Canadian Landscape of Accessibility and Accommodations in Post-Secondary
Full Title
Author(s)
Centering Voices
Year of Publication
Media Type
Usefulness to Educators
This report, commissioned by the Federal government, offers both an analysis of the current landscape and detailed recommendations for pathways to improve educational experiences and outcomes for learners with disabilities.
Premise
The Government of Canada commissioned the report to understand how access to education and training for persons with disabilities might support their participation in the competitive labour market. (Note: this economic development and social development lens shapes the structure of the findings, however, the findings align with the lived experiences of learners as reported elsewhere in education literature.) Much of the research was conducted by graduate students with disabilities. Consultations at institutions across Canada engaged students with disabilities, faculty, staff and policymakers, offering a broad analysis of learner needs.
Purpose
- “…the purpose of this project and summary report has been to inform the Government of Canada’s consultation on the development of a new federal disability act.”
- Analyze and illustrate “…the current landscape accessibility, services, accommodations, technical equipment and supports for students with disabilities at publicly funded post-secondary institutions across Canada.
Research Methods
Consultation meetings with learners, faculty, staff and policy-makers contributed to a multi-method research approach.
Conceptual or Theoretical Frameworks
NA
Reference with Published Abstract (when available)
Points of Connection
Accessibility is not regarded holistically by the Academy, nor is it seen as a sociocultural phenomenon. Instead, the institution focuses heavily on addressing the needs of learners to engage with learning materials and environments as assigned, and the need for educators to assess learner’s work. This perspective obscures the need for the whole campus community to engage with accessibility.
In many ways, accessibility remains silo’ed within post-secondary education; progress toward models of inclusion and universal design is slow and exists in pockets across the country.
p.1
Accessibility and inclusion efforts in the post-secondary environment have lagged behind the evolution of the student experience, and are limited to the academic (classroom and online learning) environment;…
p.2
Citing admission numbers of students with disabilities without mentioning graduation rates, or the number of courses and instructors that learners find accessible can offer a false sense that the institution is accessible.
Measures of representation and diversity (i.e., headcounts of persons with disabilities in post-secondary institutions and programs) are not reflective, nor representative, of measures of inclusion.
p. 4
Systems of domination normalize acts of domination and oppression. Accommodations are often said to “level the playing field” for learners with disabilities. To see the benefit of that, one must agree/assume that the playing field is pristine, lauded or sacrosanct. As such, accommodations can function as barriers to questioning or reconfiguring the playing field toward inclusive, liberatory education.
Attitudinal barriers, such as the ‘gatekeeper function’ of those who determine whether or not an accommodation will be made (e.g., staff at Disability Services Office; faculty/instructors who receive accommodation requests), are based on implicit biases and a lack of training and experience, and often negatively impact the experience of students with disabilities.
The current accommodation model, based primarily on a disclosure of needs framework, forces students to ‘legitimize’ their accessibility requirements, and adds stresses and cognitive load to the educational journeys of the students.
Self-advocacy, intended to be a tool that benefits the student, can perpetuate the very issues of discrimination, labelling and legitimization that it is designed to resolve.
The accommodation model and self-advocacy framework need to be re-imagined according to the principles of inclusion and universal design.
p.6
Implicit Bias is an inefficiency to the Accommodation Model.
p.12
As assistive technology becomes integrated into the mainstream, technology funding to support the technology needs of learners with disabilities must evolve. For example, if the built-in features of a Mac satisfy the needs of a learner, there is no need for the learner to be funnelled into buying expensive, add-on single-service assistive technology that functions distinctly and independently from the technology their peers use, and their institutional tech support teams support.
Mainstream devices are beginning to supplant specialized assistive technologies in some applications, and their eligibility as educational aids in funding for studies and assistive device provision programs ought to be considered.
p.9
The past two decades has brought significant technological advances to everyday living and the educational environment, the most obvious of these being smartphone/tablet technology. Such mainstream devices have inherent accessibility features or run apps for accessibility that have changed the way persons with disabilities interact with the world around them.
p. 19
Many of the current policies and programs were designed to address disability rights claims from the 90s. That is problematic for two reasons 1) thinking in the disability community has evolved to demand disability justice 2) the community of learners with disabilities seeking accommodation now encompasses learners with disabilities that were previously unseen and for which programs were not designed.
The proportion of persons identifying with lived experiences [with learning, mental health, chronic medical and autism spectrum disabilities] on campus today is 92% of all students registering with the disability services offices. Thirty years ago, when institutional and governmental disability policies were first being developed, only 10% of students with disabilities identified with lived experiences in those spaces. What this diversity statistic hides is the fact that the absolute numbers of students with physical, visual, and hearing disabilities on campus relative to the entire population of students have remained essentially unchanged in thirty years, despite significant advances in technology and physical infrastructure.
Points of Contention
The authors acknowledge that universal design for physical access and universal design for learning (UDL) as traditionally conceived need critical engagement (e.g. UDL can be uncritically deployed in ways that do not improve learning outcomes for learners with disabilities). However, rather than imagining a new model, the report proposes crafting ” a new model” or an augmentated of the model for UDL. (This is not entirely novel. Others argue for augmenting the model or finding ways to critically engage with the standard model for UDL. Jay Dolmage for example, has written extensively about ways of approaching UDL that are meaningful for learners with disabilities.)
My concern with this is that any application of UDL reinforces the dominance of UDL, whether applied critically or not. It muddies the water. How might educators applying UDL principles in ways that perpetuate inequitable learning experiences for learners with disabilities come to understand that accessible augmentations exist or are even necessary?
That said, the report offers a strong case for a revised model of UDL, that engages the entire academic community. (In this, the model is reminiscent of Jane Seale’s contextualized model of accessibility, though Seale, a vocal critic of UDL, would not advocate for the UDL packaging.) The section “Breaking the Silo’ed Approach to Accessibility Accommodations: Toward Universal Design in the PostSecondary Learning Environment” details their proposed model.
The principles to be discussed are as follows:
Flexibility: relates to the capacity of a post-secondary education environment to respond to the diverse abilities and needs of students with disabilities
Dynamism: focuses on the ability of post-secondary programs and environments to adapt to students’ changing needs and circumstances, whether they be academic or personal in nature
Collaboration: Stakeholders working together and communicating openly with one another to ensure that students are well-supported and their needs met
Fostering positive relationships: relates to interactions between peers as well as to interactions between faculty and students
Does not contravene academic rigor: pertains to the balance that must be achieved between meeting the needs of students without compromising the integrity of a program or institution in doing so
Encompasses the many faces of a student: recognizes the ways in which post-secondary learning environments are unique and takes into consideration the myriad responsibilities students adopt as part of their education
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