The emphasis on higher education (HE) in today’s knowledge society has increasedthe amount of students enrolled in universities in Sweden. Two percentof these students are people with disabilities, of whom more than half are studentswith dyslexia. Dyslexia is a disability that involves difficulty with writtentext which is the essence of HE. The disability affects these students’ readingand my assumption was therefore that their possibility to complete their educationon an equal footing with their peers was limited.The overall aim of this thesis is to illuminate the prerequisites for participationfor Swedish students with dyslexia in higher education, and to analyse if support,and information about support, offered by higher-education institutionsare accessible to them. Due to lack of previous research, this is a descriptivestudy using the theoretical framework of cultural-historical activity theory(CHAT), a theory that can be summarized in five principles: an activity systemis the unit of analysis, it has historicity, multi-voicedness, it views contradictionsas sources of change, and it has the potential for expansive transformation.To orient myself within the large field of HE and dyslexia, the following questionshave guided my work: What HE measures are taken to ensure accessibilityand participation for Swedish students with dyslexia? What tensions, as definedwithin CHAT, may be found in the HE activities in relation to studentswith dyslexia? How do students with dyslexia regard the support offered? Inorder to answer these questions, I have listened to some of the voices withinHE, by collecting data through a questionnaire sent to all coordinators for studentswith disabilities; by having focus group interviews with university teachers,as well as having individual interviews with students with dyslexia. Thedata were collected and analysed within a CHAT activity system, which depictedHE activities by coordinators and teachers in relation to students withdyslexia. The graph was used in the final discussion to formulate some ideas forexpansive transformation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-11316 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Björn Milrad, Marianne |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för pedagogik, psykologi och idrottsvetenskap, PPI, Växjö, Kalmar |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Linnaeus University Dissertations ; 29 |
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