Identifying disability-related barriers to academic employment

This study sought to increase understanding on barriers to securing academic employment met by people with disabilities. Lindsay and Fuentes [2022. “It is Time to Address Ableism in Academia: A Systematic Review of the Experiences and Impact of Ableism among Faculty and Staff.” Disabilities 2 (2): 178–203] pointed out the paucity of research on disability in academia. We surveyed over 5,000 authors of scholarly articles with ‘disab’ in the title and with UK or USA academic email addresses. People with disabilities were asked to describe barriers they met, and people without disabilities to describe barriers they believed that people with disabilities faced. The responses were classified according to the category of barrier. We found examples of 11 categories of barrier, indicating that a wide range of factors contribute to barriers to academic employment. The most common categories of barrier in responses by people with disabilities were attitudinal barriers, inadequate provision of reasonable adjustment, and excessive workload. Moreover, the frequencies of categories of barrier vary greatly with impairment. We consider the possible ramifications of our study for addressing the barriers to academic employment, the understanding of the nature of disability and methodology. Our study is the first investigation of the relative frequencies of barriers to academic employment.