Towards Inclusive Teaching and Learning in Humanities: alternatives to writing

A movement towards inclusiveness in higher education has been gaining momentum, driven by concerns for a number of groups that experience difficulties with traditional methods of teaching. The push to widen participation in higher education has highlighted a need for, broadly, three kinds of inclusion: physical, cultural, and cognitive. While many universities have adopted inclusive teaching as a policy, it is yet to be widely ‘owned’ by lecturers who design subject curricula. Focusing on teaching in the humanities, this paper discusses what is needed to make inclusion intellectually persuasive and practically feasible. It looks at the work of disability specialists in re-thinking the ways in which academic subjects might be learned and assessed, and the potential for adapting their ideas to develop a greater range of skills in all students, and help them to learn more effectively