Aiming for inclusion: processes taking place in co-creation involving students with disabilities in higher education

Abstract

Students with disabilities encounter challenges through higher education and into employment. Despite holistic disability paradigms, higher education institutions continue to view disability as a human quality, providing support services through a medical lens. Through participatory action research, students with disabilities, in collaboration with university researchers co-create an intervention to promote the voices of students with disabilities in higher education. This study explores and describes the co-creation processes. Data were generated through group discussions, mapping, shared analysis, and shared writing through digital and in-person workshops, and shared documents. A reflexive thematic analysis resulted in the generation of five themes; enabling participation and including all voices; sharing and relating to each other; shifting from being a problem to being discriminated; and translating experiences into actions. The fifth and overall theme is the transformation of co-creators’ understandings. The results indicate empowering processes of being awakened to discriminating structures and seeing own capabilities to make changes.