The experiences of severely visually impaired students in higher music education

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate the experiences of severely visually impaired students in higher music education. Higher education should be accessible to all and therefore policies must be created and implemented to ensure this. The experiences of students with impairments best show where barriers exist for such students and how they can be removed. This studied is based on the social model of disability and the emancipatory research paradigm which is linked to critical pedagogy. The data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews with three participants and the use of my own experiences. The findings of this study show firstly that attitudinal issues have a great effect on experiences. Secondly it is clear that the severely visually impaired student needs accommodations to be able to study. These are linked, above all to obtaining accessible materials and areas of study that are normally highly visually based. Whilst all participants had had positive experiences there were many barriers that had complicated their studies. This shows that higher music education needs to be made more accessible through policies and their implementation.