The article argues that in the context of the highly competitive state higher educational sector in Sri Lanka the contingency
of identity construction and actualization among students with disabilities differs considerably from that of students who
are considered as ‘not disabled’. This is seen as due to highly contradictory social cues the former receive in the effort to
reach higher educational goals in a locality where they experience significant socio-spatial discrimination and deprivation.
The process of building self-identity is understood as occurring in three localities, namely, (1) the period prior to entering
the higher educational institutions (home and schooling), (2) the period spent in the higher educational institution, and
(3) the future world they attempt to actualize, all of which become transitional and reflexive during the process of identity
construction. Self-actualization of the students with disabilities in this context is seen as a reflexive, locality specific,
contingency which varies with the level of paradoxes they encounter in this process.