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ERIC Number: EJ1470134
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Mar
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-1757-7438
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Sunflowers, Hidden Disabilities and Power Inequities in Higher Education: Some Critical Considerations and Implications for Disability-Inclusive Education Policy Reforms
Anastasia Liasidou1; Sotiroula Liasidou2
Power and Education, v17 n1 p38-52 2025
The article discusses recent Higher Education (HE) initiatives to introduce the Sunflower Scheme, which enables students with hidden disabilities to 'discreetly' indicate the existence of a disability to access support. A significant problem related to persons with hidden disabilities lies in their frequent reluctance to disclose their disabilities because of discriminatory attitudes that arise not only due to the dominance of arbitrary fabrications of 'normalcy' -- aligned with elitist and human capital HE discourses -- but also due to the lack of recognition of the existence of hidden disabilities. Even though the Scheme has been touted as a method that recognises hidden disabilities in HE, it, nevertheless, reinforces discourses of 'misrecognition' that create power inequities and project subordinated identities. The article argues that introducing the Scheme in HE constitutes another manifestation of disability-related initiatives that reinforce individual pathology and paternalistic discourses of dependency. The article contributes to a policy dialogue on the need to introduce alternative forms of provision to foster disability-inclusive practices in HE and makes a case to empirically capture the 'lived experience' of the Scheme in the context of Disability Equality policies in HE.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Faculty of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, St Mary’s University Twickenham London, Twickenham, UK; 2Faculty of Management & Economics, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus