While universities might claim inclusion as a completed enterprise, disabled students often report a different experience. Why is this and how are the

As a practitioner in the university sector, in my sessions with neurodiverse and disabled undergraduate and postgraduate students, I frequently hear stories of their frustrations with the exclusionary practices of their institutions. While these are anecdotal, they are common. Although institutions might claim inclusion, disabled students advise of non-inclusive practices while simultaneously being surrounded by materials promoting the inclusive nature of their institution. There are two concurrent narratives running across the sector: those of institutions and those of their disabled students. This research is valuable as it moves discourse from institutions claiming inclusion as a completed enterprise by examining how and why the medicalised language of disability and institutional ableist practices are culturally encoded in universities. Further, the study will explore how disabled students might develop a sense of belonging when, although granted entry, they are then subsequently met with barriers to their inclusion.
Where the focus of the MA dissertation was neurodiverse students, there is now opportunity to open this to a wider disabled student demographic, with further questions to ask. Where there persists an incongruity of lived experience and policy being put into practice, enquiry needs to be made into how disability is perceived and how it is discussed; of who can talk about disability and inclusion and how; where rights have been established but are also ignored; why the 'problem' of the disabled student persists while at the same time claims of widening participation, diversity and

inclusion are used as recruitment and marketing tools; and of how inclusion is interpreted so broadly while at the same time policy and systems of adjustment persist to 'accommodate'.

Therefore, the key research aims of the study are:

1. Through its critical disability studies approach and a qualitative research design, the study will interrogate the different and contradictory narratives in the sector: why, how and by whom are different stories being told?

2. It is time to for a cultural shift in universities' attitudes to their disabled student populations: entry and (limited) access are insufficient. Where disabled students' experiences continue to shine a light on inadequacies in university access both through such constructs as the Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) processes and institutions' own policies of 'inclusion', this study will explore the encoded language and systems that perpetuate the continued dis/ableism of their student populations.

Research questions

These are mapped to the research aims of the study and its epistemological stance of person-centred critical disability studies research.

1. Who do we mean and how do we talk about disabled students?

2. What is the sector doing to include their disabled student populations and how is this being received by those students they aim to support?

3. Universities are often world-leading in research and teaching, yet their disabled students still experience exclusionary practices. While claiming to be 'inclusive' and applying a social model of disability, an individualised, medical model of disability is deeply entrenched throughout institutions' practices. With an encoded language of an imaginary 'default' non-disabled student embedded in the culture of universities, how can we openly discuss, critique and start to dismantle this dis/ableism?

4. What does the sector understand to be inclusion and how do they use the language of inclusion to describe exclusionary practices?

5. Why are rights not enough?

6. What positive suggestions can be made to resolve some of the issues this causes?