Understanding disabled students’ use of technology in a university: a social and relational perspective

Despite having accessibility guidelines and policies, digital learning resources and services remain largely inaccessible to disabled university students. Evidence shows that technology use is more than a case of having access and use. Students with different trajectories experience technology very differently. Issues and challenges, particularly among disabled university students, have been found to be complex and multi-faceted across the spectrum. The focus of past research into digital inequalities based on access alone has led to limited insights in technology use. Therefore, a socio-cultural framework is needed to enable a more critical and nuanced understanding of the uptake of digital technology among disabled university students.

Through an intensive look at a case university in Malaysia, I draw upon Bourdieu's social and relational framework to understand the “messy realities” that exist in the students’ relationship with their technologies. This case study relies on multiple sources of evidence, combining three data analysis approaches. Mapped to Bourdieu’s three-level field analysis, the analytic approaches are Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) of documentary and media sources, Voice-Centered Relational (VCR) method of analysis of interview data, and descriptive analysis of survey data. Collectively, these multiple perspectives allow for a broader and critical interpretations of the disabled university students’ narratives from different vantage points.