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Enablers and barriers to equitable participation for students with blindness or low vision in Australian mainstream secondary schools
Fanshawe, Melissa Barton, Georgina Mandarakas, Monique Cain, Melissa Todd, Nicole
Fanshawe, Melissa
Barton, Georgina
Mandarakas, Monique
Cain, Melissa
Todd, Nicole
Abstract
A global commitment to inclusive education through policies and legislation has been espoused to provide equitable access to the curriculum for students with disability. Recent evidence suggests, however, that for students with blindness or low vision (BLV), the visual nature of the curriculum means that content can be inaccessible. This study explored the barriers and enablers that students with BLV encounter when engaging with the curriculum. Empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with six students with BLV in Australian mainstream secondary schools. The interviews were analysed to determine the factors that influenced equitable access and participation. The analysis uncovered a number of themes, including access to curriculum materials, support from classroom teachers, support from specialist educators and familiarity with, and use of assistive technologies. The results of this study demonstrated that more professional development is needed for teachers and other stakeholders to prepare students with BLV to participate in learning ‘on the same basis’ as their peers without disability.
Keywords
Blindness, low vision, inclusive education practices, enablers and inhibitors, learning and teaching
Date
2023
Type
Journal article
Journal
Book
Volume
Issue
Page Range
1-17
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Education
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.