DISABILITY AND INCLUSION: A PROBLEMATIC RELATIONSHIP IN TERTIARY EDUCATION. HIGHLIGHTS FROM EUROPEAN AND NON-EUROPEAN REPORTS

The proposal critically questions the relationship between inclusion and technology. Despite numerous advances in this field, stronger anti-discrimination legislation, and increasing knowledge of Web accessibility standards, the Internet world remains inaccessible for many people with disabilities (EC, 2008; Adam and Kreps, 2009; Vincente and Lopez, 2010; Easton, 2013). This statement is confirmed by the research report of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA, 2013) of the United States, where it can be read that 53% of people with disabilities owned a computer, 48% used Internet, and 46% had a high-speed broadband connection; however, these numbers are lower than those of able-bodied users, which stand at 79% for owning a PC, 76% for Internet access, and 73% for a high-speed connection. The same trend can also be seen from an in-depth reading of Eurostat 2016 data, which shows that disability condition is associated with lower-than-average levels of basic Internet access, in all European countries (Eurostat, 2016b). The literature on the topic invites us to reflect on the fact that access to the Web as an enabling factor, for people with disabilities, is strongly associated with different levels of exclusion from traditional education in EU countries (Grammenos, 2015). These evidences, in agreement with Pitzalis et al. (2016), show that, despite the potential of technology, for students with disabilities and SLDs, it is still far from achieving the ideal of inclusiveness expressed by Universal Design, in particular in higher education and in the university context.