Students with Disabilities and Opportunities to Study Abroad

Abstract

Within the context of increasing opportunities for study abroad, it is important to ensure that students with disabilities can be included in international programmes. However, to ensure that their participation is of the highest quality, there are several additional challenges to be met. The first section of the paper explores these and discusses the availability of appropriate information, financial concerns, and issues of access, both in the physical sense of access to buildings and also the educational sense of access to learning and the curriculum. The following section describes three case studies of disabled students and study abroad, including individual visits, group arrangements, and a European pilot programme organized from Ireland. The closing section provides some brief practical guidelines to assist the inclusion of students with disabilities in international programmes.