This project investigates how students with affective disorders (ICD-10, 2019; WHO, 2024) navigate higher education, focusing on the interplay between body, physical environment, and emotions. The increasing number of students with mental disorders highlights the need to rethink the design of learning environments that foster both inclusion and academic development.

Global estimates from the World Health Organization (2022) and the United Nations (2025) indicate that over 1.3 billion people - 16% of the world’s population - experience significant disability, resulting from interactions between individuals and environmental factors (WHO, 2022; WHO, 2026). Despite being the world’s largest minority, this population faces persistent barriers and exclusion, particularly in education and broader societal participation (CRPD, 2006). Studies have emphasized that educational environments are primarily developed for students with “neurotypical” development, potentially excluding students with mental disorders (Horlin et al., 2024).

In Denmark, one in five students (19%) report having a disability, over half (56%) indicate that their disability is related to mental health (EVA, 2023). By examining how students with affective disorders -from two Danish universities - navigate the physical and social spaces of higher education through embodied and embedded strategies, this project illuminates’ students’ tacit, embodied knowledge and adaptive practices, offering insights for promoting inclusive learning environments.

Tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1967) is understood as knowledge carried in the body and in actions (Adloff et al., 2015). Embodied strategies are conceptualized phenomenologically, following Merleau-Ponty (1945/2012), as the ways this knowledge is lived, felt, and enacted through the body’s intentional engagement with the world. Embedded strategies, analyzed through a space-and-place lens (Tuan, 1977), describe how tacit and bodily knowledge is shaped by and enacted within specific social and material environments (Schrijver, 2021), where characteristics of spaces, places, and institutional settings influence possibilities for action, experience, and emotional engagement. To explore essential forms of tacit knowledge among students with affective disorders in higher education, this study raises three analytical questions:

1)       What embodied and embedded strategies do students with affective disorders use to navigate higher education?

2)       What role does the body play in the inclusion of these students?

3)       How does the physical environment affect their inclusion?

Subjective experiences must be carefully considered to understand the neural bases of human behavior (Fuchs & Schlimme, 2009). Studies highlight the importance of understanding individuals through their lived experiences and bodily constructions, suggesting that “embodiment” is emerging as a major paradigm in psychopathology (Ratcliffe, 2008, 2023; Stanghellini, 2004). Embodied approaches emphasize the circular interaction of altered subjective experiences (Ratcliffe, 2015). Guided by phenomenology (Fuchs, 2021, 2023; Fuchs & Koch, 2014; Fuchs et al., 2009; Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012) and spatial theory (Tuan, 1974, 1977), this project aims to:

Investigate the role of the body in shaping strategies for managing academic, social, and emotional challenges.

Analyze how bodily, emotional, and spatial interactions can exacerbate or alleviate the effects of affective disorders on learning and participation.

Generate insights to inform more inclusive educational practices and the design of learning environments supporting students with affective disorders. (512 words)

A phenomenological ethnographic approach, combining multiple qualitative methods, was adopted to examine how students with affective disorders navigate educational contexts through tacit, bodily, and situated knowledge. This approach was selected for three reasons. Firstly, it enables in-depth exploration of subjective and sensory experiences, capturing the embodied and affective dimensions of students’ engagement with learning environments. Secondly, it allows flexible, participant-centered data collection through walk-and-talk interviews (Kusenbach, 2003), participatory observation, and photo-elicitation (Grimmet & Boucher, 2017), providing insight into how social and spatial contexts shape strategies for managing anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder. Thirdly, this methodology emphasizes research with participants rather than about them, fostering ethical reflexivity, participant autonomy, and co-creation of knowledge. By integrating these methods, the study reveals how bodily, emotional, and environmental factors interact to influence students’ well-being and academic experiences, offering rich, situated insights inaccessible through purely quantitative approaches. (149 words)

Increasing understanding of how students with affective disorders experience and navigate higher education bodily and emotionally will inform the development of institutional learning environments and spatial designs that better accommodate emotional distress. By combining walk-and-talk interviews, participatory observation, and photo-elicitation, the study will provide nuanced insight into students’ subjective and sensory experiences and how different learning environments may exacerbate or alleviate anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder. The scientific contribution lies in advancing knowledge of how learning environments influence academic life and social relationships, particularly for students with affective disorders, offering a foundation for further phenomenological and ethnographic research. Findings can guide universities and policymakers in creating inclusive and supportive spatial and academic frameworks, as well as sustainable learning environments that enhance student well-being and learning outcomes. Societal benefits include increased awareness of affective conditions, better understanding of how educational institutions can improve student well-being, and reduced stigma by situating personal experiences within broader educational contexts. This knowledge can inform the design of learning spaces and support services that respond effectively to students’ experiences and needs. (175 words)

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