The Rhetoric of Widening Participation in Higher Education and its Impact

Ending the Barriers against Disabled People

Navin Kikabhai

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319759654
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319759661
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

This book offers a critical investigation of the exclusion of individuals described as having 'learning difficulties' from participation in higher education. Using a postmodernist framework, the author explores the insights and experiences of a theatre group attempting to develop an undergraduate degree programme in the performing arts. In doing so, he provides a theoretical map of insights into discourses of power and knowledge, and makes transparent competing and contradictory discursive practices. Suggesting that 'learning difficulties' is a constructed and re-constructed discourse serving normative interests, the author demonstrates that despite the rhetoric of widening participation, individuals are intentionally beset by barriers, silenced and excluded from degree level participation. The author calls for a radical re-think of the notion of 'learning difficulties', segregated provision, access to employment in theatre, and critically questions the notion of participation in higher education. This pioneering volume will appeal to students and scholars of inclusive education, (critical) disability studies, cultural studies and the sociology of education.

© The Author(s) 2018

Navin KikabhaiThe Rhetoric of Widening Participation in Higher Education and its Impacthttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75966-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Navin Kikabhai¹

(1)

School of Education, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

End Abstract

The central concern of this book relates to the issue of ‘learning difficulties’ and modern higher education participation. Interestingly, as will become apparent, both terms are conceptually problematic and laden with assumptions. For example, the descriptor ‘learning difficulties’ is not neutral, but rather one that is intentionally shaped to perform and legitimise processes of exclusion. Likewise, the descriptor ‘higher education’ is also problematic; it is steadily being reshaped to fit corporate ideals, promoting excessive individualism in the form of economic survival. Given this emerging context, the participation of individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’ within ‘higher education’ is understood to be within a wider struggle for change. It involves understanding higher education with regards to its purpose—in terms of who it benefits and who it excludes. It also involves identifying contradictory discourses and includes questioning the construction of ‘learning difficulties’ that have taken on beliefs, realities, practices and truths associated with deficit, personal tragedy and abnormality. It acknowledges that the topic of ‘disability’ is, as Davis (1995) suggests, under-theorised. In terms of addressing this concern, this book draws upon the theoretical work of Max Weber , Michel Foucault , Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari . Such work challenges the belief in rational inquiry, positivism and the idea that ‘facts’ are out there waiting discovery, and alternatively asks questions of the social sciences. Postmodernism reveals what is done to disabled people—people described as having ‘learning difficulties’ as opposed to so-called rational notions of ‘learning difficulties’. It maps out the complex themes such as culture, education, employment, institutions, normative (mis) understandings, rhetoric, widening participation, power/knowledge, panopticon, surveillance, control, regulation, discipline, punishment, exclusion, rhizome, nomad, schizo and escape, challenging what have become habitual mis/understandings, the taken-for-granted and the ‘natural’—what are more commonly called ‘facts’.

Setting the Scene

This book develops an interest in inclusive education (Oliver 1995; Ainscow 1999; Daniels and Garner 1999; Armstrong et al. 1999; Clough and Corbett 2000). This fundamentally relates to a radical restructuring of the entire education system in its totality (Oliver 1995), and involves equal opportunities, values and attitudes promoting an inclusive philosophy (Thomas 1997); it includes the progressive realisation of human rights (UNCRPD 2006) which sees an end to ‘special’ segregated provision. It also draws upon the issue of disabled people and higher education (Corbett 1996b; Fuller et al. 2004; Konur 2004; Hall et al. 2004; Riddell et al. 2005; Adams and Holland 2006; Browne 2010) and raises questions of rights, equity and citizenship. It refers to the changing legislative landscape, the political and philosophical debates related to higher education participation, the notion of widening participation, a Disability Studies/Arts perspective, the social and affirmation models of disability, anti-discriminatory legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act (1995), the public sector duty to end institutional discrimination, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001), equality and human rights , the Disability Equality Duty (2006) and the Equality Act (2010). This changing legislative context is recognised as shifting between individual deficit understandings of disability and, alternatively, one located within an emerging rights-based, social model of disability and a social justice perspective.

Put succinctly, inclusive education is concerned with all phases of education. It requires a systematic reorganisation of education systems in their totality, and a rethinking of teaching, learning and assessment methods in line with socially just pedagogies. It entails that educational settings be non-discriminatory, accessible and enabling spaces, and be responsive to diversity. Its philosophy is inclusiveness, the realisation of human rights , full-participation, self-determination, equity, citizenship and respect for difference.

As will be made apparent, higher education participation discourses appear, for example, alongside discourses of equality, difference, elitism , standards and (as often goes unacknowledged) punishment. Given this context, Thomas (2001) argues that an opportunity had arisen to change higher education, overcome elitism and exclusion, and to initiate social change, but reminds readers that challenging such barriers is complex. The debate concerning elitism , equity and the shift towards a liberal form of higher education has not arisen recently; it has its roots in nineteenth-century debates (Sanderson 1975). Further, pressures have been placed upon the higher education sector in terms of financing (Browne 2010). Thus, the challenge to change higher education, given the increasing uncertainty, is arguably a battle without end. Nevertheless, there is work to be done.

In the context of widening participation, Thomas (2001) relates these barriers to four overlapping categories: the education system; the labour market; social and cultural issues; and the individual . Souza (2002), however, who lives and experiences the label of having ‘learning difficulties’, talks of four ‘separations’: separation at birth (through the process of being labelled) from mother and family life; separation into segregated ‘special’ schools; separation into adult institutions; and separation from the workplace. Interestingly, Ryan and Thomas (1998) earlier relate exclusions to three main areas: the family, education and work. Borsay (2011: 17) similarly made reference to social reconstruction and exclusions—alongside ‘psychological violence’—attaching the theoretical frame of ‘cultural imperialism’.

Acknowledging such separations and exclusions, this book uses the findings from a doctoral qualitative inquiry which emerged through a case study of a theatre initiative attempting to develop a degree programme in the performing arts for individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’ (Kikabhai 2014). It employs the insights and experiences of a group of individuals, revealing hidden accounts and forgotten experiences. As a qualitative inquiry (Denzin and Lincoln 1998), this study enables a critical examination of the complexities, possibilities, setbacks, challenges, enabling outcomes and barriers, and provides a testing ground that offers insights into practice and the barriers experienced. The ‘Cutting Edge Theatre Initiative’ (‘Cutting Edge’ is also used in places) attempted to develop a ‘Theatre Performance and Workshop Practice’ degree programme in partnership with a performing arts college, a higher education institution (HEI) and a drama school offering professional training for the performing arts. Publicised in a theatre arts newspaper as the first of its kind in the UK, this degree programme sought to initiate change and empower individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’ so that they could be actively involved in higher education, theatre arts and work. Its purpose was to equip individuals with the skills, understanding and confidence to take up employment in theatre and related professions—addressing concerns about separations and exclusions (Ryan and Thomas 1998; Souza 2002). However , given the expectations of Cutting Edge to develop a degree programme, it could be judged to have ‘failed’. The idea that this initiative ‘failed’ is problematic and can be reframed and understood within a broader struggle for change; it may also be reinterpreted to mean ‘escaped’ given that higher education can been experienced as inequality and its rhetoric (Chap. 6) is revealed in terms of its function, purpose and outcomes.

In broader terms, Cutting Edge attempted to widen participation, facilitate social mobility and promote social justice at a time when growing numbers of students with diverse backgrounds and expectations were entering HEIs (National Audit Office 2002). At that time, higher education policy had set a goal that 50% of those between 18 and 30 years of age were to be in higher education by 2010 (DfES 2003). Participation figures for 2010/11 released by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DfBIS 2012), under a different political regime, reported that this previous goal had not been met, and that the figure represented a participation rate of 46.5% for that age cohort. As will be explained later, the notion of widening participation serves two contrasting agendas. Briefly, it is related first to the notion of a national economic need to increase the supply of people with ‘higher’ level skills and knowledge, and second to the promotion of a social justice agenda. The problem relating to the exclusion of people labelled and described as having ‘learning difficulties’ from higher education participation is an important one. Changes have also related to the funding of higher education, and te...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Cutting Edge Theatre Initiative: Setting the Scene
• 3. Producing and Reproducing ‘Learning Difficulties’
• 4. The Struggle for Performance and Revealing the Past
• 5. Disability and the Turn to Postmodern Perspectives
• 6. The Rhetoric of Widening Participation
• 7. Ending the Barriers Against Disabled People
• 8. An Act of Resistance
• 9. Conclusion
• Back Matter