourses. In order to describe the tendencies in contents I have used the first Scandinavian journal in the special educational field (Hjalpskolan). I have in my discussion been inspired by Michel Foucault's analysis of subtle conditions of power, in the forms of regulations and control mechanisms between the societies 'normal' and its marginal groupings. The essence of the study is that these tendencies are socially constructed within the knowledge tradition of the swedish compulsory school system. Despite their variations they can be classified as follows: a moralizing theme, where the various scientifically coloured arguments for and against segregation are discussed. A religious 'merciful' theme; the genuine human loving compassion with 'the societies least fortunate'. Finally, the sociopolitical theme with focus on socio-economical discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing interest in and increased visibility of the field of Disability Studies raises questions about the field/s logical borders and valid dimensions. This essay looks to guiding principles from the field itself as the basis for delineating a robust liberal arts-based inquiry into disability, distinct from traditional interventionist models. The former is described in this essay as Disability Studies, the latter endeavor, in substance the medicalized applied fields and special education, is identified here as the Not Disability Studies. The essay begins with an overview of the problems found in the academic curriculum with respect to the study of disability, and proceeds to describe how the proposed liberal arts-based Disability Studies can redress those problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a 1993 sample (n = 107) of persons who teach disability studies courses, a sample (n = 27) of disability studies syllabi from the early 1980s, and an extensive bibliography the authors discuss the history and the present condition of disability studies courses in the US and Canada. They discuss the disability paradigm and the methodology used in disability studies courses. The variety and geographical spread of such courses are noted. An extensive comparison of syllabi from the 1980s and the 1990s, including the reading assignments, is carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]