Session Information
19 SES 12, Parallel Paper Session
Paper Session
Contribution
Extant research on disabled people in education has focussed almost exclusively on compulsory and higher education settings, and it is argued that further education is under-researched (James and Biesta 2007). In addition studies frequently approach ‘disabled people’ as a generic group, which belies the complex issues for particular groups and individuals, such as visually impaired students, who are engaged in education (Shakespeare 2006). Drawing on theoretical conceptualisations of the social-relational model of disability (Thomas 1999), and phenomenological approaches to perception (Merleau-Ponty 1962), the study explored the ‘life-world’ of a young visually impaired student in further education, in order to determine the extent to which his experiences and decisions were influenced by policy, practice, interactions and the psycho-social and impairment dimensions of disability.
Ethnographic research benefits from creative ‘fit-for purpose’ tools which enable an accessible research experience for all participants. In ethnographic studies with visually impaired young people, it is essential that the researcher engages with appropriate sensory schemata, in order to be fully inclusive. Phenomenological understandings of social interactions between visually impaired and sighted people formed the underpinning theoretical framework for the analysis of participatory research findings.
This paper describes how participatory methods (Holland et al. 2010) were used by the researcher and a willing, visually impaired case study participant , to explore a range of potential elicitation techniques which might be utilised for a further larger scale ethnographic research project. Creative auditory and tactile methods (accessing the senses of hearing and touch) such as tactile maps and timelines, modelling clay, and sound bytes, along with the use of objects, were all considered and evaluated by the research participant and the researcher together. This participatory dyad was an heuristic with affordances well beyond a simple piloting opportunity and enabled the identification of innovative elicitation strategies.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Holland, S., Renold, E., Ross, N.J. and Hillman, A. 2010. Power, agency and participatory agendas: A critical exploration of young people’s engagement in participative qualitative research. Childhood 17(3), p360-375 James, D. and Biesta, G. 2007. Improving Learning Cultures in Further Education: Understanding How Students Learn (Improving Learning). London: Routledge Merleau-Ponty, M. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Oliver, M. and Barnes, C. 2010. Disability studies, disabled people and the struggle for inclusion. British Journal of Sociology of Education 31(5), p547-5 Shakespeare, T. 2006. Disability rights and wrongs. London: Routledge Stake, R.E. 2005. Qualitative Case Studies. In: Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Thomas, C. 1999. Female Forms: Experiencing and understanding disability. Buckingham: OUP
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.