Research on conceptualisations of disability and issues related to the inclusion of learners with disabilities in education is significant for understanding some of the most controversial issues in Inclusive Education and Disability Studies. To this end, a range of data collection tools are used in disability-oriented studies (e.g. interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, document analysis, etc.) to serve different research questions. Our study focuses on the use of vignettes, as a data collection tool in studies collecting and analysing disability related issues and views.

According to Al Sadi and Basit (2017), vignettes are short descriptions of some social circumstances or people that those involved in research have to base their crisis upon them. They position a person’s behavior in the vignette in a context with the aim to find out about the views of different people on different matters (O’Dell, Crafter, De Abreu & Cline, 2012). Vignettes are used to extract the participants’ views and feelings on the theme of their study and encourage discussion (Skilling & Stylianides, 2020). The final product of vignettes could be fictional or real or a combination of both (Richman & Mercer, 2002). There are different kinds of vignettes, such as text and pictures (Hughes & Huby, 2002). As a research method, vignettes are becoming popular both in qualitative and quantitative research (Al Sadi & Basit, 2017).

The theoretical framework of our study draws from Disability Studies and Inclusive Education. Disability Studies consider disability as socially constructed (DeMatthews, Serafini & Watson, 2021) and reject the medical model of disability that views people with disabilities as pitiful and passive persons in need of therapies. The feminist approach of Disability Studies considers the experiences of people with disabilities important (Morris, 1991). Understanding these experiences could help us recognise and reject stereotypes related to disability, and fight against oppression. Theory developed in Disability Studies is relevant to inclusive education (Connor, Gabel, Gallagher & Morton, 2008) and can inform pedagogical approaches on the education of learners with disabilities and other learners, in order to ensure attendance and participation in the mainstream school (Florian, 2019). Inclusion is about the reconstruction of schools to welcome all learners, rather than only those who can learn in the mainstream way (Baglieri & Lalvani, 2020). Effective implementation of inclusive education can ensure that learners are valued and progress, and is linked with the formation of inclusive communities (Kefallinou, Symeonidou & Meijer, 2020). Although many countries aim at inclusive education through policy documents, there are still many issues concerning its conceptualization and implementation. In our study, we considered questions raised in the literature concerning disability research in education and the society, such as the following: To what extent are/should people with disabilities be involved in the study? When is a study about disability worth-doing? Which theoretical framework guides the study and how is this in line with the views/desires of activists with disabilities? (Clough & Barton, 1995; Barnes & Mercer, 1997; Allan & Slee, 2005; Symeonidou & Beauchamp-Pryor, 2013).

We conducted a literature review of research papers that used vignettes as the main or complementary data collection tool in order to elicit views about/understandings of matters related to disability and inclusive education. The research question guiding the study was ‘How are vignettes used in research focussing on the views of different groups of people concerning disability issues?’. This question arose from our desire to use vignettes on different groups of people to gather their views in the best possible way. We aimed to know more about the ways vignettes were used before we came to our own decisions about how to use them.

This study presents a review of the literature on the use of vignettes in disability research. The review included 25 papers published in four leading journals in the field (Disability and Society, Disability Studies Quarterly, International Journal of Inclusive Education, European Journal of Special Needs Education) between 2010 and August 2020 (published online with DOI number). The chosen journals publish research falling within Inclusive Education and/or Disability Studies, conducted in different countries, using a range of methods. The research papers were searched in each individual journal using the keywords: vignette or vignettes, and disability. The criteria for inclusion of the articles in the study were to be published between 2010 and 2020, and to have used vignettes either as the main or secondary method to investigate disability related views. Each research paper identified, was read in order to confirm that it referred to research using vignettes as a research method, as the term was often used to denote an interview or a book excerpt. In this way, many of the papers identified in the first search were excluded. The papers included in the review reported studies that used various methods, such as providing electronic and written questionnaires, conducting individual interviews, etc. The studies were conducted in various countries in Europe, Asia, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. All the papers were carefully read, and a memo was created for each one. The memos were grouped according to the groups of people to whom they were addressed. In this case, they referred to people mainly without disabilities (e.g., from the general population or because of one attribute), to teachers and student teachers, to people with disabilities, and to students. The memo prepared for each paper included the following: purpose of the study, the country in which the study was conducted, details about the participants and their attributes, the type of study (i.e., qualitative and/or quantitative), the research tools, details about the use of vignettes in the study, some issues that were considered important to be noted in relation to the content of the vignettes, and the most important research findings. The memos were grouped according to the group of participants they intended to reach and a content analysis followed, based on a coding frame. A careful reading of the memos followed and some common themes were identified. The common themes are discussed in the discussion with examples from the research papers.

The findings indicate that both qualitative and quantitative studies used vignettes to elicit views about disability issues from people without disabilities, people with disabilities, in-service and student teachers, and children/teenagers. Some researchers used vignettes to elicit views about sensitive issues. For example, a qualitative study used vignettes to interview non-disabled teenagers about their views concerning young carers (see O’Dell et al., 2010). Nine out of the 46 participants of the study were carers of a family member with disability. The researchers noted that their vignettes intended to make the participants feel close to the protagonist (e.g. according to a vignette, a 14-year-old teenager was the carer of her father with disability), and share their experiences/views indirectly. It could be argued, however, that the vignette presented in the paper guides the participants to feeling sorry for young carers, which was actually the finding of the study. Some papers used vignettes to record views on inclusion. For example, Bešić, Paleczek and Gasteiger-Klicpera (2018) used vignettes in questionnaires to elicit views about the inclusion of learners with different attributes. The study was interested in examining views from the lens of intersectionality, so each vignette described a male or female learner with different attributes (e.g. a native child with physical disability, a refugee child without disability, etc.). The researchers mention that a limitation of their study was that their vignettes combined two variables, and therefore it is not clear which variable caused the participants’ responses. There are methodological issues concerning the use of vignettes (e.g. the language and content of the vignettes, the quality of the vignette in relation to the research questions of the study, the interpretation of the findings stemming from vignettes in relation to the theoretical framework). These issues are discussed in relation to generic methodological issues and disability-specific issues.

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