Barriers in the Social Environment

Some examples include:

• Difficulty concentrating or staying alert/awake due to pain, sleep issues, sedative medications, trauma, fatigue, or nervousness;

• Struggling to cognitively follow the speed or structure of lectures; and

• Barriers related to the physical classroom environment, as discussed above, that impact a student’s ability to access, negotiate, and/or effectively learn in the classroom.

They may be:

• Nervous about speaking in public;
• Worry over how peers will respond to what they say;
• Experience discomfort with disclosing personal information; or
• Struggle with confidence.

This can result in discouraged and decreased participation, and, for some students, decreased attendance as well (McMaster Students Union, 2014; Paul, 2015; Price, 2011).

Other students may experience barriers in regulating their participation or ensuring the way they participate fits the academic conventions expected in the classroom.

These struggles may manifest as “talking too much” or sharing ideas that are seen to be “off topic” (Price, 2011).

Continue Your Learning

• Listen to students with disabilities in this film clip as they discuss barriers that get in the way of classroom attendance and participation.

• Read Timile Brown’s (2008) story of undergraduate life with depression, including the impact this had on her participation in class.

According to the Pan-Canadian Study of First Year College Students:

• 25% of disabled students found it difficult to make friends with their student peers (compared to 16% of non-disabled peers); and

• 45% of students with a physical disability and 35% of students with a learning disability felt like an outsider in their educational environment (compared to 21% of non-disabled peers) (Association of Canadian Community Colleges & Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2008).

This is especially important to keep in mind when incorporating class activities like group work or peer feedback, where some students may feel less similar or like a peer to their classmates than others.

For example:

• Overt and covert forms of ableism, ageism, classism, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, or other forms of oppression, which may appear as slurs or exclusionary jargon, idioms or metaphors;

• Discussions of Canada that ignore the history of First Nations and Indigenous people, or that privilege a Eurocentric worldview that marginalizes the experiences of those who do not share or are not included in this perspective;

• Assumptions about people’s gender identities and incorrect use of pronouns;

• Conversations that expect students or students’ parents to have access to financial resources; and

• Singling out a student to speak on behalf of their perceived social group (e.g. a student with a visible disability asked to speak on behalf of disabled people, or a visibly-identified Muslim student asked to speak for all Muslims).