The path of least resistance: a voice-relational analysis of disabled students' experiences of discrimination in English universities.

Recent legislation means that it is now illegal to treat a student, for reasons relating to a disability, less favourably than a non-disabled student unless this is justified to maintain academic standards. However, recent research has identified numerous barriers faced by students with disabilities when they attempt to access the higher education curriculum. This study uses a methodology combining life-story approaches with a voice-relational analysis and aims to explore in more detail these barriers by listening to first person accounts from university students with a disability. The students' narratives suggest that disabled students have to work considerably harder than non-disabled students to overcome a wide range of physical, attitudinal, social, cultural and political barriers. Students appear to take the path of least resistance by choosing routes where the barriers are least great and it is argued that in this way they are being discriminated against. The research shows that voice-relational methodology is excellent at producing a thorough account of the phenomenological world of these students without neglecting a materialist and cultural analysis of their environment. These insider perspectives are then used to suggest possible improvements to policy and practice in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]