Freedom through education

Support from families

In the feedback on the initial analysis, the key participants pointed out the importance of family support. This support is crucial in terms of the opportunity for education, conidence, and social relationships of people with visual impairment. Participant No.6 said:

When I lost my sight at the ifth grade, I was so disappointed and decided not to go to school. But my father bought a tape recorder for me and encouraged me to continue studying.

This story illustrates that the experience of losing vision has a strong emotional effect and the importance of family support at a practical and emotional level. Family support is also crucial in developing social skills and self-conidence. One key participant (No.5) clearly explained:

Children with visual impairment feel pressure from their family as they feel that their parents are somehow sad about the disability and they set low expectations for them.

Also, negative responses from the community affect the family. The families are expected to keep the children at home. Those pressures affect the child psychologically in self-confidence and social skills. The children exposed to low expectations of the family cannot prepare themselves to interact with society while society is not ready to interact with them.

Four of the participants pointed out the importance of letting children with visual impairment interact with the community—even with those who expect these children should be kept at home due to the danger of injury.

The blind school also contributes to realising relationships in society. Participant No.6 indicated: “When I entered in a sighted school at the secondary level, I did not feel excluded because I (had) learned (in the blind school) that I was equal to them (sighted peers).”

　　Secondly, the knowledge gained in education helps the visually impaired to create good relationships. Two of the participants mentioned that they are able to participate in conversations with friends and family members thanks to knowledge gained in education.

Participant No.5 said, “Because I gained knowledge through education, my friends respected me. They said that I had good political perspective, knowledge about economy, etc.” This comment reflects that social human relationships in Sudan include chatting with family members and friends, and that these interactions are the main part of social life.

　　Thirdly, the academic achievement of tertiary education is an important source of respect within society. All of these points lead to conidence, which is also a crucial element for social inclusion.

Employment and Marriage

All of the participants pointed out that the effort to get a job is crucial for people with visual impairment. Participant No.5 states:

I think the most important thing is not the education but it is the ability to obtain opportunity for job and work. As I observe, for example, my small family, yes, we get very good education but the respect from the society doesn't come until we got opportunity for job. My blind brother is an example (he is a lawyer).

Others mentioned that high academic achievement, such as a tertiary education, is valuable, as it increases opportunities for employment. Participant No.7 jokingly mentioned: “I felt education was valuable when I got the irst salary.”

　　Along with the issue of employment, marriage is another element in acquiring social respect, as pointed out by key participant (No.5). At the same time, he pointed out that none of the participants talk about marriage directly, because it is the hardest issue to think about, especially for women. The other key participant (No.10) agreed on this point. He pointed out that the high pressure to get married in Sudan sometimes pushes sighted females to marry men with visual impairment. Meanwhile, in the Sudanese context females are expected to do household chores. Thus, females with visual impairment face further dificulties due to the stereotypical view that people with visual impairment are incapable of playing that gender role. In fact, one female participant (No.7) mentioned, “One of the important things I learned in education (in the blind school) was the skill for the home activities like cooking.”

Excluding Factors

Commonly mentioned excluding factors are limitations in mobility and lack of social awareness. All participants mentioned that bad roads and trafic conditions limit freedom of

mobility and exclude the visually impaired from society. The lack of social awareness can be understood as low expectations of those with visual impairment due to a lack of information, paternalistic views that require keeping the visually impaired at home, and the scarcity of opportunities to interact with people with visual impairment. Participant No.5 said:

It is impossible for the private sector to employ people with disabilities, simply because they know his disability and they don't know tools or programs to help him freely to interact or do like a normal person. So it is very important to raise public awareness, not about rights of people with disabilities, but about the tools which make people with disabilities able.

Agency to achieve freedom

Participants pointed out that people with visual impairment need to have a strong will and inspiration to change society. They must be conident, patient, and relaxed to face the series of challenges they need to meet, to understand that society lacks awareness, and to avoid overreacting to the attitudes of society.

　　In this regard, participants pointed out the importance of education. Education can develop the confidence of people with visual impairment, as discussed above. Throughout the experience of education, people with visual impairment can learn how to face challenges.

Education can help them to understand their world and society, give them hope, and inspire them to change their environment. Participant No.6 states:

Blind children need education to be patient, to have very strong character, willingness to overcome the problems, to have social relationship, to insist to achieve their goals and to be conident about them.

Participant No.8 said: “It is very important to show skills of the blind in the media to change the notion of the blind in the society.”

　　These comments imply the critical agency that questions the prevailing norms of society and allows for critical engagement with society for change (Dreze & Sen, 2002).

5. Discussion

The analysis raises four arguments.

　　Firstly, it identified the aspects of education where persons with visual impairment need to be included. In education, the freedom to read, to be mobile, to have reciprocal relationships and equal treatment, and to have self-conidence need to be realised. In addition, the freedom to have a relationship with society, to be respected, to be employed, and to be married as well as to be a critical agent to change society are expected to be realised through education.

　　Secondly, these freedoms are realised and limited both in blind schools and sighted schools. This view can also be observed in the rejection of the terms “special schools” and

“regular schools” by the participants. Learning with adequate support might be realised in blind schools, but the conidence to interact with society can be developed in sighted schools.

This supports the argument that inclusion and exclusion in education is not a binary concept (Sayed, 2002). Environmental factors (the lack of transportation and Braille books, social attitudes), individual factors (self-confidence, orientation, and social skills), and resources (support from family and friends, economic resources, and technology) determine the freedoms of the participants.

　　Thirdly, the participants actively negotiated their environment to be included in education and society. This overlaps with what Shakespeare (2005) suggested based on his research in UK. One inding is that they use different strategies, considering the cost of achieving important functionings, consciously and unconsciously. The cost for participants refers not only to financial cost, but different values exchanged in the social relationship, such as admiration, time, or favour. This type of value exchange is conceptualised in social exchange theory (Heath, 1976). Furthermore, the cost of achieving functionings limits the capabilities of blind people, such as giving up studying all subjects to focus on the subjects required for entrance exams. Alternatively, as Mitra (2006) argues, the achievement of one functioning can be a resource to realise another. For example, the self-conidence of a blind child can help him or her to establish good relationship with friends, and the friends support him or her in reading books, receiving different values in return for peer support.

　　While Sayed (2002) argues that inclusion in one aspect of education can lead to exclusion in another, this research inds that inclusion in one aspect of education can also lead the inclusion in another. Within the complex systems of inclusion and exclusion in education, this finding suggests the possibility of expanding the freedom of persons with visual impairment in education by realising some basic freedoms such as reading and mobility.

When children with visual impairment can read at least basic textbooks, they can ask their friends to read newspapers or additional learning materials.

　　Fourthly, participants expect education to nurture the strong will to change society such that they feel patient and relaxed in interacting with society. Singal et al. (2009) find that the meaning of education for youths with disabilities in India is focused on social networks, literacy and numeracy skills, and self-conidence. In addition to these points, the participants in Sudan in this research raised the point that education should develop the agency of the people with visual impairment to engage with society towards inclusion. The conidence of participants in struggling with society and achieving higher education and employment might be the source of this view.

　　While this view could be unique to the participants in this research, the view suggests the possibility of changing the approach of inclusive education in developing countries. Namely, persons with visual impairment are not simply targets to be included in education, but they

expect to be agents of change to include themselves in society through education.