IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v6y2018i4p125-136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Disability in Higher Education: Explanations and Legitimisation from Teachers at Leipzig University

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Aust

    (Equal Opportunity Office, Leipzig University, Germany)

Abstract

In 2009, Germany ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) and committed itself to allow for “the full and effective participation [of people with disabilities] in society” (United Nations, 2006, §3), especially in education (United Nations, 2016, §24). The present article addresses the necessary follow-up question: which patterns of perception university teachers have of students with disabilities? A first project-based qualitative analysis of data from the EU-project “European Action on Disability within Higher Education” has been conducted on the grounds that disability can be described as a constructed sociocultural phenomenon (Tremain, 2005), showing that heterogenous concepts of disability can be reconstructed from the interviews (Aust, Trommler, & Drinck, 2015). In an adaptation of theoretical sampling according to Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 2010), interviews with teachers were selected for this article. The Explanatory Legitimacy Theory Model by DePoy and Gilson (2004, 2010) served as a pool of ideas for analysis. The four main areas of, 1) effective power of symbols or iconic figures, 2) performativity of attributions of disability, 3) dimension of time for concepts addressed, and 4) perpetuation of the medicine model can be reconstructed. The analysis indicates that the medicine model remains the dominant reference when teachers in higher education speak about disability. In conclusion, conditions that impede the proper implementation of the UN-CRPD in higher education must be identified so that higher education institutions can be further developed as multicultural organisations (Schein, 1984).

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Aust, 2018. "Disability in Higher Education: Explanations and Legitimisation from Teachers at Leipzig University," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(4), pages 125-136.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v6:y:2018:i:4:p:125-136
    DOI: 10.17645/si.v6i4.1641
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/1641
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/si.v6i4.1641?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v6:y:2018:i:4:p:125-136. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.