Inclusion: Understanding the impact of higher education policy

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Under the Equality Act 2010, all further and higher education institutions is Scotland arerequired to make "reasonable adjustments to ensure that students with disabilities which affecttheir studies are not placed at a disadvantage" (Children and Families Directorate, 2019).Reasonable adjustments are defined as changes that provide additional support or specialistequipment (Government Digital, 2015). Although the 2018 report by The Scottish Governmentshows an increase in the proportion of learning hours delivered to students with declareddisabilities and despite increase in widening access, participation and inclusion at universities,and a rising number of entrants to a full-time higher education in Scotland, disabled studentsare still underrepresented (Commissioner for Fair Access, 2019; Fuller et al., 2004).Most of the available literature on students with disabilities focuses primarily on improvingcurriculum, access to learning materials, specialist technology, and help with exams and timemanagement (Claiborne et al., 2011; Leyser, 2011; Gibson, 2015). Although there is a growingnumber of studies exploring the experiences of disabled students in higher education (Brandt,2011; Moriña, 2015; Moriña, 2017), there are not many available resources to evaluate howdisabled university students in Scotland experience other aspects of their student lives, suchas extra-curricular activities and social events. The study by Wessel at al. (2009) revealed thathigher and further education institutions encounter a high dropout rate by students withdisabilities within the first 6 weeks, this time is also considered crucial, as it is during that periodthat students are to most susceptible to feeling left out (Tinto, 1988). Multiple studies haveshown that implementation of campus-wide approaches to student participation improvestudent retention and increase the chances of student's success post-study (Moriña, 2017;Zorec et al., 2022). Campus-wide approaches to the inclusion of all students involve the workand collaboration of all university staff and cover all areas of student experience