Voices spoken in the cracks Listening to the literacy experiences of students with intellectual disability in a Maltese Secondary School.

Students with intellectual disability in Maltese Secondary schools attend a Core Curriculum Programme for their literacy learning. Yet their voices, locally, were never explored in relation to their literacy curricular experiences. The purpose of this thesis is to listen to a group of students in a mainstream secondary context and gain an in-depth understanding of their experiences, explore the suitability of the literacy curriculum, and identify perceptions of parents and educators as well as approaches that educators utilise which determine the literacy learning experience.
The thesis is a qualitative research and uses a case study approach. Individual student interviews provided a platform to narrate their literacy experience, substantiated with in-class overt observations in literacy lessons to understand their realities further. Interviews with parents, Senior Management Team and educators shed light on the context, situated beliefs and perceptions of these stakeholders. The data gathered was analysed and manually coded with the use of a thematic approach. The application of the Social Model of Disability as a theory provided a lens through which the students’ experiences were evaluated.
The study utilised literature on the emergence of student voice, engagement within the class environment, and literacy learning and strategies. Findings indicate that students with intellectual disability have communicated their literacy experiences in relation to preferences in language learning, challenges encountered and preferred topics relating to personal interests. These were expressed verbally throughout the student interviews as well as evidenced through their engagement process in literacy lessons. Insights obtained from educators and parental experiences further validated the students’ voices. Parents were pivotal in pointing out disabling barriers such as lack of use of ICT in the class and lack of home-school collaborative practices. Notions of ableism and disabling practices were identified as perpetuating through teaching and learning and the examination process. Ableism was evidently unveiled through situated beliefs and internalised assumptions in educators and senior management team. Strategies observed in the teaching and learning of literacy in the classrooms link directly to Universal Design for Learning and Assessment, and these were interpreted in the context of the students’ experiences.
The study addresses gaps in the literature on allowing student voice to guide policy and practice on literacy learning. It also provides more insight into the process used in research to elicit the voices of students with intellectual disability. Recommendations focus primarily on listening to student voices regularly in the classroom, maximising student potential through ICT, and balancing literacy lesson content to provide a holistic literacy experience.