Accessibility and universal design in higher education curricula: implications for inclusion/exclusion

This article is based on work undertaken in a cross-national European-funded project to explore how Universal Design (UD) and Accessibility are conceptualized in Higher Education (HE) curricula across different disciplines. This paper focuses on the case of Cyprus. The study utilized corpus linguistics and thematic analysis methods to investigate to what extent and in what ways Accessibility and UD feature in HE curricula. Findings suggest that UD and Accessibility – associated concepts are sporadically and inconsistently referred to, indicating low priority in Cyprus’s HE curricula. The analysis critically examined the discourses underpinning these conceptualizations, ranging from social and rights-based to medicalized and individualized constructions of disability that reinforce conceptual binaries of normality/abnormality, and power asymmetries. These discursive manifestations’ paradoxical coexistence highlight the need to universalize UD and Accessibility's critical intersectional, and rights-based dimensions, addressing ableist discourses, social injustices, and power dynamics hindering inclusive education reforms.