Month: October 2023

“Disabled people are underrepresented in higher education and disabled students in higher education have somewhat worse outcomes from higher education than non-disabled students. Students with a disability are more likely to drop-out of courses and those that finish their degree tend to have lower degree results; in 2016/17 a lower proportion of UK disabled students were awarded a first or upper second-class degree than those without a reported disability.” Bolton and Hubble (2021:3)

I have spent this week trying to find statistics on how many students with physical disabilities are currently studying practical courses at university. I was quite surprised that this information is not easy to find. Maybe no one is collecting data on specific types of courses, as I was only able to find information on students as a whole. The last data collection that was publish that I could find is from the UK parliament website which shows that in 2019, only 2.5% of students in the UK were students with a multisensory, medical or physical disabilities. I’ve not been able to find out what percentage of those are just with physical disabilities or mobility issues. Academic courses may find it much easier to be accessible for students with physical disabilities as they are mostly taught in lecture theatres and now increasingly online.

As said by Bolton and Hubble “Disabled people are underrepresented in higher education” (2021:7) and those with physical are among the most underrepresented. There are many more studies abut students with learning differences and the awareness is much higher. When I first started thinking about my action research project, I initially intended to look at identifying barriers for all students with disabilities, but the realisation hit that there is more awareness for students with learning differences and neurodiversity, and what barriers there are for them. This underrepresented group of students who have physical disabilities or mobility issues who are not currently seen at LCF, and why are they not seen? why are they not there? As stated by Shaw (2021)”It is critical to identify the barriers faced by disabled H.E. students still denied the socially just opportunity to achieve their potential and make a positive contribution to society.”

References

Bolton, P and Hubble, S. (2021) Support for disabled students in higher education in England Available at https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8716/ Accessed 25th November 2023

Shaw, A., (2021). Inclusion of disabled Higher Education students: why are we not there yet?. International Journal of Inclusive Education, pp.1-19. Available at https://www-tandfonline-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/13603116.2021.1968514 [Accessed] 24th November 2023.

“The social model of disability helps us recognise barriers that make life harder for Disabled people. These barriers are identified as being the physical environment, people’s attitudes, the way people communicate, how institutions and organisations are run, and how society discriminates against those of us who are perceived as ‘different’. Removing these barriers creates equality and offers Disabled people more independence, choice, and control.” Disability Rights UK (2022)

I Had learned about the social model of disability during the Inclusive Practise Unit and it made me view disability in a different way. The idea that people are not disabled, but it is the world around us that disables people a found inspiring. Although I do not have a physical disability, I do have a learning difference that I was not diagnose with until I was 22 which caused years of me feeling as though I was not clever enough and feeling very frustrated as to why I was struggling so much with my school work. My husband also suffered with a rare condition called Perthes Disease as a child, which lead him to using a wheelchair for many years and a full hip replacement as soon as his hit adulthood. Although no longer a wheelchair user, the condition has caused limitations in his mobility and seeing the struggles he can face in day to day activities makes me feel very strongly in favour of the social model of Disability. By identifying the barriers in the world around us that can prevent those with disabilities from being included, and finding ways to bring those barriers down to create a more inclusive society. As stated by Gomes.,et al “One important step in improving accessibility is bringing awareness of diversity and inclusion within our own society.” (2020)

I’ve always strived to make my teaching as inclusive as possible. During Covid I developed LCF Tech pages to guide students through technical workshops that they needed to do from home. Understanding that students have different ways of learning, I gave students options from videos guides, text and diagrams that were translatable and having an Immersive reader function. It is only since the move that I realised that I had not considered physical impairments and how we may have barriers on this course that could inhibit students with physical disabilities from thriving. It is my hope with this Action Research project that I can identify barriers within the BA and MA costume courses and start to find solutions for these in order to bring them down.

“By Identifying social barriers which should be removed, the social model has been effective instrumentally in the liberation of disabled people.” Shakespeare,(2006: 198)

Since I have been a technician at LCF, we have not had a student that is a wheelchair user, This is probably down to the fact that we were located on the first floor at Lime Grove without a lift. However now with the move to Eastbank and being in an accessible building, we can hope to expect that students who are wheelchair users may now apply. I plan to walk around the spaces we have and see what potential barriers we currently have.

References

Disability Rights UK (2022) Social Model of disability: Language. Available at https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/social-model-disability-language Accessed 20th November 2023

Gomes, K.M., Nguyen, T., Stonewall, J., Davis, K., Coppola, S., Hallett, K. and Williams, R.M., (2020) December. Inclusion and Accessibility in The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications available at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kermit-Davis/publication/349283531_Inclusion_and_Accessibility_in_The_Human_Factors_and_Ergonomics_Society/links/6036c6b4299bf1cc26ebefb9/Inclusion-and-Accessibility-in-The-Human-Factors-and-Ergonomics-Society.pdf [Accessed] 26^th October 2023

UAL (2023) Disability services: Our Values. Available at https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/28829/Disability-Service-Values-PDF-1080-KB.pdf Accessed 20th November 2023

Shakespeare, T (2006) The social model of disability. The disability studies reader, 2, pp.197-204. Available at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aiQlDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA195&ots=TCwo90Izu2&dq=By%20Identifying%20social%20barriers%20which%20should%20be%20removed%2C%20the%20social%20model%20has%20been%20effective%20instrumentally%20in%20the%20liberation%20of%20disabled%20people&lr&pg=PA199#v=onepage&q=By%20Identifying%20social%20barriers%20which%20should%20be%20removed,%20the%20social%20model%20has%20been%20effective%20instrumentally%20in%20the%20liberation%20of%20disabled%20people&f=false [Accessed] 19th November 2023.

I found it really useful during this weeks class looking at a visual of the action research cycle based on McNiff and Whitehead (2009)

As a visual learner myself it helps me start to formulate a plan of what I need to do for this project. I have spent the summer considering different options for my ARP, and as it has been 15 years since I last did academic research on this scale, I am feeling quite nervous about it.

I am still working on a question but I know that I want base it on how accessible we are as a course and what we can do to improve it for students with disabilities.

References.

Marsden, R and Bunting, L. ARP Workshop 2 – week 23 October 2023 v.3. The Action Research cycle based on McNiff and Whitehead (2009) p.g 6 Available at https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/mod/folder/view.php?id=1118464 Accessed on 28th October 2023

My first day at East bank required an online induction as the site was still under the construction company Mace, and PPE was required. Steel toe cap shoes, and covered legs in the summer heat was a must to be allowed on site. My first day on site was exactly 4 weeks before we would be open to students and there was lots left to do.

My first impressions of the building were great. The building felt spacious and open planed, the costume rooms felt bigger and more inviting. However, the rooms were still empty. Lime Grove was the first LCF site to be moved, but as our floor had only just been given the green light for early access staff to enter, our furniture was being stored on floors below us.

Each day, more of our equipment and packing boxes arrived and we started to experiment with positioning the machines to get the most out of the space. The room layouts had been designed for us at a time where are cohort numbers were lower and so the need to fit in extra machines was necessary. Due to plug sockets being positioned for the designed layout, we were unable to make and changes and kept to the original design plan.

The most exciting change from moving to East Bank from Lime Grove is the 8 lifts compared to 0 in D Block. The idea that we can now say we are an accessible course in an accessible building is a very welcome change. But are we an accessible course?

References

Masters, S (2023) LCF East bank August 2023

Masters, S (2023) MA Costume 8th Floor August 2023

Masters, S (2023) East Bank 8th Floor lifts November 2023

I spent the summer considering what I would like to do for my action research project and felt very uninspired. I started to get concerned that I would never come up with a viable idea that I felt passionate about. I do not consider myself an academically minded person and always struggled reading and writing due to my dyslexia, and felt like I had a mental block.

That was until I read a post on a sewing Facebook group that I am a member of. A lady had posted asking if her sewing days were over after becoming paralysed from the waist down due to a car accident. There were many comments of support, encouragement and practical advice about domestic sewing machines that do not require the use of a foot pedal. The same domestic machines that I had purchased for the costume department 2 years ago. This lead me to think about the industrial machines we have and how they are not wheelchair accessible due to the height and the required use of the foot pedal in order to operate them.

LCF’s move to East bank promised many new opportunities for us as a course. Coming from the 1st floor in D block Lime Grove which did not have a lift, to the new building that is wheelchair accessible gives us a opportunity to be more inclusive.

I started to think about the social model of disability from the Inclusive practise term and using this to identify barriers on the BA and MA costume courses that would prevent students who are wheelchair users from applying to the courses now we are moving to an accessible building.

Reference

AccessAble (2023) London college of fashion – lime grove – block D. Available at: https://www.accessable.co.uk/university-of-the-arts-london-ual/london-college-of-fashion-lime-grove/access-guides/london-college-of-fashion-lime-grove-block-d Accessed 17th November 2023