Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress
International
Special Education Conference
Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity?
1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland
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Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland |
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Disability Rights Commission research and policy – enabling full participation in education
Louca-Mai Wilson, Research Officer and Lisa Boardman, Head of
Education Strategy
Disability Rights Commission, 3 rd Floor, Fox Court, 14 Grays Inn Road, London
WC1X 8HN
research@drc-gb.org
Introduction
Increased participation and success in education for young disabled people will improve their social inclusion and benefit society in general, and ensure that disability equality in education is achieved. Inclusion is a key issue for many young disabled people; many feel isolated at school and college and often have lower expectations about their future than their non-disabled peers (DRC, 2002b).
There are few examples of larger scale studies of young disabled people’s experience of education, and t he DRC therefore felt that there was a need for more systematic evidence of the prevalence of prejudice and discrimination in education, the attributes of institutions associated with more positive experiences, and the impact that the DDA Part 4 was having on the experiences of young disabled people and their parents and carers. There is a need for more information on the experiences and views of young disabled people and their parents or carers , and i n order for the voices of all disabled pupils and students to be heard, we felt that careful consideration needed to be given to methodology. In 2004 the DRC therefore commissioned a qualitative, exploratory study from the University of Birmingham on the education experiences of young disabled people and their families. This paper presents the background to this project, and the research is further discussed in this workshop’s parallel paper presented by Christopher Robertson.
Background – legislation and policy
The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) is an independent body, established by Act of Parliament to eliminate the discrimination faced by disabled people in Great Britain and to promote equality of opportunity. ‘Disabled people’ includes “those with all types of impairment (learning disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, long-term health conditions, sensory and physical impairments)” (DRC, 2004. p11):
‘The DRC believes that education and learning should ensure that disabled people have choices and opportunities that enable them to achieve their full potential and promote their social inclusion…Increased choice for disabled students will benefit others in education. The educational environment will reflect the diversity of society. The increased accessibility will be for all users. Increased participation and success in education for disabled people will improve their social inclusion and benefit society in general’ (DRC, 2002a).
The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 amended Part 4 of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995, making it unlawful for schools, colleges, universities and providers of adult education in Great Britain to discriminate against disabled people. These legal duties make it unlawful for providers of education to treat disabled people less favourably and require them to make ‘reasonable adjustments’. Institutions have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to all aspects of school/college life, including policies, practices and procedures, so that disabled pupils and students are not placed at a substantial disadvantage. Post 16 providers have additional duties to provide auxiliary aids and services, and adjustments involving changes to physical features are required from September 2005.
The Special Education Needs (SEN) framework and the recently introduced Additional Support for Learning (ASL) provision in Scotland provide the majority of discreet funding provision for disabled pupils in schools. As a result the DDA duties do not require schools to provide ‘auxiliary aids and services’ as part of the duty to make reasonable adjustments.
The ‘jigsaw’ approach has created some tensions between the concepts of meeting individual support needs for those with SEN or ASL and securing equal opportunities for disabled pupils. Whilst some disabled children fall out of the scope of SEN provisions, a child whose Special Educational Needs are being met by the framework may not be enjoying the same equality of opportunity as other children.
Schools and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) have a legal duty to plan strategically to improve access to the school premises, the curriculum and information over time. But there is no duty to ensure that the plans are actually carried out and there is little evidence to suggest that local disabled learners or other disabled people are consulted or involved in the drawing up of these plans to improve accessibility.
The recent Disability Discrimnation Bill will introduce a ‘positive duty’ on public authorities in Great Britain to actively promote equality of opportunity for disabled people from December 2006, broadly mirroring the provisions of the Race Relations Amendment Act. Public authorities potentially include schools, colleges, universities, education authorities and regulatory bodies such as the Learning and Skills Councils and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authorities. The general duty requires that public authorities aim to eliminate unlawful disability discrimination and promote equal opportunities for disabled people. The specific duties require bodies to publish a Disability Equality Scheme setting out a three year action plan. The plan must set out how evidence will be gathered to track progress and measure impact of the proposed action and it must demonstrate how disabled people have been involved in producing the scheme and developing the action plan. This specific duty will clearly lead many education authorities and institutions to question how they can best consult with and involve young disabled learners.
The research evidence
This paper discusses some of the key research that informed this project. The background to the research discussed in this workshop is explored further in an article published in Support for Learning (Wilson, 2004).
A review of the literature on disability discrimination across the 0-19 age range was undertaken on behalf of the Disability Rights Commission in July 2002, in order to highlight issues around discrimination in education (Gray, 2002). This review found that, while there is some evidence of incidents of extreme prejudice and discrimination towards young disabled people in schools and other educational institutions, most discrimination is subtler and often unintended. Attitudes towards disability and impairment, such as stereotypes of disabled people as ‘objects of pity’, can often lead to low expectations of future contribution to society amongst education staff and young disabled people themselves. Other pupils and teachers vary in their attitudes and behaviour towards young disabled people; there is evidence that discriminatory attitudes develop through the course of schooling and are not present at an early age.
There are few examples of larger scale studies of disabled people’s experience of education, and the review indicates that research needs to take greater account of disabled young people’s perspectives and experiences, and that there is a need for more information on the experiences and views of young disabled people and their parents or carers. The ‘voices’ of young disabled people and their parents/carers are rarely heard in the literature on disability and education, but in order to understand prejudice and discrimination these experiences need to be documented.
305 young disabled people aged 16 to 24 were interviewed by NOP for the DRC in autumn 2002 (DRC, 2002b). The survey findings suggested that many young disabled people faced particular barriers to achieving their aspirations, and often had to deal with prejudice and discrimination. 45 percent of the young people interviewed said that they had experienced problems at school for reasons related to their impairment. Of those who had experienced problems at school, 90 percent felt that this had affected their academic achievements. 38 percent of respondents said that they were bullied in their last school. Many young disabled people (41%) said that they felt isolated at school due to their impairment, and that this was mainly due to being unable to take part in school activities within and outside the classroom. Seven in ten (69%) of the 21% who said they felt lonely quite a lot or all the time said that this was because of other people’s attitudes towards disabled people.
A quarter (25%) of young disabled people said they felt discriminated against at school. However the majority (70%) felt that they were treated fairly. The majority (72%) of young disabled people felt that teachers valued their achievements and progress in the same way as young non-disabled people, but one fifth (21%) felt that their achievements and progress were not valued in the same way. 34 percent of respondents felt that they were unable to get as much support from teachers and other staff as they needed.
The review of the literature on disability discrimination in education (Gray, 2002) suggests that attitudes developed at school and further education may ‘contribute to a culture that is less conducive to successful employment and economic/ social inclusion’. Young disabled people may therefore ‘learn to have low expectations about their own future contribution to society, as a result of the way in which they are treated’. The survey findings seem to bear this out – by the time they are 30, 30 percent of respondents expected to be earning less than their non-disabled peers, and 28 percent of respondents aged 20-24 said they had not achieved the things they hoped to when they were younger. 20 percent of respondents said they were discouraged from taking GCSEs because of their impairment, and 30 percent of those who had not gone on to further or higher education said they were discouraged from doing so for a reason relating to their impairment. Of those who felt they were discouraged from going on to further or higher education, the reasons given included worries that there would not be sufficient support, transport or suitable accommodation.
Young disabled people want to be regarded and treated as equal to their peers, with the same rights of access and educational opportunity. But Gray (2002) found that schools and educational establishments vary in their willingness and capacity to address and remove existing access barriers. Such barriers are not confined to physical access issues but are also about access to broader curricular and social experience. These issues are addressed further in the research outlined below.
Enabling Participation
In order for the voices of disabled pupils and students to be heard, methods of enabling participation need to be considered from the outset. The Social Research Association (SRA, 2003) guidelines for ethical research have wider implications in relation to enabling participation:
‘ Some people are likely to be excluded from opportunities to take part in research unless social researchers routinely offer to make arrangements that fit with particular requirements. What this means in practice is paying attention to the potential need for language interpretation, signers, or communication aids; [and] … requirements for flexibility in appointment times and length of interviews’ (SR A 2003, p37).
Careful consideration needs to be given to methodology in order to ensure that consultation is truly inclusive and enables all potential participants to have equal opportunities to have their voices heard. This was a key consideration for the research discussed in this workshop, but also needs to be incorporated into wider policy and practice agendas.
Any consultation of disabled pupils also needs to consider the social model of disability: the view that while an individual may have an impairment, he or she is disabled by social and attitudinal barriers. Over the last twenty-five years the social model of disability has been established as a critique of the individual model of disability – the assumption that the individual is ‘disabled’ by their impairment (eg. Barnes & Mercer, 2003). However many of the disabled students who participated in the research discussed in this workshop had little or no awareness of the DDA, and did not necessarily identify themselves as disabled. Pupil participation needs to include:
“resources to assist disabled individuals [to] identify the personal and social barriers they face and help them to devise ways of overcoming these”
(Finklestein and Stuart, 1996, p181)
Summary - the Research
In order for research to fully inform inclusive policy and practice the voices of young disabled people and their parents or carers need to be heard. There is a need for more systematic evidence of the prevalence of prejudice and discrimination in education, the attributes of institutions associated with more positive experiences, and the impact that the DDA Part 4 is having on the experiences of young disabled people and their parents and carers (Gray, 2002). In 2003 the DRC therefore commissioned a qualitative, exploratory study from a team at the University of Birmingham, investigating the views and experiences of disabled pupils and students and their families in Great Britain in relation to the perceived impact of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) Part 4 duties and to education provision generally.
The project has built on previous DRC and other research and provides evidence of key issues for young disabled people and their parents and carers in relation to the perceived impact of the DDA Part 4 duties and to education provision generally. This research project should therefore underpin much of the future education work of the DRC. The first phase of the project was completed in March 2005, and explored methods of recruiting and consulting a wide range of young disabled people in education and their parents or carers, and identify key issues to be explored in a second phase of research – due to be completed in Summer 2006.
The remit of the first phase was to explore the educational experiences of disabled students and their families. This encompassed identifying (broadly) their concerns and priorities but also, importantly, identifying and trialling appropriate research methodologies. This latter focus of the research, one concerned with the identification of methods that are both effective and inclusive, was considered to be central to the first phase of a longer project. The second phase focuses more on the application of methods and on a more detailed exploration of the educational experiences of disabled students and their families.
This research is discussed in more detail in Christopher Robertson’s paper for this workshop.
References
Barnes, C. nd Mercer, G. (2003). Disability. Cambridge : Polity Press
DRC. (2002a). DRC Policy Statement on Education and Learning. [ See note 2 below ]
DRC. (2002b). Young Disabled People: a survey of the views and experiences of young disabled people in Great Britain, conducted by NOP on behalf of the Disability Rights Commission. London: DRC. [See note 1 below]
DRC. (2003). The Implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act Part 4 in educational establishments: some evidence from case studies. A report from the National Foundation for Educational Research for the Disability Rights Commission. [See note 1 below].
DRC (2004). Disability Rights Commission Strategic Plan 2004/5 to 2006/7. London: DRC. [See note 3 below]
FINKLESTEIN, V. and STUART, O. (1996). ‘Developing new services’. In Beyond Disability: towards an enabling society. Ed. Hales, G. London: Sage.
GRAY,P. (2002) Disability Discrimination in Education: a review of the literature on discrimination across the 0-19 age range, undertaken on behalf of the Disability Rights Commission. London: DRC. [See note 1 below].
SRA. (2003). Ethical guidelines. London: The Social Research Association. [Online at http://www.the-sra.org.uk/ethics03.pdf]
Wilson, L.M (2004). ‘Towards Equality: the voices of young disabled people in Disability Rights Commission Research’. Support for Learning, 19, 4, 162-168.
Notes
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