Disability as a driver of change: depathologising the university

What happens when we centre disabilities as a driving subject of intellectual, personal and political inquiry? Professor Dan Goodley FBA unpacks depathologisation in the university and the impact it can have on how we understand knowledge, power, and belonging. Drawing on critical disability studies, this talk challenges the pathologising assumptions embedded in higher education and asks who benefits when disability is treated as a problem. Moving disability from margin to centre, it explores how depathologisation can transform universities from institutions that manage differences into communities that reimagine society. Rather than a problem to be solved, disability becomes an opportunity for social change. Speaker: Professor Dan Goodley FBA This podcast is for informative and educational purposes. 10-Minute Talks are a series of pre-recorded talks from Fellows of the British Academy screened on YouTube and also available on all podcasting platforms. This podcast was produced by The British Academy convenes research insights from across the disciplines we represent. The views expressed in our videos are those of the contributors and do not reflect the views of the British Academy. Comments are open to viewers and are governed by the policies of YouTube. We do not monitor or moderate comments and will not reply to them. Find out more about the British Academy: For future events, visit our website:

You can listen to Disability as a driver of change: depathologising the university online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Disability as a driver of change: depathologising the university is an episode from 10-Minute Talks by The British Academy.

This episode is 11:30 long.

This episode was published on Mar 6, 2026.

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