Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in the University through Eco-Sustainable Service-Learning

Abstract

Higher Education must confront the challenges of Environmental Education and socioeducational inclusion. In order to address these challenges, methodologies such as Service-Learning have been employed to enhance the awareness of the university community regarding their environmental needs. This paper presents the University Service-Learning Project developed with 44 students of the Degrees in Early Childhood Education and Social Education and 10 students with intellectual disabilities of the Inclusive University Studies of a public university (Madrid). The main objective is to promote quality, inclusive and sustainable education in the university community through Service-Learning. The methodology is quantitative and exploratory. Through a questionnaire designed ad hoc and validated by experts, a descriptive and inferential analysis of the data has been carried out, applying Chi-square to determine the existence of differences between participants. The results show a high valuation by the students, highlighting significant differences with respect to some variables, especially in favor of students with disabilities and students of the Degree in Social Education. We conclude the value of this methodology for eco-sustainable university education as it favors the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities, curricular sustainability and compliance with university social responsibility and the 2030 Agenda.