ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the experiences of four disabled women who have entered the academy in recent years, focusing on issues of difference and identity. It draws upon these women's own accounts, and their narratives are powerfully illustrative of the struggles disabled people face in getting to university, and of the challenges they face once there. By the close of the 1990s many policy and other initiatives are underway concerned with disabled students in higher education. In 1992 the Higher Education Funding Councils (HEFCs) were required by the Secretary of State for Education to focus some attention on disabled students. The HEFC (England) established a disability advisory group which has led to waves of 'special initiative funding' on disability access and provision matters. Many of the non-educational 'goods, facilities and services' provided within HE are covered by the legislation, and as service providers universities have legal responsibilities and must comply.
