Discusión de Resultados

Some authors have stated that friendship lies at the heart of the student experience and, when friendships are formed between disabled and nondisabled students, these may create a sense of “togetherness” (Beauchamp-Pryor, 2012a; Taylor & Palfreman-Kay, 2000). This form of friendship might furthermore strengthen the self-concept of disabled students, influence their persistence in higher education (Hodges & Keller, 1999) and, on a broader level, challenge their exclusion (Beauchamp-Pryor, 2012a). However, as mentioned before, some disabled students feared that confiding in others about their disability would lead to social barriers and exclusion, rather than a sense of belonging and togetherness. Of course, we may very well ask ourselves whether this concern had any grounds or whether it was a somewhat irrational concern. There exists no one answer to this question, as the experience of

friendship, social encounters and level of acceptance were dependent on many factors and sometimes differed from student to student and from one relationship to the next.

In some instances, disabled students have experienced stereotyping, labelling and pity from their nondisabled counterparts (Joshi, 2006; Low, 2009). For some nondisabled persons, a disability equated to “inability” or “being stupid” (Dowrick et al., 2005; Low, 2009). Interestingly, even in some cases where the disability remained “a secret”, students were indirectly exposed to what others thought of disabled people. Perhaps because able-bodied people did not know of the student‟s disability, they felt comfortable commenting that disabled students, especially those with psychiatric disabilities, were “bad”, “unstable” and that they did not belong in higher education (Mullins & Preyde, 2013). It is therefore no wonder that some disabled students experienced social alienation and rejection (Goode, 2007; Joshi, 2006; Shevlin et al., 2004).

82 In the study by Beauchamp-Pryor (2013) one quarter of participants felt that they were

excluded from their social group, compared to the 12.5 % in the study by Jacklin et al. (2006). It would therefore be a gross generalisation suggesting that all relationships between students with and without disabilities were strained, as disabled students often had positive and meaningful relationships with peers (Hadjikakou et al., 2010; Jacklin et al., 2006; McBroom, 1997). In fact, in some studies, disabled students pointed to their nondisabled friends as an invaluable source of emotional and practical support (Beauchamp-Pryer, 2012a, 2013; Dowrick et al., 2005; Swart & Greyling, 2011). This support included sighted students helping their visually impaired friends with finding books in the library o r by taking notes for them during class time (Beauchamp-Pryor, 2013).

Variation also existed in the relationship disabled students had with one another. Some disabled students found companionship and support in their friendship with disabled peers (Elliot & Wilson, 2008). Older disabled students, in particular, seem to have been an invaluable source of information and guidance for younger students (Swart & Greyling, 2011). In contrast, some students deliberately distanced themselves from their disabled peers (Low, 2009). According to Low, this could be seen as an attempt to get or maintain a

nondisabled identity. As she wrote, “Students distance themselves from their disabled

identities by expressing dislike for, attributing negative attributes to, and/or keeping physical distance between themselves and other students with disabilities” (Low, 2009, p. 247).

These mixed social experiences leave us with many questions. Some of these are, “Why did some students have positive social experiences while others remained marginal to their peer group?”, and “Why did some people have both positive and negative social encounters?” These questions lead to one overarching question, namely, “What were the ingredients for

83 strong relationships between people with and without disabilities?” Although there is no definite answer to these questions, analysis of the literature showed some suggestions.

The past experiences of both disabled and nondisabled students sometimes had an influence on whether they became friends (Beauchamp-Pryor, 2012a). Social interactions between students with and without disabilities were sometimes awkward, because the latter did not have prior contact with disabled students and generally lacked awareness of disabilities (Erten, 2011; Mullins & Preyde, 2013; Shevelin et al., 2004). This concurs with Erving Goffman (1963) who postulated that, in interactions with disabled people, those people without disabilities would become “wise”. However, the theory that nondisabled people “simply know no better”, may stretch even deeper. As explained in Chapter 2, ableist

emotions in the nondisabled person‟s imagination, like pity, fear and disgust (Hughes, 2012) may stem from the belief that, because the disabled body does not measure up to the standard of a “normal” body, it does not deserve the same treatment and does not belong in a “perfect” and “normal” world (Loja et al., 2012). According to Beauchamp-Pryor (2012a, 2013) these attitudes towards disabled persons reflect prevailing medical model thinking around disability within wider society; that disabled people have “deficits” that need compensation and care. It is therefore no wonder that these reactions towards persons with disability often resulted in a distance between disabled and nondisabled people (Hughes, 2012).

As stated in the previous paragraph, the previous experiences of disabled students also sometimes had an influence on their interactions with nondisabled peers. If disabled students experienced friendships during their school-going days, they seemed to be more likely to make friends in higher education (Beauchamp-Pryor, 2012a, 2013). This stretched even further to include friendships with nondisabled friends. In other words, if disabled students attended a special school where they had only disabled friends, they would be less likely to

84 befriend nondisabled peers in higher education compared to those students who formed friendships in a mainstream school (Beauchamp-Pryor, 2013; Polat, Afroditi, Boyle, & Nelson, 2001).

In many instances, it appeared that successful interactions depended largely on the initiative of the disabled student. Disabled students therefore often “took the lead” in interactions with nondisabled students (Goode, 2007; Hodges & Keller, 1999; Jacklin et al., 2006; Swart & Greyling, 2011). In fact, in the study by Hodges and Keller (1999), visually impaired students saw “taking the initiative” as the strongest contributor to social

involvement. This initiative included, amongst other aspects, assertiveness and managing the discomfort of sighted students. However, this “emotional work” was sometimes emotionally draining for disabled students (Goode, 2007).

However, it was not always internal factors that caused social exclusion; sometimes external circumstances also played a contributing role (Kilmurray & Faba, 2005). These circumstances included, amongst others, (a) where students lived and, (b) whether they could read printed notices. When they lived in a university residence, students were more likely to feel included in a social group (Swart & Greyling, 2011), while those who lived off-campus had limited time to make friends (Hodges & Keller, 1999; Hanafin, Shevlin, Kenny, & McNeela, 2007; Jacklin et al., 2006). For the visually impaired students in t he study by Hodges and Keller (1999), it was very difficult to participate in social activities. These events often took place after five o‟clock in the evening, at which time the students were already at home. Since they were unable to drive, they could not return to campus to attend these socialisation opportunities. Furthermore, visually impaired students were unable to read printed notices on campus of upcoming social events; hereby missing out on social events (FOTIM, 2011; Hodges & Keller, 1999; Jacklin et al., 2006; Joshi, 2006).

85 These previous two barriers are clearly related to visually impaired students. It is therefore no wonder that, in the study by Beauchamp-Pryor (2012a), the visually impaired students were the group who spoke most at length about their difficulty with social encounters compared to students with other disabilities.

In the light of these difficulties, coupled with the perceptions of nondisabled peers, it comes as no surprise that visually impaired students often did not feel included in the social aspects of tertiary life. Moreover, once again a lot of the responsibility rested on them to “smooth out” social interactions. Of course, the questions remained, “What happened to those students with less assertive personalities?”