Disabling and Enabling Technologies for Learning in Higher Education for All : Issues and Challenges for Whom?

Integration, inclusion, and equity constitute fundamental dimensions of democracy in post-World War II societies and their institutions. The study presented here reports upon the ways in which individuals and institutions both use and account for the roles that technologies, including ICT, play in disabling and enabling access for learning in higher education for all. Technological innovations during the 20th and 21st centuries, including ICT, have been heralded as holding significant promise for revolutionizing issues of access in societal institutions like schools, healthcare services, etc. (at least in the global North). Taking a socially oriented perspective, the study presented in this paper focuses on an ethnographically framed analysis of two datasets that critically explores the role that technologies, including ICT, play in higher education for individuals who are “differently abled” and who constitute a variation on a continuum of capabilities. Functionality as a dimension of everyday life in higher education in the 21st century is explored through the analysis of (i) case studies of two “differently abled” students in Sweden and (ii) current support services at universities in Sweden. The findings make visible the work that institutions and their members do through analyses of the organization of time and space and the use of technologies in institutional settings against the backdrop of individuals’ accountings and life trajectories. This study also highlights the relevance of multi-scale data analyses for revisiting the ways in which identity positions become framed or understood within higher education.

Agenda för samverkan eller verksamhetens agenda? Om professionellas erfarenheter av samverkan enligt samordnad individuell plan (SIP)

Agenda for collaboration or an agency agenda? Professionals’ experiences of colla­boration according to a coordinated individual plan (CIP) An increasing number of children and adolescents develop complex needs that require simultaneous action by different professionals. Several reports state that efforts for these children and adolescents have become increasingly specialized and fragmented. Since 2010, there are statutory requirements for collaboration according to a coordinated individual plan (SIP) between health care and social services. Pre-school and school can after regional agreement be involved in the co-ordination as equal partner. Collaboration in line with CIP is expected to offset the fragmentation for benefit of the service users’ ability to monitor and comprehend interventions. The aim was to investigate professionals’ experiences of CIP. The study consists of qualitative analysis of 12 focus group interviews with a total of 71 staff with different professions in health care, education and social services about their experiences of CIP. The results indicate that the participants act according to their core mission: nurturing, teaching and investigation. Two main categories with four sub-categories each appeared in the analysis. The main category, hindering factors, contains the categories: different mandates and requirements, requirements for presence initiative, questioning and censure, and timelines and prioritization. The main category of facilitating factors contains the categories: similar interpretation of common agreement, mutual respect and shared learning, common terminology and documentation, and willingness to collaborate. The analysis indicate that CIP was perceived as alternating between, on the one hand, a pro-active and service-focused tool, and on the other hand, a competing and compelling professional instrument.