The insider view: tackling disabling practices in higher education institutions

Abstract

This paper reports on research about the experiences of disabled staff members in UK universities, drawing on eleven semi-structured interviews with disabled staff in one university, alongside a group auto ethnography conducted by the first four authors, all of whom identified as disabled academics. Disability is generally considered to be predominantly an issue for students, both in practice and in the literature. By contrast, taking a social practice approach, we focused on the barriers faced by disabled employees, both overt and hidden. We found that disability was still viewed as a medical problem, and that disabled members of staff faced considerable extra labour in organising their own supports. We were often made to feel that we were unwanted and that we were 'misfits' in the institution. This paper contributes to theory by showing how social practices can become exclusionary, and how interconnections between practices matter. We discuss ways in which ableism, based on the ideal of 'individual' excellence, creates barriers for disabled staff. In the global context of Higher Education, the increasing marketization of universities in higher income countries creates a difficult climate for the values of inclusion.

Misfitting and social practice theory: incorporating disability into the performance and (re)enactment of social practices

“…Similar notions about the rigidity of social practices were reported in academia (Merchant et al 2020). In 11 qualitative interviews with disabled academics in one university, deepened by a collaborative auto-ethnography amongst the disabled authors in our study, a key theme was the competitive, individualistic culture of the university.…”

“…This paper draws on our programme of disability-related research which set out to examine how changes can be made to social practices on the terms of disabled people themselves. The research was designed and co-produced with disabled people, with a partnership with Disability Rights UK, and benefited from having several people identifying as disabled within the research team (Merchant et al 2020) and 18 in the various groups assisting the research. We described the research broadly as 'co-productive' and we built on our own and others' experience of inclusive and participatory methodologies (Williams 2011;Barnes 2003;Nind and Vinha 2014).…”

“…A person only becomes a 'misfit' because there is a common arrangement for doing something which has evolved to suit the 'majority' of human beings, but which often ignores those at the margins. This paper will employ the idea of 'misfitting' , as we also did in Read, Williams, et al (2018) and Merchant et al (2020) since it reminds us continually of the arbitrary nature of the rules and processes which govern social practices. Writing during the 2020 global Coronavirus pandemic, it is clear that everything we do can be changed, when needed.…”

Telework during COVID-19: exposing ableism in U.S. higher education

“…This is unacceptable. We require the presence and participation of people with dis/abilities to dismantle discriminatory practice, policy, and environments in higher education (Merchant 2020).…”

Radical Flexibility and Relationality as Responses to Education in Times of Crisis

“…More broadly still, it means actively dismantling the institutional forces that contribute to illness and disability, like racism, sexism, and transphobia, and given the lack of supports for anti-oppressive pedagogies and practices (e.g., Valcarlos et al 2020), expanding supports for them, specifically in the context of postdigital efforts. In the case of disability, for example, this means refiguring the ways by which 'excellence' is anchored in individualistic notions of self-reliance and independence, given that too often disabled scholars are expected to perform such a circumscribed form of excellence in spite of their disabilities (Merchant et al 2019). This logic of excellence as the purview of the individual, rather than as being a collaborative way of being, is exemplary of the norms of suspicion within antirelational systems, as excellence here is defined by the notion that one does it alone.…”