Not There Yet: Disability and the Illusion of Inclusion in Higher Education

Claire Tait-Doak

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

June 29, 2026

Today we live in an era where the topic of inclusion seems to be everywhere. However, it is often emphasised by practitioners, scholars, and those within marginalised communities themselves that discourse around inclusion does not necessarily translate to comprehension and practice of inclusion.

In higher education especially, the prospect of inclusivity and diversity is seen as a hallmark of progressiveness and enlightenment (Barnes, 2007), but in practice, good intentions and inclusivity programmes often don’t translate to success for disabled students as hoped (HOP Translation Taalcentrum-VU, 2022). Solving the problem of disproportionate difficulty and poorer outcomes for disabled versus non-disabled students is a matter of closing the gap between what we think inclusivity is and what it really looks like.

One of the most common hurdles to broad scale inclusion is challenging the misconception that disability is rare or unusual. Across the EU, 23.9% of people over the age of 16 had a disability in 2024 (Eurostat, 2025). Disability in this case is defined as “activity limitation”, is distinguished between “some limitation” and “severe limitation”, and its prevalence increases with age. In the Netherlands, almost a third (31.5%) of people over the age of 16 report a limitation of some degree. When we think about disability, what often comes to mind is an individual with a difference. When we are presented with statistics such as these, it becomes impossible to separate the disabled individual from the population.

A common approach to disability support is to view the individual impairment as being in need of fixing or, failing that, customised individual solutions. For example, accessibility measures may differ even within the same institution. At Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, some buildings require students and staff to obtain permission using substantial documentation before being able to use an accessible entrance, whereas others provide universally accessible entrances that anyone can activate. These are examples of how individual solutions can be possible but cumbersome, whereas socially diverse solutions can benefit anyone with a need, and not just those who are deemed to fall into a specific category by a third party. Understanding the individual is always crucial, but shifting solutions into the social domain, to fix the elements within society that prevent the disabled person from entering, rather than shouldering the burden of fixing the problem onto the individual as they try to problem solve their way around a rigid society that refuses to budge has been part of disability literature for a long time, but has now become a core element of the discourse (Oliver, 1983, 2013).

Due to the historical and persistent attitude that higher education and academia is reserved for a small, favourable portion of the population, a cultural move towards the school of thought that knowledge is for all does not mean that the interpersonal relationship between the individual and the academic body has changed. Disabled students seeking support are faced with the consequences of disclosure, and must continually self-advocate such that their needs and limitations are fully understood in order to be supported, but also that their abilities and merit are not negated in the process (Barga, 1996; Mullins & Preyde, 2013). Students who do receive appropriate accommodations perform better overall than those who do not, but far fewer students with requirements disclose this to the university for fear of how it may impact their academic career overall (Steenkamp, 2015; Van den Broek et al., 2013). A main point of emphasis within Dutch universities is that disclosure of disability to the institution on commencement of studies did not guarantee supports to be put in place, but rather, the student themselves must request support repeatedly and from numerous parties, leading to both excessive disclosure of personal and medical details, and inconsistency in academic supports (Bakker et al., 2020).

As a result of this gap created by institutional solutions that fall short of requirements, and individual fears, burdens, and lack of suitable advocacy, what often looks like an inclusive environment from the outside, is in reality a complex interplay of factors, and a pathway through the education system which drastically varies from person to person.

To bridge this gap, the way education itself functions needs to change in line with the cultural and political shift towards inclusion, creating an education that is no longer an esoteric space reserved for the privileged (Aron & Loprest, 2012; Oliver, 2013). Inclusion is not simply a matter of opening the doors to historically disadvantaged populations, but of how students are facilitated once they are inside the institution. Students with disabilities who are given an opportunity to participate in an academic programme is not synonymous with an opportunity for academic success; the institution itself must be shaped not only to that individual and their needs, but to the very idea that a substantial percentage of students have some form of limitation, of which only 9.5% are disclosed, but as much as 30% goes undisclosed (Steenkamp, 2015; Van den Broek et al., 2013). The burden should not be placed on the student to contort themselves to an environment that has welcomed them only in so far as they can perform in the same manner as students without disabilities (Yerbury et al., 2022).

As such, it is not simply a matter of including a certain number of people with disabilities into the academic environment, but a structural change in how we think about teaching, learning, assessment, and about what a scholar actually is (Eurydice, 2023). When a student with a learning disability is sitting in a lecture hall learning about cognition, memory, and how learning works, they are already identifying the mismatch between this scientific knowledge, and how they are expected to perform as a student (Dubinsky & Hamid, 2024).

As an example, allowing students more time to complete coursework because living with a form of disability may drastically reduce the net time available to them for study should logically follow the disclosure of the disability. The process to acquire an accommodation such as this should be free from judgement, penalisation, and unnecessary bureaucratic hindrances or other burdens. It should also be, above all, confidential and dignified. These are not subjective aspirations, they are obligations under national and EU legislation, which are themselves derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (European Parliament & Council of the European Union, 2019; Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties, 2026).

The shift away from the subjective viewpoint of education as something that can only exist within a rigid framework and accessible to a specific population is not simply the product of cultural and political awakening, but one which rests on an evolving legal framework for inclusion and the safety of all individuals in our society. The very idea of education no longer rests on the subjective ideology about who deserves education and who doesn’t, but on a requirement to develop the most equitable solution to the problem of inequality. In continuing to build an education system that aligns with this, it is from the individuals that we learn about ability, disability, limitations, needs, possibilities, and the pathways to success. The application of this body of knowledge of individuals must move away from making special arrangements for specific people, to one of assuming that a variety of arrangements are required by default and will be successfully utilised when they are available, accessible, and free from consequence.

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