ABSTRACTBackgroundUnder the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, disabled people have the right to participate in all decisions that affect their lives, be they in any segment of legislation, policy or practice. The academic world is no exception.MethodsThe authors are members of an inclusive academic team, including a colleague with intellectual disabilities. In this paper, we describe how our team works together and how we adapt our participatory teaching method to other helping professions.FindingsIn addition to the use of participatory teaching in special needs education training, it is possible to adapt the method in the training of mainstream teachers and pastoral students.ConclusionsThe ‘We teach together! Participatory higher education method’ is a way to make the training in helping professions more inclusive. This should, in time, create more inclusive spaces where professionals and people with intellectual disabilities co‐exist.

ABSTRACTBackgroundInclusion‐oriented development processes and corresponding (educational) actions are inevitably linked to the analysis of exclusion and discrimination practices. The institutional ‘production of inequality and difference’ plays a central role. Educational processes are strongly determined by one's own biographical experiences.MethodsIn the summer semester of 2023, a participatory course on discrimination‐sensitive biographical analysis of school experiences was held at the Leipzig University. Subject matter experts on inclusion and education (lecturers with learning disabilities) from the university and transfer project QuaBIS were active involved in the planning and implementation. The article presents and critically assesses findings (analysed by content analysis) based on a group discussion with students in the teaching profession.FindingsOn the basis of the data collected, different categories were created that highlighted the challenges and opportunities of participatory biographical work at different levels. Effective structural conditions and socially shaped practices of segregation were also critically reflected upon.ConclusionsThis participatory seminar workshop offered student teachers the opportunity to reflect on and theoretically categorise their own biographical experiences in relation to ableist norms and related logics of ability. In particular, the perspectives of lecturers with learning disabilities have led to an intensive examination of ableist norms, which also need to be critically reflected upon. Ableism served as a central category of analysis to make sense of powerful and discriminatory entanglements between school, personal biography and society. At the same time, it became clear that structurally and culturally traditional processes of exclusion are active at universities and need to be transparently negotiated and reflected upon.

Summary In Spain, there is still little research that involves people with intellectual disabilities as advisors or coresearchers. This article discusses the collaborative work carried out by the academic researchers and the advisory group during the data analysis. The educational experiences of 30 young people with intellectual disabilities were collaboratively analysed. The involvement of the advisors in the data analysis phase was fundamental to the development of the research.

ABSTRACTBackgroundIn the United Kingdom, approximately 25% of adults with learning disabilities live in supported accommodation. Operational models rarely consider how people with learning disabilities want to experience the flow and rhythm of everyday life. The study explored adults with learning disabilities' perspectives of activity participation in supported settings.MethodParticipants were 19 adults with a learning disability who shared their views via one‐to‐one interviews and focus groups. Questions used for both the interviews and the focus groups were co‐produced with experts by experience. Data were analysed using a rapid analysis involving researchers and experts by experience.FindingsAdults living in supported accommodation said they liked to participate in many activities, especially outside the home, and enjoyed being busy. They identified that their experience and choice could be affected by service limitations, mainly due to a lack of staff support, which in turn was linked to limitations in local authority funding and staff shift patterns.ConclusionsOperational models for supported accommodation settings should prioritise supporting people to participate in a wealth of activities and to experience a ‘busy’ life, within their communities, moving beyond community presence. Such models would enable a better quality of life through greater self‐determination.

ABSTRACTBackgroundIndividuals with profound and multiple learning disabilities are at the centre of debates about what it means to be a person. These debates sometimes start from the position that a person is somebody who possesses mature cognitive abilities, such as intentional communication skills and self‐reflection (which individuals with profound and multiple learning disabilities are sometimes said to lack). However, those closest to people with profound and multiple learning disabilities are rarely consulted. This paper presents research that addresses this gap.MethodsTen unstructured interviews were conducted with family members, friends and allies of the profound and multiple learning disabilities communities. Participants were asked to discuss what being a person meant to them, using their knowledge of supporting individuals with profound and multiple learning disabilities.FindingsInterviewees suggested that a person was fundamentally a relational being, but this relationality was described in a myriad of ways (e.g., as mutual dependence, social role, social gradient, interactionist and storied).ConclusionsA richer understanding of the personhood of individuals with profound and multiple learning disabilities can be developed by listening to more family members and allies, and this can provide a counter‐narrative to the current dominant rational view of personhood.