Establishing Equity and Quality: The Experience of Schooling from the Perspective of a Student with Vision Impairment.
Introduction Australia promotes the "equal and active participation of all people with disability" in an inclusive education approach (Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, 2013, p. 6) Despite such an aspiration, there continue to be hurdles to the achievement of inclusive education (Slee, 2013a, 2013b) Ideally inclusion is viewed as "a dynamic approach of responding positively to pupil diversity and of seeing individual differences not as problems, but as opportunities for enriching learning" (UNESCO, 2005, p. 12) Inclusive education refers to regular education programs "appropriate to the physical, curricular, and social needs" of all students, including those with disabilities (Brown, Packer Passmore, 2013, p. 223) An inclusive educational program providing equity and quality is proactive in identifying the barriers and obstacles learners encounter and removes those that lead to exclusion (UNESCO, 2012; Slee, 2001) Educational equity recognizes that equal treatment does not equate with equal opportunity to learn (de Valenzuela, 2014; Artiles Kozleski, 2016) All students must be given the real possibility of an equality of outcomes, which requires recognition of their unique learning needs (Foreman, 2011; Nieto Bode, 2012; Pearce, 2009; Sharma, Moore, Furlonger, Smyth King, Kaye, Constantinou, 2010) Relatively few studies have considered the views of students with disabilities on the equity and quality of education they experienced (Byrnes Rickards, 2011; Curtin Clarke, 2005; Redgrove, Jewell Ellison, 2016) and even more limited is research reporting the views of those with vision impairment (OECD, 2012; Thurston, 2014, Whitburn, 2014a) In Australia there are an estimated 4000 school aged children with vision impairment attending mainstream schools (Vision Australia, 2012) The Australian Blindness Forum (2008) expressed concern that specialist intervention for students with vision impairment can be inequitable, lacking in quality, scope and outcomes. Educational research should take into account the voices of young people with disabilities (Morina Diez, 2010; Jones, 2014) particularly in educational contexts (Ainscow, 2005, 2012; Moss, 2012, 2013, Norwich, 2002) The belief is that through listening to students' voices, research highlighting their perspectives will empower and enable their more active participation in decisions made about their education (Armstrong, 2005; Curtin Clarke, 2005; Adderley, Hope, Hughes, Jones, Messiou Shaw, 2015; Messiou, 2012; Slee, 2011) In Australia research concluded that current education programs leave students with vision impairment without the requisite skills to cope beyond secondary education, unable to gain and retain employment or live independently (Whitburn 2014a; Commonwealth of Australia, 2016) In school classrooms the majority of learning occurs through vision (Bardin Lewis, 2008; Khadka, Ryan, Margrain, Woodhouse Davies, 2012; Koutantos, 2000; Murray Armstrong, 2005; Vision Australia, 2012) Full participation in classrooms requires access to print materials but for students with vision impairment this may often require alternative methods that require a prohibitively lengthy amount of time to use (Bardin Lewis, 2008; Mohammed Omar, 2011) For many students with vision impairment an apparently lower academic standing may be a result of extra time not being available to produce work equivalent to their peers (Curtis Reed, 2011) Visual demands increase significantly as students progress through school with increased workload, progressive reduction of print size in books and more extensive use of worksheets (Khadka et al. 2012) Social isolation of students with vision impairment limits discussion of academic work with peers involving feedback on lesson content, resources, the depth of studies, time spent on assignments, and scheduling (Brown, Packer Passmore, 2013; Opie Southcott, 2015)