Disability Voice: Educational experience and disability

Abstract

ABSTRACT Lightly structured, in-depth interviews of 30 adults with disabilities and parents of disabled children, probing their educational experiences, yielded rich autobiographical data. The interview transcripts were analysed in terms of the significant patterns of experience which emerged. That particular experiences were shared was clear from frequency of mention, and our claim that these were significant experiences is based on both their subjective intensity and on their impact on the lives of our respondents. In this paper we discuss the most widely shared of these school and post-school experiences and the educational opinions they have generated. We include illuminitive extracts from a small number of the interviews. Finally, we draw some general conclusions supporting the need for educational change towards a more enabling education.