Recent legislation, such as the Special Educational Needs and Disability act (SENDA) of 2001, has made it unlawful for any Higher Education Institution to treat a person with a disability ‘less favourably’ than other persons. Accordingly, institutions and convenors are expected to make a reasonable effort in the provision of access and support. Fieldwork is a strong component of many undergraduate degrees, particularly science-based geography courses, and most geography teachers agree that it is highly effective for deep learning, and therefore an irreplaceable part of the curriculum. The requirements of SENDA thus may pose a significant challenge for convenors, particularly in regard to those students that have mobility, vision or hearing impairments. Furthermore the inclusion of compulsory field-work elements in the course, together with the portrayal of Geography as an ‘active’ and ‘masculine’ discipline may act as a barrier for prospective students with a disability. The broad aims of this project, therefore, were to assess whether students with a disability were selecting against science-based Geography courses and whether UK Geography Departments were effectively encouraging wider participation and promoting awareness of SENDA among field course convenors.

First, data collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency between 1994-2004 were analysed to determine whether students with a disability may be selecting against Geography courses. Preliminary analyses indicate that in comparison with other courses, Geography ranks at the lower end of the range for percentage inclusion of students with a disability. However, new Universities and ex-Polytechnics had significantly higher relative abundances of disabled students than older ‘red brick’ Universities.

To determine whether UK Geography departments were effectively encouraging wider participation, prospectuses from 47 UK Universities were surveyed. The analysis revealed that most publicity photographs of students on Geography courses depicted male individuals or mixed gender groups in outdoor and active settings and >65 % of Geography Departments stated explicitly in their literature that fieldwork was a ‘compulsory’ or ‘strong’ component of the course. A further survey of University websites revealed great variability among institutions in student support services such that information targeted towards students with a disability took over four minutes to locate in ~25% of sites, but was excellent and easy to locate in a further ~25% of sites.

Finally, lecturers from ten UK University Geography Departments who were involved in convening field courses were interviewed about their knowledge of SENDA and experiences of dealing with students with a disability. These interviews revealed that although most staff were aware of the requirements of SENDA, responses of different departments varied widely.

Taken together, our results demonstrate that students with a disability tend to favour against Geography courses, and that admissions literature could be improved to actively promote wider participation. Finally, although most fieldcourse convenors are aware of SENDA, Geography Departments are still adapting to its requirements.