Access for disabled students to further and higher education: an intersubjective and dialogic process

Abstract

Inclusive education is a right for all students at all levels of education, including further and higher education. In this paper, I present an overview of key developments in inclusive education and its underlying principles, as they relate to disabled students. I then discuss the complexities involved in implementing these principles in practice, a discussion that leads to an argument for looking at inclusion through the lens of intersubjectivity. Using this concept, I then argue that educators and students (as key stakeholders) need to work together and with others to remove these barriers, taking into account each other’s different perspectives and understanding inclusive education as an ongoing relational process based on firm principles which are at the same time practised flexibly in order to attend to the peculiarities of each individual situation. I next focus on research that sheds light on the practice of inclusion, especially the barriers that still exist in further and higher education. Finally, I refer to Freirean dialogic pedagogy as a potential guiding light to the practice of inclusive education.