Students as Partners: The Student Inclusion Panel in Practice

Online 13th June 10:15-11:00

Lauren Hamilton

I am a Social Science researcher with a background in Education and Critical Disability Studies. I advocate an interdisciplinary approach to the study of disability discourse with an emphasis on achieving universal inclusion and acceptance. Currently a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Chartered Manager with CMI I have worked in Higher Education for almost ten years, with previous roles as a lecturer in Disability Studies and Inclusive Practice and now currently a Senior Academic Skills Tutor. Coming to the end of my EdD, my research revolves around accessibility and inclusion within Higher Education. More specifically, I use a participatory approach to address the exclusion and inclusion of disabled students. Through this work I have since founded, and now chair, the Student Inclusion Panel. This panel centralises students voices and uses students as partners to improve accessibility and inclusion to teaching and learning resources, and teaching practice across the university. The session will provide an overview of the panel and its outputs so far and present the findings of the project and how the co -creation and implementation of a university wide student inclusion panel served to not only rebalance the power struggles withing the institution but also served as a social model agenda of an education for all, transforming professional practice for the better.

The Student Inclusion Panel in Practice

Inclusion as both an educational and social approach for disabled people is a widely debated topic within western culture and contemporary research. Within the United Kingdom (UK) disability, as a concept, is defined and determined within antidiscrimination legislations and policies in an attempt to prevent segregation and exclusion. However, despite this progressive legislation professional practice, or educators within higher education and socio economic, or cultural conditions within mainstream society both produce and reproduce cultural stratification and oppression by predominantly focusing on a disabled person’s perceived medical deficit. It is this systematic and hegemonic labelling and classification process within higher education, along with a tokenistic approach to inclusion, which consequently fails to recognise and acknowledge social dilemmas and unbalanced institutional and societal power relations within a contemporary capitalist society. As a result, a participatory project, which established disabled students as co – creators, aimed to critically analyse disabled students lived experiences of inclusion and inclusive practice, within the contemporary western education system from a fully inclusive, critical disability studies perspective. Through a deconstruction, critique and analysis of contemporary policy and professional practice within education, the study aimed to critically review anomalous practice and inclusionism within the validity of professional knowledge within society. Equally, the research gathered data on how HE practitioners preconceptions and attitudes towards disabled people impacted their practice. The presentation and discussion will therefore present the findings of the project and how the co -creation and implementation of a university wide student inclusion panel served to not only rebalance the power struggles within the institution but also served as a social model agenda of an education for all, transforming professional practice for the better.