Building Identity Through Stories: Transmedia Storytelling as an Educational Intervention to Support Identity Exploration of Students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities during Transition into Higher Education
Abstract
This doctoral research in arts and special education examines the transitional barriers shaping identity development among students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and proposes Transmedia Storytelling as a bottom-up theoretical framework for supporting transition. The study responds to gaps in predominantly top-down transition models in higher education, which often fail to support the non-linear and lived experiences of SEND students.
Adopting an iterative mixed-methods design, the research integrates transition theory, identity development, storytelling in indigenous pedagogy, trauma-informed pedagogy, and arts-based educational approaches with empirical data from student-centred workshops, semi-structured interviews, learning analytics, and surveys. A British higher education institution serves as the primary research site, with comparative moderation across Hong Kong and Canada to examine differences under the systemic and multicultural factors.
The study aims to develop a non-extractive, decolonising design framework that foregrounds agency, dignity, and lived experience, it contributes to more inclusive transition practices that support SEND students during educational transition.
Supervision
Dr Jennifer Young (DoS), Professor Neil Fox, and Professor Russell Crawford
Field of Studies
Arts & Special Education
Aims
This participatory action research in arts and special education aims to explore the transitional barriers and its connection to the identity of students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and to propose Transmedia Storytelling (TS) as a bottom-up theoretical framework for transition. The research intends to address gaps in the predominantly top-down approach to transition programs in higher education (HE), which often overlook the non-linear and lived experiences of SEND students in transition.
Objectives
- The study explores barriers and opportunities within current transition practices
- Design a series of TS workshops and e-learning package that integrate interdisciplinary practice across two narrative channels: Written (on paper) and Digital Media (on their own electronic device).
- Examine TS as a student-centred educational intervention that focuses on students’ narratives and lived experiences.
- Develop intervention-based practices that empower student agency, support identity exploration, and to examine the validation and adaptation of TS across diverse contexts.
Context
Early perspectives on transition viewed it as a linear progression through developmental stages (Chickering and Reisser 1969). During the 1970s, transition was broadly defined as the movement from one state to another. In this context, Meleis (1975) identified categories of transition in nursing, highlighting the diverse challenges patients and families face as they navigate significant changes in health and life condition. Schlossberg (1981) deepened this lens by focusing on the interconnection between individuals and their surroundings. She highlights situation, self, support, and strategies, portraying transition as adaptive and contextual. Transition then came to be seen as a complex, non-linear process involving multifaceted experiences, providing the conceptual foundation and design principle for this research.
Building on non-linearity, later research extended and focused on the self and identity. Steltenpohl and Shipton (1986) argued that entry into HE involves transitions related to the self. Later models are built upon the understanding that transitions are experienced both internally and externally, shaped by emotions and identity shifts (Bridges 2017; Briggs et al. 2012; Burnett 2007; Menzies and Baron 2013; Risquez et al. 2008). This research focuses on identity as a key factor influencing students’ emotional responses and experiences during the transition process.
Despite these theoretical advancements, institutional approaches remain static and top-down. While current transition approaches address practical aspects, the socio-cultural and personal narratives that shape identity and affect well-being remain underexplored. This gap is particularly pronounced for SEND students, whose lived experiences are often non-linear and marginalised as service receivers.
Given that transition is complex and non-linear, this research proposes TS can respond to the fluid lens of identity in supporting transition. TS is a narrative technique in which a story unfolds across multiple media platforms and is commonly used in entertainment and marketing industries, such as the Marvel Universe demonstrate TS’s versatility in engaging audiences through interconnected storytelling elements. Henry Jenkins (2003) distinguishes TS not as transmedia branding but as a complex, immersive narrative practice that invites engagement beyond singular platforms. TS, narrative, SEND lived experience, and transition share non-linear, multi-layered qualities that reveal their interconnectedness in this research.
Past TS research has been examined within participatory and popular culture (Harvey 2015; Potter 2014), its application as an educational intervention remains underexplored. Within educational settings, TS allows students to engage with narratives in a non-linear format to foster identity exploration through adaptive media and flexible entry points (Raybourn 2014; Rodrigues and Bidarra 2014; González-Martínez et al. 2019; Palioura and Dimoulas 2022) that extend across individual and community levels, which prioritise participation and complex identity exploration.
Despite these premises, existing TS research tend to overlook the experiences and stories of marginalised groups, whose unique challenges are shaped by socio-cultural and systemic inequities affecting their identity development, particularly during transition periods. Hence, the research proposes and examines TS as an educational intervention to investigate the complex, non-linear transition experiences and narratives of marginalised students with SEND during transition to HE.
Ethical Approval Number: RIEC 25 222