In Response to “My name on the door by the Professor's name”: The process of recruiting a researcher with a learning disability at a UK university (Anderson, Keagan-Bull, Giles & Tuffrey-Wijne 2023)

Abstract

Beate Schlothauer, Frank Pöschmann and Steffen Martick are self-advocates and experts for (academic) education and inclusion.

They work at the University of Leipzig in Germany.

They are employed in a project called ‘QUABIS’ (http://www.quabis.info/).

Before starting their career at the university, most of them have worked in institutions for persons with disabilities.

In Germany they are called ‘sheltered workshops’.

At the University of Leipzig, their main job is to teach in seminars, courses and lectures.

But they speak at conferences and give workshops for a broader audience, too.

For doing so, they also develop creative methods for teaching and learning.

Beate Schlothauer's main interest is plain language and Easy to Read.

But she is also an expert in self-advocacy and self-determination.

Frank Pöschmann focusses on ableism and discrimination.

He is also interested in the conditions in psychiatric wards in the former DDR (German Democratic Republic).

Steffen Martick is an expert on legal frameworks that deal with disabilities.

For example, the the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN-CRPD (the UN-Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities) or the German Constitutional Law.

He is also interested in school to work-transitions, ableism, Easy to Read, and institutions for persons with disabilities.

Gertraud Kremsner is professor for education in the context of heterogeneity and inclusion at the University of Koblenz in Germany.

Before that, she worked in Leipzig.

This was when she met Beate, Frank, Steffen and the rest of the QUABIS-team.

She is interested in inclusive research and theories about power imbalances.

Some more people from the QUABIS-team supported us.

We want to thank them.

Particular thanks go to Nico Leonhardt.

He supported the whole process: From choosing the paper to our first discussion to meeting the authors to publishing this response.

The editors of the British Journal of Learning Disabilities sent us five papers.

We were asked to choose one of those five.

We picked the one that matches our interests most.

The experiences described in the paper are very similar to our experiences.

We are very interested in the practices of involving people with learning disabilities in research.

We speak up for inclusive academia and research.

Before reading the paper, we had to translate it into German.

For this, we used an online tool (https://www.deepl.com/de/translator).

And we also asked our assistants at the University to go through the paper with us.

We all made notes when we read the paper.

These notes were the basis for our first discussion.

We all agreed that reading the paper was fascinating for us.

This is mainly because we felt that the situation in Germany is similar to the one described in the article.

We also have problems with employing persons with learning disabilities with regular contracts at universities.

And even if they are employed, they may have only short term contracts.

Or they get paid less than their academic colleagues.

Or they will lose their social benefits if they earn too much money.

We discussed many aspects that came up in the text.

Some were very interesting for us.

But we also had some critique to make.

We met online via ZOOM.

The meeting took one hour.

Irene, Richard, Jan and Liz only spoke in English.

Frank, Beate and Steffen only spoke in German.

Gertraud and Nico did their best to interpret.

Interpreting is always time consuming.

Therefore, we only had a little time for discussion.

We decided to ask our questions in turn.

Beate started, Frank followed and Steffen ended.

For us, it was very interesting to read and discuss the article.

We found many parallels between the British and the German situation.

We think that there are two main barriers in both countries: The first one is the social benefit system.

People with learning disabilities should be allowed to earn their own money without the fear of losing their benefits.

The second parallel barrier is the academic system.

People with learning disabilities should easily be able to be employed.

Both of these systems need to be much more flexible.

They have to learn about the specific situation of people with learning disabilities and adapt according to their needs.

Considering this, it is even more important to have HR representatives on board an inclusive research project.

They have a key role when people with learning disabilities are being employed.

All too often, we leave their perspective out.

We think it is very helpful that the authors shared their experiences.

Now everyone can learn from them.

We find it particularly nice that the authors also learned a lot from their own experiences.

And that they adapted their own application processes.

We think that Kingston University has learned a lot from Richard.