19 Limitations and directions for future research

The findings in this report have several limitations. First, while we aimed to explore a wide range of alternatives to academic access, at several points in our research procedure we inadvertently ended up privileging a single-issue notion of access (i.e., that access is a disability only or disability mostly issue). For instance, our web search did not include keywords related to tuition, childcare, campus policing/cops off campus, affordable housing, and other access-related issues in postsecondary education. Similarly, our interview questions did not explicitly address these topics. Future research needs to develop an anti-racist framework for broad access that can inform institutional policy and procedural interventions to support and meet student access needs in the many ways they show up (Johnson et al., forthcoming).

Second, our methods did not allow us to assess the interventions and practices described here.  Further research is needed to investigate how students experience the interventions identified in this report and whether they offer viable pathways to access. Equally urgent is the need for collaborative and participatory research that is committed to building new pathways to access with students.

Third, the findings presented here include a partial picture of existing access-centered practices and access alternatives. It was not our aim to be exhaustive; rather, we hope the findings presented here can be used (as models, examples, lessons, etc.) to support a collaborative community-based design process to re-imagine and re-build accommodation processes at York University in the next phase of our research (Johnson et al., forthcoming).