"It helps if you are a loud person": Listening to the voice of a school student with a vision impairment

Students with vision impairment who attend mainstream secondary schools in Australia may not experience education as an inclusive and positive experience. This study of one senior secondary student with vision impairment provides a rare opportunity to give voice and provide understandings of the experience from the perspective of the student. The research question that drove this study was: What is the experience of mainstream schooling for a student with a vision impairment? The participant in this Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis study was Edward (pseudonym), a student in his final year of secondary schooling. Edward encountered significant barriers to inclusion, specifically teaching, technology, administrative inflexibility, and restricted social engagement. The participant has become resilient with a strong sense of self and has developed a range of personal strategies to address his challenges. It is evident that Edward was rarely asked about his needs and perceptions, rather decisions were made for and about him by those without a vision impairment. Educators require a clearer understanding of vision impairment and the impact that their often unintentionally exclusionary teaching practices may have on the educational experiences of their students. Keywords: Disability, Vision Impairment, Inclusive Education, Barriers, Secondary Schooling, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Student Voice Introduction At the time of writing there are approximately 357,000 Australians who are blind or have vision impairment and it is estimated that by 2030 this number will have risen to 564,000 (Butler, Holloway, Marriott, & Goncu, 2016). Australia espouses an inclusive education approach that promotes the "equal and active participation of all people with disability" (Forlin, Chambers, Loreman, Deppeler, & Sharma, 2013, p. 6) but hurdles to achieving inclusive education remain (Slee, 2013). UNESCO (2005) defines inclusion as "a dynamic approach of responding positively to pupil diversity and of seeing individual differences not as problems, but as opportunities for enriching learning" (p. 12). Inclusive education programs facilitate and accommodate the curricular, social, and physical needs of all students including those with disabilities (Brown, Packer, & Passmore, 2013). It is a tenet of educational equity that equal treatment is not the same as equal opportunity to learn (Artiles & Kozleski, 2016) and the unique learning needs of all students should be recognized (Nieto & Bode, 2012). Few studies have explored how students with disabilities view the equity and quality of their education (Byrnes & Rickards, 2011; Redgrove, Jewell, & Ellison, 2016) and research reporting the views of those with vision impairment is limited (Jessup, Bundy, Broom, & Hancock, 2017; Opie & Southcott, 2015, 2016; Thurston, 2014; Whitburn & O'Connor, 2011). Although there is no official statistic for the number of school age children with vision impairment in Australia, it is estimated to be around 4000, with a vast majority attending mainstream schools (Media Access Australia, 2013). Decisions about the provision of programs and facilities for students with vision impairment are often made by those who have not experienced vision impairment and it is argued that educational research should seek the voices of young people with disabilities (Ainscow, 2012; Jones, 2014; Moss, 2013). Doing so offers students a sense of empowerment and the opportunity to be included in the decisions that affect their education (Adderley, Hope, Hughes, Jones, Messiou, & Shaw, 2015; Messiou, 2012). Most information received by the brain occurs through the visual (Hyerle, 2009) and often students with vision impairments must learn via alternate media and their other senses (American Foundation for the Blind, 2016). It is recognised that a long-standing difficulty encountered by students with vision impairment has been in accessing educational materials, including class materials and textbooks. …