Special Educational Needs & Disability Studies BA (Hons)
UCAS Code: X11C|Duration: 3 years|Full Time|Hope Park
UCAS Campus Code: L46
Work placement opportunities|International students can apply|Study Abroad opportunities
About the course
This course in Special Educational Needs & Disability Studies will equip you to become a passionate advocate for disability rights and equality in your chosen profession. There are more than 16 million disabled people in the UK, and graduates with expertise in special educational needs and disability are in demand in a wide range of areas including education, health, social work and social care, local government, and business. In recognising the contributions of disabled people, we encourage you to replace needs with knowledge.
A supportive team of disabled and non-disabled academics will enable you to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence you need to become a future leader in this area. You will learn about the historical, social and cultural factors that shape our understanding of special educational needs and disability. Your understanding of academic theories and models will be deepened by activities which challenge you to explore how this knowledge can be applied in professional settings. As well as tutors’ extensive professional experience, course content is informed by input from a range of guest speakers, and from our partner organisations, which include disabled-led and self-advocacy groups, education and care providers, charities, and disability arts organisations.
The Special Educational Needs & Disability Studies course at Liverpool Hope is unique in that it is informed and enriched by the work of the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies, an internationally recognised centre of excellence in disability studies research, and the only UK research centre to focus on disability and culture.
You will have the opportunity to undertake a placement in the second year of your course. This will enable you to enhance your understanding of the relevance of disability studies to a professional context.
Good to know:
- Links with agencies and disability organisations
- Integration with the University’s Research Centre for Culture and Disability Studies (CCDS)
- Excellent preparation for working with and on behalf of disabled people in a range of contexts
Course structure
Teaching on this degree is structured into lectures, where all students are taught together, seminars of smaller groups of around 15-20 students, tutorials which typically have no more than 10 students, and workshops. You will also have the opportunity to have a one-to-one meeting with your tutor each week.
In your first year of study, there are approximately 12 teaching hours each week, which reduces to approximately 10 teaching hours each week in your second and third years. On top of teaching hours, you will be expected to spend 12-14 hours studying independently each week, as well as studying in groups to prepare for any group assessments that you may have. This degree also has a compulsory placement.
Assessment and feedback
During your degree, there are a variety of different assessments to ensure you are given a range of opportunities to demonstrate your knowledge, skills and understanding of the academic and professional components of the degree. These include written exams, essays, portfolios, poster and other presentations, and case studies.
You will receive formative and summative feedback. This will include written feedback with opportunities for a one-to-one discussion of feedback with your tutors.
Curriculum overview
Your academic development is embedded in the curriculum and progresses through each level of study.
Year One
The first year provides you with a knowledge and understanding of the key ideas in Disability Studies that you will bring to your study of Special Educational Needs. You will study:
Disability History
This will enable you to develop an understanding of the relationship between disability and society and the different ways that this has been understood over time. It includes a brief overview of early historical representations of disability but focuses most significantly on the emergence of categorisation and institutions in the nineteenth century as a basis for understanding contemporary ideas about Special Educational Needs.
Disability and the Life Course
This aspect of the course will encourage you to explore disability in early years, disability and youth, adulthood and in later life and old age. This will deepen your understanding of the relationship between disability and education throughout the life course.
Disability and Culture
This key focus in your first-year course relates to the ways that disability is represented in culture. This addresses important ideas regarding the ways social attitudes towards disability can be challenged or reinforced through, for example, media representations and opens up important ideas about the relationship between pity, charity and disability.
Disability and Society
You will develop an understanding of the relationship between disability and social practices which significantly shape the everyday experiences of disabled people and the ways in which we think about SEN and disability. Themes include normalcy, language and terminology, charity and pity. You will also study contemporary understandings of intersectionality, considering the relationship between class, race, gender, sexuality and disability.
Diverse Experiences
You will explore the specificity of experiences of disability and SEN in greater depth, challenging the notion of disabled people as a homogeneous group. This includes exploring factors that might transform an individual’s experience of disability or SEN, such as socioeconomic status, gender, class, and sexuality. While you will explore issues such as stigma and prejudice (for example in relation to psychiatric labels such as Borderline Personality Disorder), you will also consider the work of disability activists and academics, disability as a minority identity and notions of disability pride.
If you study Special Educational Needs & Disability Studies as a Single Honours Degree, you will also gain an introduction to Applied Social Sciences. This course includes:
Histories
This aspect of the course introduces the importance of history to your study of the social sciences. It includes, histories of Liverpool including histories of race, gender, class, sexuality and disability.
Cultural Representations
The next theme offers an introduction to the study of cultural representations. Here you will explore a range of cultural products such as the news, film, art and TV for the ways some people are represented.
…isms
Here you will gain an understanding of key ideas or isms such as feminism, ableism, Marxism and Post-Colonialism and their importance to your study of Special Educational Needs & Disability Studies
Deconstructing Scientific Knowledge
This aspect of your studies encourages you to examine the nature of scientific knowledge, hierarchies of knowledge and the importance of understanding how scientific knowledge has shaped our understanding of the social world. You will consider the importance of this specifically in relation to your study of Special Educational Needs & Disability Studies.
Politics
Here you will gain an overview of contemporary ideas in regional and national politics. This aspect of our course will enable you to develop your confidence in understanding the role of politics and policy in our lives and will enable you to appreciate this as a broader context for understanding the importance of work in equality and diversity
Globalisation
This final theme enables you to move from local, regional and national themes above to address ideas in social science at a global level. Poverty, inequality and environmental issues, for example, all require this larger perspective and you will work with examples that show this importance of global perspectives to our understanding of key issues in the social sciences.
Year Two
Social Theory of Disability
The second year of your course is underpinned by the social model of disability. You will develop an understanding of the significance of this in terms of theory and practice in relation to Special Educational Needs. You will engage with recent and relevant research that models the application of the social model as a conceptual and practical tool for change.
Exploring Diversity, Disability and Education
You will engage with recent research that offers alternative readings of impairment such as work on neurodiversity, dyslexia and lexism, as well as sensory, bodily and cognitive diversity. You will be encouraged to develop independent research to support your choice for a focused study.
Exploring Professional Values and Attitudes
The relationship between embodied and professional knowledge forms an important core for this section of the course. The ethics of professional practice will be explored with reference to a range of educational contexts and professional roles and practice-based research. You will also have an opportunity to enhance your knowledge and awareness of issues relating to ethics of practice and to gain knowledge about future employment opportunities.
Researching Disability
This final element of your studies engages with ethical and philosophical as well as practical dimensions of researching disability. You will study the importance of lived and embodied experience and methods and approaches for emancipatory and participatory forms of research
If you study Special Educational Needs & Disability Studies as a Single Honours Degree, you will also study the following:
Cultural Disability Studies, Theory, Research and Methods
Here you will gain an understanding of the distinctive contribution cultural disability studies brings to deepen our understanding of the relationship between disability, society and education. Topics include: metanarratives of disability, analysing visual rhetoric and interpreting a range of cultural texts. You will also explore representations of diversity in contemporary culture.
Professional Identity: Disability Studies in Practice
This aspect of the course turns to the practical application of disability studies and is an important aspect of your preparation for your work placement. Here the course is informed by work with a range of partner organisations from across the region. You will reflect on your identity as a future professional in this area and the role of ethics and professional values in working with organisations that are led by and on behalf of disabled people.
International and Intersectional Perspectives on Disability
This last main theme recognises the importance of international perspectives in disability studies. Here you will study the ways that disability is constructed across cultures including comparisons of social and educational contexts. Specific themes include indigenous perspectives, global perspectives on madness and mental distress, therapeutic imperialism and moves to de-colonise disability studies. This block will also include intersecting identities including the relationship between disability, gender, sexuality and race.
Year Three
Theories of Disability
You will study contemporary work in disability studies and including a study of critical disability theory, ableism/disablism neo-liberal ableism, knowledge and power and the subject, disability and surveillance, race and ableism, the Tripartite model, appreciation and affirmation and crip theory.
Inclusive Practice
You will explore a range of ideas that enable you to take theory to a consideration of inclusive practice. The key work covered relates to: cultural inclusion, inclusion and inclusive education, inclusive/exclusive policy, transformability, Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning.
Disability and Ethics
This theme offers important insights into the relationship between disability and ethics including the following topics: disability ethics and technology, ethics of intervention including medical intervention and ethics of choice.
If you study Special Educational Needs & Disability Studies as a single honours, you will also study the following:
Disability and Time
This aspect of the course offers critical exploration of key ideas such as temporal disablement, chrononormativity, disability and speed, rhythmanalysis, intersectional approaches to time and the temporal politics of professional practice.
Disability Activism
You will examine scholarly activism, media and contemporary forms of cultural production, transgressive practice and the role of allies and activism.
Disability and Life-writing
This aspect of the course explores a range of themes including: life-writing and the phenomenology of impairment, and the use of disability memoir in medical education, celebrities & ‘mental illness memoir’ and the sociological significance of disability memoir.
Disability (Studies) & Identity
You will explore the following themes: the perceived usefulness of disability identity; disability identity and disclosure; disability and identity within academic contexts, posthumanism & ambiguities of disability identity, disability identity and organisational structures, disability identity within digital space; questioning the need for disability identity through the arts.
Dissertation Phase
You will identify an aspect of study related to Special Educational Needs and develop a piece of independent research into your chosen area. The following courses are indicative of topics available for study in your final year:
- Neither seen nor heard listening to the stories of marginalised young people
- Policy Analysis: Special Educational Needs, Inclusion and Disability
- Researching the Cultural History of Learning Disability
- Disablement & Time
- Metanarratives of Disability and Assumed Authority
- Disability Rights, Chronic Illness and Chronic Pain
- Researching the representation of disability in popular culture
- Exploring chronic illness, neurodiversity and mental health distress
- Disability and Disney
- Neurodiversity
- Disability Studies, Arts and Education
- Disability and the Built Environment
Entry requirements
| A-Levels | BCC |
|---|---|
| UCAS Tariff Points | 104 UCAS Tariff points must come from a minimum of two A Levels (or equivalent). Additional points can be made up from a range of alternative qualifications |
| BTEC | DMM |
| Access to HE | 104 Tariff Points |
| IB | 24 |
| Irish Leaving Certificate | 104 Tariff Points from Higher Level qualifications only |
| Welsh Baccalaureate | This qualification can only be accepted in conjunction with other relevant qualifications |
| T-Levels | Merit |
| Subject Requirements | No specific subject requirements |
International entry requirements
| Specific Country Requirements | Select your country |
|---|---|
| IELTS | 6.0 overall (with reading and writing at 6.0) and no individual score lower than 5.5. We also accept a wide range of International Qualifications. For more information, please visit our English Language Requirements page. |
Careers
This degree offers excellent preparation for a range of careers including teaching and social work as well as work with organisations that are led by and on behalf of disabled people. The degree also offers a route into postgraduate study including MA Disability Studies.
On graduating, you will be able to advocate for those identified as having a special educational need and/or disability. You will also have the confidence to further the understanding of others. You will have developed relevant research skills and methodologies and have the ability to critically reflect on theory, policy and practice in relation to Special Educational Needs and Disability.
Enhancement opportunities
Work Placement Opportunities
In your second year of study, there is a compulsory work placement. This may be a school setting but may also be a cultural setting or voluntary organisation in order for you to develop an appreciation of education in non-compulsory settings. The emphasis on work with cultural organisations will enable you to apply your insights from disability studies.
SALA
The Service and Leadership Award (SALA) is offered as an extra-curricular programme involving service-based experiences, development of leadership potential and equipping you for a career in a rapidly changing world. It enhances your degree, it is something which is complimentary but different and which has a distinct ‘value-added’ component. Find out more on our Service and Leadership Award page.
Study Abroad
As part of your degree, you can choose to spend either a semester or a full year of study at one of our partner universities as part of our Study Abroad programme. Find out more on our Study Abroad page.
Tuition fees
The tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year are £9,535* for full-time undergraduate courses.
If you are a student from the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, your tuition fees will also be £9,535*.
The University reserves the right to increase Home and EU Undergraduate and PGCE tuition fees in line with any inflationary or other increase authorised by the Secretary of State for future years of study.
*subject to Council approval.
Additional costs
As well as tuition fees, you will need approximately £200 to purchase any necessary texts during your three years of study. There will also be travel costs when you go on placement, this usually costs around £100.
You will also need to consider the cost of your accommodation whilst you study at university. Visit our accommodation pages for further details about our Halls of Residence.
Scholarships
We have a range of scholarships to help with the cost of your studies. Visit our scholarships page to find out more.
International tuition fees
The International Tuition fees for 2025/26 are £14,500.
Visit our International fees page for more information.