The overall aim of the project is to explore how to create more inclusive practices and organizations in higher education. Higher educational institutions are organized with a standard student in mind. A large minority – often with impairments - experience problems with the standard student requirements. To compensate, the educational institutions offer educational support [Specialpædagogisk Støtte]. Such designated educational support does help but can be experienced as stigmatizing. The need for additional support also produces an extra workload for example to acquaint oneself with complex rules for dispensations and apply for extra re-exams. Thus, the challenges experienced by atypical students arise in the meetings between the student and the educational institution, rather than from the impairment itself. The higher drop-out rate among students with impairments suggests that the current support system is insufficient. There is a need to rethink the educational support system along the line of Universal Design for Education (UDL): To design educational systems with the diversity of students in mind. UDL is a broad frame of thinking that stresses multiple ways of presenting and engaging with the subject matter, thereby supporting a diversity of ways of participating and learning for all. What if the educational system had multiple student pathways? The pathway concept stresses the need to develop sets of coordinated practices among faculty, students and administrators that are experienced as continuous and supportive of learning by as many students as possible.
From the Bevica Foundation
Project period: December 2024 to December 2027
The project is funded by AUFF (Aarhus University Research Foundation)