Abstract
This thesis examines the experience of studying in higher education for students with dyslexia. By adopting a theoretical framework by Bronwyn Davies, the thesis explores the experiences of six students and their possibilities for becoming students and their feelings of belonging in the context of their education. I employ a poststructuralist approach to dyslexia as a discursive category and explore the means of poetic analyses and evocative, embodied writing to disrupt conventional approaches to research dissemination and representation. I also make use of the poetic analysis as a way to involve the students in parts of the research process, which are normally closed for others than the researcher. In this way, the thesis seeks to encourage discussions about understandings of dyslexia, academic ability, and widening participation in higher education.
With the poetic representations of the students’ stories, I try to make the reader experience and feel, how the narratives are mostly about feeling out of place or of longing to belong in higher education as students not having to compensate with extra time and bad results – or as students not in need of special treatment. The students also (in)scribe and find themselves (in)scribed by others as being stupid, a burden, abnormal, in lack of academic abilities and/or less worthy. This raises questions to the ways that higher education as a landscape is shaped by discourses of ‘good’ students, academic ability, and dyslexia - and how these discourses are contributing to narrowing the ways students can participate and belong in higher education. Lastly, I discuss the dialogues and understandings that arise from using poetic analyses to involve the participating students. I argue, that the poetic analyses and the involving of the students allow for multiple voices to come forward, which encourages the many ways, in which the analyses can be read. In this way, the thesis brings forward the opportunity for multiple dialogues and discussions challenging discourses of dyslexia and the opportunities for participation in higher education – with me as author of the thesis, the participating students, and you as the reader.
With the poetic representations of the students’ stories, I try to make the reader experience and feel, how the narratives are mostly about feeling out of place or of longing to belong in higher education as students not having to compensate with extra time and bad results – or as students not in need of special treatment. The students also (in)scribe and find themselves (in)scribed by others as being stupid, a burden, abnormal, in lack of academic abilities and/or less worthy. This raises questions to the ways that higher education as a landscape is shaped by discourses of ‘good’ students, academic ability, and dyslexia - and how these discourses are contributing to narrowing the ways students can participate and belong in higher education. Lastly, I discuss the dialogues and understandings that arise from using poetic analyses to involve the participating students. I argue, that the poetic analyses and the involving of the students allow for multiple voices to come forward, which encourages the many ways, in which the analyses can be read. In this way, the thesis brings forward the opportunity for multiple dialogues and discussions challenging discourses of dyslexia and the opportunities for participation in higher education – with me as author of the thesis, the participating students, and you as the reader.
| Originalsprog | Dansk |
|---|---|
| Publikationsdato | 21 jan. 2022 |
| Udgiver | Roskilde Universitet |
| Status | Udgivet - 21 jan. 2022 |