Browsing by Author "Nieminen, Juuso"

Objectives. This article-based master’s thesis examines the positions that are constructed for students in the documents concerning assessment accommodations in Finnish universities. In higher education literature, assessment accommodations have been mostly observed based on psychological and individualised approaches; in this study, I conceptualise these accommodations as sociocultural practices. In particular, in this thesis I bring together two regrettably separete fields of research, those of higher education assessment research and disability studies. As the theoretical framework, I utilised the Foucauldian, discursive framework of subject positioning, as tied into broader observation of power. Through this theoretisation I examined how assessment accommodations positioned students both as assessees and as impaired, special learners. Methods. The dataset for this study consisted of the documents and texts concerning assessment accommodations (e.g. webpages, guidebooks for students and teachers, equity plans) from Finnish-speaking universities in Finland. The dataset was approaches through a discur- sive-deconstructive reading that conceptualised these texts as sociocultural artefacts. The analysis of discourses deconstructed the positions of an impaired and an assessee that were largely constructed for students in the documents. The deconstructive reading identified the possibilities for student agency as depicted within these positions. Also, the analysis contested these positions by identifiying opportunities for alternative positioning. Findings and conclusions. The deconstructive reading as utilised in the study underlined the discursive and individualising discourse that was identified throught the dataset. Both the positions of an assessee and an impaired were maintained with this discourse, and the data offered few opportunities for student agency in contesting their positions. The findings underlined the ableist role of assessment accommodations in neoliberalised higher education, in which student-centred assessent is marginalised. The initial journal as selected for the publication of this study is Disability & Society.