Keele Research Repository

This thesis explores the potential of English undergraduate liberal legal education to increase legal consciousness about the rights of people with disabilities in response to low levels of awareness of these rights throughout society. Including disability discussions throughout the curriculum rather than in separate courses, using a critical perspective and including critical pedagogy, will equip students with the skill to critique the existing framework and to call for change where necessary. Including disability in this context aims to reaffirm the relationship between rights and education, to overcome the shortcomings of previous approaches and to help fulfil the educative aim of the human rights framework concerning disability at all levels. This discussion extends recent work concerning the integration of disability specific courses within vocational legal education, as has been explored in both British and American literature. It shifts the focus of previous work from incorporating disability perspective and awareness from vocational to liberal legal education. An increased focus at the academic stage of legal education could lead to wider dissemination and understanding which may lessen the need for legal intervention in the future. In doing so, it will argue that the concept of reasonable adjustment should be challenged to shift focus to the concept of ‘Assurance of Rightful Access.’