MGSE Disability Research Collaboration

The Melbourne Graduate School of Education Disability Research Collaboration was established at the end of 2021. Their first activity was to conduct a needs analysis which identified a range of overarching themes including co-design, cultural change, removing barriers, inclusive education practices and intersectionality to guide our work.

The collaboration has established a working group that includes academics from a range of disciplines across MGSE. The initial work has focused on developing a terms of reference and guiding principles to outline our vision, rationale, protocols when co-designing with organisations and people with disability and the underpinning frameworks we will use in our work.

The Hub has commenced two research projects:

• The first is a collaborative project with Aspect examining physical spaces for neurodiverse staff and students at the University of Melbourne. This project has been funded via a MGSE seed grant. Co-design was an important part of developing the project and our researcher partner from Aspect and research assistants all identify as neurodiverse. The research team are interviewing staff and students about their experiences of working and studying at MGSE and hope the results will lead to actionable change at the MGSE.
• The second project is in partnership with Down Syndrome Victoria (DSV). This project is funded through the MDI Community Based Research Program. It focuses on the factors that influence parent decision-making when deciding whether to transition their child to a mainstream or specialist secondary school after attending a mainstream primary school. The project has been co-designed with DSV and we will commence interviewing families including children with Down syndrome, and young adults with Down syndrome about their experiences of decision-making early next year.

Finally the MGSE DRC will be making a submission to the Senate inquiry into school refusal. As children and young people with disability are overrepresented in the numbers of students who are at-risk of, or who have disengaged from schooling, we feel this is an important issue for us to comment on.

Questions? Contact us at md-i@unimelb.edu.au