Abstract

Abstract This article explores visually impaired (vi) and blind students’ experiences of support as an undergraduate student in UK higher education (he) by focusing specifically on relationships and interactions between vi and blind students and support staff within Higher Education. Participants within this research show how their experiences highlight an uneven and often exclusionary Higher Education landscape. Constructions of disability and impairment show a complex relationship between support provision as it is offered and experienced. The findings overall suggest the experience of support is more than the placing together of student and support worker and concerns the management of this relationship, particularly around underlying assumptions about being vi. Support is not unnecessary or unwelcome, instead, the complexity of the relationship, the additional work associated with support experienced by these students, combine to shape academic experience.

Highlights

  • This article explores the support experienced by visually impaired (vi) and blind undergraduate students in UK higher education

  • The article focuses on relationships and interactions between these students and the support staff within their Higher Education Institution

  • Participants accounts showed that complex relationships with support workers influenced their experience of he whilst acknowledging, in most instances, the positive rapport with various support workers

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Summary

Introduction

Background This article explores the support experienced by visually impaired (vi) and blind undergraduate students in UK higher education (he). The article focuses on relationships and interactions between these students and the support staff within their Higher Education Institution (hei). A key issue suggests there is more involved than the placing together of student and support worker and concerns the management of this relationship, around underlying assumptions about being vi. Unpacking this indicates “the complex cultural ways in which bodies are shaped by and shape the socio-cultural conditions in which they emerge” (Goodley and Runswick-Cole 2013:15) and offers an alternative understanding of the ethos of support provision. Support is not unnecessary or unwelcome, instead, the complexity of the relationship, the additional work associated with support experienced by these students, combine to shape academic experience

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