Inclusive education in university geography: barriers, pedagogical conditions and a modality-based model of accessible learning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/JEHS.2026.94.76074Keywords
inclusive education, geography, universal design, students with disabilities, higher education, fieldworkAbstract
Geography is one of the few university disciplines in which learning is simultaneously visual-cartographic, field-based, digital-analytical and quantitative. Each of these modalities carries a distinct profile of barriers for students with sensory, motor, cognitive and psychosocial needs, yet inclusive-education research treats the discipline mostly through the single lens of fieldwork. The purpose of the study is to systematise the barriers to participation in university geography by learning modality and to substantiate a set of pedagogical conditions under which the discipline's core outcomes can be achieved by all students without lowering academic standards.
The review integrates three bodies of literature: international disability-geography and inclusive-fieldwork research (2002–2022), Universal Design for Learning as the leading framework of inclusive higher education, and Ukrainian policy and empirical work on inclusive higher education, including the standard for speciality 106 Geography. A barriers–modalities matrix was constructed for four modalities (cartographic-visual, field-based, geoinformation-digital and spatial-quantitative) and four groups of educational needs. Five pedagogical conditions were derived from the matrix: multi-modal representation of spatial information; flexible field-learning design with equivalent alternatives; accessible geoinformation environment; adapted assessment of geographic learning outcomes; and inclusive competence of the teaching staff.
Field-based and cartographic-visual modalities generate the highest concentration of barriers, whereas the geoinformation-digital modality is the strongest compensatory resource when accessibility requirements are met at the design stage. Readiness of academic staff is the system-forming condition. The model offers a discipline-specific operationalisation of inclusion for geography faculties in Ukraine, where the legal framework for inclusive higher education exists but subject-specific methodology remains fragmentary.
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