Students with disabilities: Post-secondary voices and universal design for learning

ABSTRACT Human rights legislation has supported the provision of disability support services for twenty years within the public post-secondary system in British Columbia. However, most institutions and their students with disabilities have faced the challenge of disparate views regarding access to learning. The purposes of this study are rooted in a discourse of equality and social justice: how can the educational community maximize academic access for students with disabilities so that they can benefit from the opportunities that higher education affords other members of society? Universal design for learning is purported to enhance access for all students with diverse learn ing needs. Within this framework, teaching is designed to meet the needs of students’ learning differences by providing multiple means of acquiring information, engaging learner interest, and demonstrating knowledge. The findings of this study contribute to an emerging body of scholarly literature on the effectiveness and implementation of curricula-based access. The purposes of the project were to better understand how social experiences among students and faculty, situational constraints, and organizational demands impact practices related to teaching and learning, as well as whether educational leaders can respond to concerns about access, given the structures they are situated within. Students with disabilities and faculty in an urban post-secondary institution were interviewed to determine how they are positioned within the organizational culture related to academic access. The principles and practices of universal design for learning were utilized as a framework for a nalysis. An exploration of case law that flows from the BC Human Rights Code (1996), and the policy and practices that have evolved from it, were also central to the inquiry. The study’s findings reveal that both students and faculty are unfamiliar with the legal framework, but value the practices associated with universal design for learning. However, developing new interpretations of academic access for students with disabilities will be a challenge. Social structural changes are required to create space for providing access for students through instruction. Ongoing dialogue within the educational community, professional development opportunities, and attention paid to academic access policies are the touchstones by which educational leaders would transform disability access.