Accessibility, Gender and Higher Education: Indicators from Scientific Research

ABSTRACT This article aims to present a literature review of texts that articulate accessibility, gender and higher education published from 2013 to the current period. To place the object of study within the wide dissemination of scientific works, researchers must choose a method that includes information relevant to the research problem. This phase of the investigation, therefore, involves the choice of criteria for search management and procedures for comparing, categorizing and analyzing publications among themselves and with the research to be developed. In this context, the purpose of this text is to disseminate an alternative to literature review design made from the categorization and analysis carried out through NVivo 11 Program and the detailed reading of 72 papers developed in Brazil, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Canada. With the search software, the identification of the most frequent words allowed the elaboration of a conceptual mosaic that guided a discussion of the present research. However, the words lacking in the search procedure, but important for the development of the thesis - such as gender, feminism and woman - reveal the need to introduce these terms into an investigative work. The result of this literature review shows that the study on accessibility in higher education is developed predominantly by women and that the multidimensionality of the meaning of accessibility causes researchers to seek answers in other fields of knowledge, thus escaping the limits of the hyper-specialization of Special Education. This aspect can contribute to innovation and advancement of knowledge in focus.

摘要：本文旨在对2013年至今发表的、阐述无障碍（accessibility）、性别与高等教育相关议题的文献开展系统综述。为使研究对象契合科学成果的广泛传播要求，研究者需选取贴合研究问题的研究方法。因此，本研究的此阶段需确定文献检索管理的标准，以及对文献进行相互比对、分类与分析，并将其与待开展的研究进行对照的流程。在此背景下，本文旨在介绍一种文献综述设计的可选范式：该方案依托NVivo 11软件开展分类与分析，并对巴西、西班牙、哥伦比亚、智利、墨西哥与加拿大的72篇学术论文进行细读。借助该检索软件，通过识别高频词汇可构建概念图谱，为本研究的讨论提供指引。然而，检索流程中未被覆盖、但对本研究至关重要的词汇——如性别、女性主义（feminism）与女性（woman）——凸显了将此类术语纳入研究流程的必要性。本次文献综述的结果显示，高等教育无障碍领域的研究主要由女性学者开展；同时，无障碍概念内涵的多维性促使研究者从其他知识领域寻求解答，从而摆脱了特殊教育（Special Education）过度专业化的局限。这一特征将有助于本研究聚焦领域的知识创新与发展。