The Habitus of Disability in the Field of Higher Education

Abstract

Inclusion has become a strategic direction in Russian state educational policy, even if not all universities are ready to take disabled students. Although the needs and rights of students of higher education are officially recognized, a  gap remains between changes guaranteed by law and the provision of real support in institutions of higher education. Understanding the barriers experienced by this group of students will facilitate inclusive processes in higher education. This article uses a structuralist-constructivist approach and analyses the reasons for the continued persistence of barriers to access to higher education, embedded both in the current experience of segregated education and social attitudes rooted in the history of generations, and controversial actual practices of introducing inclusion. An analysis of interviews with students and university professors show how the habitus of students with disabilities in the field of higher education operates, reproducing and changing the rules of actions, transforming the practice of university life. The habitus of disability and the various forms of capital that are accumulated in the process of mastering the space initially used by the student and used in a particular social field constitute the nature of the practice. Capital is updated and reconverted at the university, and here the formal and informal social ties play a key role. Starting and accumulated capital during the training period, students with disabilities can make modifications to the field of higher education. Changing practices entails a transformation of the rules, connections and social structure of the field of higher education. Accordingly, the normative regulation of a new field is fixed, in which new generations of agents will already operate.