Introduction

Viewed through a lens of optimism, the position of disabled people in higher education has been transformed over a very short period of time. As recently as the 1990s, disabled people were largely excluded from higher education, and those who were successful in gaining a place were offered no guarantee of support. While legislation passed in the early 1980s placed an obligation on local authorities to identify and address children's special educational needs, it was not until the passage of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) in 2001 that universities were placed under an obligation to avoid discrimination against disabled students by making reasonable adjustments and avoiding less favourable treatment. From this point, disabled students had rights to reasonable levels of support, rather than being dependent on the goodwill of staff and students, as had been the case in the past. However, as many disabled students discovered, gaining admission is only the first part of the challenge. Once admitted to a particular course at college or university, disabled students still have to engage in a daily struggle to access buildings, course materials and examinations. Building friendships and social capital, those invisible but vital elements of university experience, may also prove hugely challenging. Finally, coming to terms with one's identity as a disabled student, and incorporating this into a future identity as a working person, may also be highly problematic.

This chapter begins by outlining the progress made by disabled students in accessing higher education over the past two decades. Universities made very little provision for disabled students before the 1990s; since then, a range of policy and funding measures have been put in place (Fuller et al, 2009). Despite the evident gains, it is clear that disabled students continue to face a complex web of disadvantage. Whilst some issues, such as physical access, are relatively straightforward to address, others, such as the negotiation of identity as a disabled person in higher education, are much more difficult to tackle since they are regarded as private rather than public matters. This point is illustrated through the experiences of a student with a diagnosis of dyslexia, struggling with her own ambivalent views of disability and the discriminatory attitudes and practices she encounters on work placement. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the struggle ahead in the light of possible policy trends.