Campus Belonging: Exploring Accessible Education in Canadian Postsecondary Environments

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Brown, Heather

• SSHRC IG awarded 2023: This project will co-design targeted supports, enhanced strategies, and practice-based policies to enhance autistic postsecondary (PS) students' sense of belonging within Canadian institutions. Accessing and navigating campus life and attaining credentials is difficult for many autistic people despite their many contributions to PS campuses (Nachman[1]). It has been estimated that up to 80% of autistic PS students do not graduate. Yet, we lack information to understand what supports are most needed for Canadian autistic PS students. From design to interpretation, research in this area tends to miss opportunities to explore the mismatch between the needs of autistic PS students and the PS environment and its impact on learning. To achieve breadth and depth of understanding, and to connect this work with a clear course of action, we propose a multi-phase, multi-method study. Our work is informed by critical autism studies and the neurodiversity movement, which challenge deficit-focused, pathologizing discourses and seek to change ableist attitudes that so often lead to social exclusion and systemic barriers (PDy[4]). Aligned with calls from the autistic community, autistic adults will be partners and co-researchers through our participatory, experience-based co-design approach, which includes two overall phases: (1) exploratory and (2) co-design.

• Date created

  2022-10-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Insight Grant
  • IG
  • SSHRC
  • Post-Secondary Institutions
  • Post-Secondary Students
  • Neurodiversity
  • Disability Studies
  • Autism
  • ADHD
  • Neurodivergent
  • Unversity Personnel

• Type of Item

  Research Material

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-y7q3-hz56

• License

  ©️Brown, Heather. All rights reserved other than by permission. This document embargoed to those without UAlberta CCID until 2030.