Double Jeopardy: Plight of Female Students with Disabilities in Botswana’s Higher Education

Theoretical Framework

In this article, we used the SMD to critically analyse the experiences of female students with disabilities who were enrolled in Botswana’s institutions of higher learning. SMD challenges the predominant discourses that tend to promote the ‘deficit model’ that brands people with disabilities as abnormal, and that they should be corrected. SMD does not view nor portray persons with disabilities as passive victims, and thus it promotes the understanding of persons with disabilities as persons endowed with the agency to confront and resist exclusion and oppression (Adam & Kreps, 2006; Devlin & Pothier, 2006; Lepofsky, 2004). Social scientists such as Mike Oliver (1990, pp. 112–131) situated disability within the social arrangements of the society. In this context, disability is a social–political construct which results from barriers which are attitudinal, structural and political as well as from curriculum factors nested in social arrangements which limit the access and participation of female students with disabilities in HE. As a result, these individuals continue to face challenges in employment, housing and transportation that arise from socio-political arrangements and not from their medical condition. Thus, these individuals cannot be ‘fixed’ but their human rights need to be protected through legislation and mainstreamed in the political process (Bickenbach, Chatterji, Badley, & Ustun, 2008). Proponents of SMD call for the creation of a barrier-free society to promote access and participation in society for individuals with disabilities and reduce the dominant exclusion tendencies (Campbell & Oliver, 1996).

This study seeks to explore the access to and participation in HE of female students with disabilities. Therefore, their experiences were central to this study for which SMD was used. SMD as an embodied theory emerges from the lived experiences of persons with disabilities; hence, it enabled the researcher to explore the experiences of female students with disabilities enrolled in higher education institutions (HEIs) and better understand how they are affected by contextual factors.

Review of Literature

Research Settings

This study was carried out at three university college campuses in Gaborone. Two (UCA and UCC) are public institutions while the third (UCD) is privately owned. UCA and UCC offer both part-time and full-time undergraduate and graduate courses. UCD offers only undergraduate courses.

UCA is a large public HEI that offers programmes in various academic disciplines such as Social Sciences, Business, Science and Engineering. Its student enrolment is close to 15,000. The campus has well-established Disability Support Services catering to 90 students with various disabilities.

UCC is the oldest public HEI offering specialised programmes in Agriculture, such as Mechanisation, Soil Science, Economics, Crop Science and Veterinary Science. This institution has enrolled approximately 2,000 students. Support services for students with disabilities here were relatively new and coordinated by the Student Affairs office. In total, UCC had registered less than five students with disabilities.

UCD is a privately owned institution that offers programmes in Business Management with a total student enrolment of 4,000. Like UCC, UCD had a limited number of students with disabilities (10 in all, mostly with visual impairments). The student support services office was in the initial stages of disability-service delivery.

Only these three HEIs enrolled students with disabilities and had facilities in place for them. Hence these campuses were the research sites for the study.

Participants

The study applied the purposive sampling approach for locating information-rich key informants, the process beginning with questioning well-situated people (Smith et al., 2009). The first author of this research is Manager, Disability Support Services, at one of the three institutions of HE selected for the study, and works very closely with the students with disabilities and had prior knowledge about female students with disabilities. Seven female students with disabilities voluntarily participated in the study (see Table 1). While selecting the participants, the researchers firstly obtained permission from the Institutional Review Board of the institution; and secondly, the researchers contacted the participants by telephone to make personal appointments. The researchers explained the nature and purpose of the study and maintained anonymity and data confidentiality. This process helped the researcher build relationships with the participants of the study (Chilisa & Preece, 2005).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Participant’s Characteristics

Pseudonym	Type of Disability	Institution	Programme	Level of Study
Chedza	Physical	UCC	BSc Agricultural Economics	Third year
Bonani	Physical	UCA	BEd Counselling	Third year
Chiyapo	Physical	UCA	BA Library Studies	Third year
Mbuya	Cerebral atrophy	UCA	BSc Environmental Science	Fourth year
Wedu	Visual impairment	UCA	BA Media Studies	Fourth year
Koga	Visual impairment	UCD	Business Studies	First year
Mpilo	Visual impairment	UCD	Business Studies	First year

Source: Authors’ own.

Data-collection Instruments and Procedure

Data Analysis

Data gathered through three processes were transcribed and then de-identified; following the transcription of the primary data (focus group interview), they were imported into ATLAS.ti 7.5 together with secondary data (pictures generated through photovoice and solicited diaries). Data were de-identified and pseudonym were used. Researchers read all the data numerous times and analysed them to identify recurring patterns and themes (Frankena, Naaldenberg, Cardol, Linehan, & van Schrojenstein Lantman-de Valk, 2015). A list of codes was developed and the initial phase yielded 12 families (codes) that were merged into four major themes. The next section discusses these themes in detail.

Socio-cultural Beliefs and Disability Identity

The study concluded that disability is deeply rooted within the social–cultural fabric of the society and it influences the experiences of female students with disabilities. In the context of HE, disability influences policies, shapes access and participation of this group of students in curricular as well as co-curricular activities. Socio-cultural beliefs influence the broader social context of HE and influence peers and faculty–student social relations. The dynamics of how this intra-relationship occurs can best be understood under three sub-themes: body image, self-acceptance and peer acceptance.

Structural Access and Participation of Female Students with Disabilities

Participants of the study explicitly narrated how spatiality interacted with female students with disabilities to shape their experiences in Botswana’s HEIs. Characteristically, students’ experiences resulted from their interaction with key spaces of student life in the setting of Botswana’s HEIs. It is important to underscore that structural access contributes to positive experiences as is evidenced by the independent access and participation in all activities taking place in these spaces. The positive experiences of students were a result of their interaction with spaces that were organised with ramps, double doors, sidewalks, ‘reserved parking’ areas and accessible buildings (lecture halls, halls of residence and student-services buildings) with lifts. Thus, these spaces were welcoming, and relayed the powerful and socially positive messages of ‘you belong here’ and ‘we value diversity’. From the students’ standpoint, these messages brought limitless social and academic experiences, leading to dignified participation in these institutions. Participants hailed the provision of these accessible spaces as a clear commitment to the creation of a barrier-free environment that widens access and enhances participation. The independent participation of students with disabilities in student-centred spaces mitigated the unequal power relations between students with and without disabilities. This was exemplified by innumerable instances in which access and participation were not negotiated through students without disabilities.

Notwithstanding these positive experiences, students equally narrated their negative experiences, where space was socially and culturally marked to maintain values of normalcy, thus creating social divisions between students with and without disabilities. The following excerpt illustrates the experiences of students with mobility limitations in academic spaces.

Structural barriers emerged as a major concern. Because of her physical disabilities, Chedza narrated her experience of structural barriers as follows: ‘… like the cafeteria. It is not easy to access if there is a queue as I am unable to queue using a wheelchair. So, I have to wait for someone to get food for me’. Structural barriers were also evident in lecture halls where Chedza attended her lessons during lesson observation.

This foregrounded the challenges students with mobility limitations contend within Botswana’s HEIs. Whereas their peers’ interaction with space was unaccompanied by worries about classroom design, for female students with mobility limitations it was a huge concern and adversely affected their ability to succeed in their studies. Students like Bonani devised student-initiated reasonable accommodations to address the ‘fit-in’ structural barriers that were pervasive in HEIs environments by identifying accessible space themselves. Repeatedly the pervasive nature of structural access was also brought up and further articulated during the photovoice workshop. Chiyapo, as a female with physical disabilities, succinctly captured the issue of structural barriers at UCA:

They are excluding us; I don’t even go there. They are upstairs; I have to see people go and get me this and that. I make people tired. I call the lecturer downstairs; it’s just a shadow consultation. Have to go through other people when I have a lecture; it’s a cumbersome experience. I don’t even bother.

Echoing similar sentiments, Bonani said:

Restrooms within the academic space have no provisions for students with disabilities. My dignity has been compromised and I have to ask people to pass quickly. New buildings have subtle exclusion tendencies such as heavy [difficult to operate] doors.

Another dimension of space that remained socio-culturally marked as a ‘no-go area’ for students with disabilities comprised the leisure and recreational facilities in all the three institutions. Koga, a student with visual impairment, summed up this issue by saying, ‘We don’t have resources that cater to leisure … despite having those university courts, we don’t have access to them because we don’t have the sporting facilities that cater to people with disabilities’.

The three sites were nested around the socio-spatial attributes of the dominant design principles of space. Inherently, these are spaces clearly designed for the ‘perfect’ and ‘normal’ body. For this study, students catalogued markers of social exclusion, such as the absence of ramps, double doors, sidewalks, spaces marked as ‘reserved parking’, accessible buildings (lecture halls, halls of residence and student-services buildings) with lifts. Instead, there were open trenches next to walkways and the wheelchair transfer and landing areas. These socially marked spaces of exclusion systematically marginalised students with mobility limitations and excluded them from participation in the wider activities of the institution. Space at institutions of HE was found to be constitutive of overt social dualities with regard to how students with mobility limitations would interact with it.

It is important to acknowledge that a few new buildings and the spaces around them at UCA had associations with accessibility features. Old buildings at UCA as well as the spaces around them were predominantly inaccessible as these buildings had staircases and the lifts were nonoperational for most of the time, and there were open trenches, either no ramps with rails or ramps that were too steep, a lack of adaptable toilets, and narrow doorways in the halls of residence. Interaction with these spaces rendered students with mobility limitations powerless and made them feel unwelcome in these areas. These were negative experiences for such students. In fact, they avoided these spaces, resulting in students with mobility limitations being viewed as ‘disappearing bodies’. The design features of these spaces seemed to be socially and culturally marked to sustain cultural values of ‘ideal perfect bodies’, which did not include the ‘imperfect bodies’ of students with disabilities.

Social divisions among students were evident in these spaces and those with mobility limitations were constantly reminded that they ‘don’t belong here’. They would need to navigate circuitous routes to access and interact with these spaces, which were illustrative of the fact that disability is spatially constructed. Missing lessons as a result of spaces designed on principles based on ‘ideal students’ was a recurring theme at UCA. Spatial design manifested the unequal power between students with disabilities and those that were able bodied, with the former’s constant struggle to access and participate in student activities occurring in these spaces. Unique to the context of UCA were concerns raised by students with visual impairments that centred on being marginalised as a result of structural barriers. Some students with mobility limitations, who were empowered, repeatedly rejected offers to be lifted while on wheelchairs to access these structures. Empowerment positioned them to resist power and formed agency to call for the creation of a barrierfree environment at HEIs, where independent and full participation in student-life activities is a value.

Empowerment of Female Students

When reflecting on empowerment during a focus group discussion with nuances of social justice, Mbaki, a female student with visual impairment, contended:

Like CCTV, where we can use it for reading … and also at the computer labs, there should be software that will help us use the computers just like other students, software that helps zoom in and be able to read your material.

To her, empowerment implies being helped and/or assisted by the other in order to succeed in studies. This understanding feeds into the deficit view of self and suggests that the student sees herself as having little control over her life. The findings demonstrate the extent to which students have internalised and conformed to the deficit view of disability. However, Mbaki’s understanding of empowerment was investing in assistive technology for students with disabilities to address the institutionalised marginalisation of such students and promoting their inclusion in Botswana’s HEIs. Her views on empowerment seemed to challenge institutional culture by advocating equity of opportunity. The scope of empowerment did not subsume critical areas such as knowledge about self, rights, effective communication, how to request for accommodations, or negotiation and leadership skills. Their views on access and participation appeared to be organically linked to these students’ inability to self-advocate or engage in a dialogue that could change institutional policies and practices. While students openly talked about self-motivation, this did not translate into confronting institutionalised marginalisation. It was this institutional culture and value system that seemed to compromise these students’ quality of experiences and success in studies.

Extending the concept of empowerment, Lukudzo, a female student with mobility limitation, narrated her story, which illustrated how she was empowered through her own agency and through the help of the disability office:

Since I joined the disability support group, the disability department has empowered me; now I know how to stand up for my rights. If someone tries to step on my toes, I’ll tell them, ‘No, not me.’

Data seemed to indicate that a good number of female students clearly demonstrated knowledge about their rights and self and could effectively communicate. This group of students would often self-advocate with faculty, requesting for reasonable accommodations. These self-advocates had developed such skills through agency, involvement in movements for persons with disabilities and their upper social status. The outcomes of their self-advocacy enabled them to self-advocate, to succeed in their studies, to access, participate and remain in their studies, and to develop a positive attitude towards learning. Commenting on the issue of empowerment, female students with visual impairments repeatedly referred to ‘being crushed’, ‘so crushed’ and ‘confidence flies out of the window’. This gendered way of viewing the self was highly prevalent among the younger female students with visual impairments compared to other categories such as mobility limitations. Despite the fact that some students knew their rights, it was difficult for them to start a dialogue that would help promote their inclusion in a HE, a space that seemed to be reserved for traditional students. This was because of the intersection of internal and external factors in social relations, namely power relations and the deficit view of the self. This rendered these students powerless to define themselves, hold effective dialogue with faculty about diversity, or request for reasonable accommodations and negotiate with faculty. All these factors crystallised into low self-esteem and maintained the deficit psycho-medical construction of a student with a disability.

Turning to the context of specific processes and student support structures at the three HEIs, there were no inherent empowerment reinforcement features for female students with disabilities to deal with issues of structural and systematic exclusion. Empowerment would enable these students to develop self-advocacy, increase their cultural capital, confront their marginalisation and demand change towards inclusivity.

Across all three settings students reported neither participation nor engagement in empowerment processes. Statements documented during one-on-one interviews, which were corroborated by data from solicited diaries, paint a picture of students who have not been empowered. Chedza, a female student with mobility limitations at UCC repeatedly used phrases such as ‘being shy’ to engage lecturers, and ‘Aah, I don’t bother anybody’. This illustrates that students were not empowered to deal with the intersection of issues and the structures that ostracise them.

In summary, the majority of the students with disabilities who participated in this study had entered HEIs without the cultural capital required to succeed in their studies. These students lacked self-advocacy skills to navigate their way through HE and experience success in their studies. Social class interacted with other socio-cultural factors to disadvantage students from the lower social classes. The three Botswana institutions of HE were not culturally sensitive to this class gap and did not address cultural aspects of non-traditional students. Very few female students with disabilities enter HEIs empowered with the cultural capital needed to successfully self-advocate and succeed in their studies.

Socio-cultural Beliefs About Disabilities

The findings of this research suggest that disability is a stigmatising phenomenon and its impact on female students with disabilities can be profound. The negative social–cultural beliefs cemented discrimination against these students. Oppressive socio-cultural beliefs marginalise female students in HE and force them to live with a double ‘minority’ status in the African context—being women as well as persons with disabilities. As a result, female students with disabilities are forced to embrace a negative identity (Evans-Lacko, Brohan, Moitaba, & Thorncroft, 2012; Halzenbuehler, Phelan, & Link, 2013) and body image. These negative images are further affected by powerful social expectations of specific physical size and shape; thus, disabled bodies are subjected to negative evaluation by the self and by others (Banks, 2014).

The SMD helped in comprehending the female students’ struggles against established norms in society. Stereotyped social norms perceived them as sick, helpless, incompetent and asexual—and as powerless. This could be attributed to the stigma and prejudices linked to ‘witchcraft’ in traditional African society. Female students with disabilities experienced stress related to social exclusion and other forms of victimisation. It is clear that disability discrimination persists not only in the university system but also in Botswana society as a whole, as what occurs in HEIs reflects the wider society. Findings of this study suggest that female students with disabilities frequently encounter the negative societal attitude that they are in ‘need of help’, which further devalues them in the society.

It is important to underscore that as African society is predominantly both ableist and patriarchal, ‘ableism’ and ‘sexism’ uniquely interact in its socio-cultural beliefs. Coincidentally, this did not greatly influence peer interaction in HE, which could be attributed to the inclusive primary and secondary education systems in Botswana. Students with physical disabilities are integrated in regular school; therefore, students without disabilities usually accept students with disabilities.

Structural Access and Participation

The interaction of disability and spatiality has a bearing on the academic and social experiences of female students with disabilities enrolled in Botswana’s HEIs. These students indicated both positive and negative experiences. Research (Fidzani, 2015; Goode, 2007; Hadjikakou, Polycarpou, & Hadjilja, 2010; Haihambo, 2010; Kenyon, 2011; Milic Babic & Dowling, 2015; Nkoane, 2006; Shevlin et al., 2004) has confirmed that physical access, particularly to restrooms, affects the experiences of female students with disabilities. Female students with disabilities complained of the restroom doors which compromised their privacy. This suggests that the physical spaces were created for people without disability and people with disabilities were mostly an ‘add-on’. The SMD theoretical framework as outlined in the first section of this article places emphasis on examining how social arrangements create barriers to participation by students with disabilities. This theoretical framework was the lens used to study the social arrangements and how space is constituted in Botswana’s HEIs to exclude female students with disabilities.

Empowerment of Female Students with Disabilities

In the current study, empowerment is equated with an individual’s sense of worth, knowledge about adequacy and self-respect. It was found that contextual factors play a critical role and influence the process of empowerment of female students with disabilities. As a result, female students with disabilities are not empowered and hardly have a voice. This could be attributed to the service–delivery models in these institutions. For example, HEIs provide ‘reasonable accommodations’ for students with disabilities (e.g., extending their assignments’ due dates as well as examination time) and adaptive technologies (such as recorders and Zoomtext). The provision of accommodations and adaptive technologies is built on the premise of creating a ‘level playing field’ for those with disabilities (Devlin & Pothier, 2006). The current service delivery operates from charity perspectives (depending mostly on external support), and female students with disabilities are not consulted.

Although Botswana HEIs have numerous student-support structures, these structures do not increase the variety of learning opportunities or related support that would reinforce the concept of self-determination and self-advocacy (Moswela, 2016). As a result, female students with disabilities are dependent on the system and unable to continue to create successes in their lives. Our study identified several contextual factors that limit the empowerment of female students with disabilities in Botswana HEIs, and include the lack of structure to empower students with disabilities, lack of self-advocacy skills, the negative attitude of lecturers, lack of negotiation skills in students, inadequate communication skills and low levels of self-confidence. These factors interplayed with the institutional power hierarchy that resides with faculty members to limit the opportunities of this group of students with disabilities from engaging in power-sensitive communication with the faculty to request for reasonable accommodations. The lack of empowerment of female students with disabilities retarded the transformation process of the power hierarchy in Botswana’s HEIs (Madriaga, 2007; Morrison, Sansosti, & Hadley, 2009). In order to address this issue, it is important to develop curricula that promote self-advocacy to build life skills that offer positive post-secondary experiences. The findings of this study bring to light deeply buried issues which have resulted in the marginalisation of female students with disabilities in their interaction with HE cultures. Academic culture reflects how society functions; inequalities in ‘cultural capital’ occur when there is limited responsiveness in educational systems. Seale (2013) defines cultural capital as ‘the possession of cultural competencies and knowledge that enable people to be cultural consumers in ways that are valued and expected in the society’. It would seem that female students with disabilities enter the enclave Botswana’s HEIs devoid of self-advocacy skills or the knowledge to succeed in HE; at the same time these institutions are unresponsive to the needs of female students with disabilities whose culture is inconsistent with the mainstream culture of the institutions. The lack of ‘cultural capital’ in female students with disabilities thus limited their access and participation in HE’s curricular and co-curricular activities. In addition, with no cultural capital and only limited self-advocacy skills female students with disabilities are rendered powerless to confront and question the dominant culture. Studies that are critical about this status quo have pressed HEIs to develop personal-development models to equip students with disabilities with a set of life skills that would empower these students to succeed in their courses as well as gain the skills for employability (Butterwick & Benjamin, 2006).