Disability,partnership and parenting

Partnerships and parenthood can have important effects on economic, social and psychological well-being. We provide new long-term analysis of how disability affects both parental status and partnerships. Analysis of the new Life Opportunities Survey, which is based on social model approaches, demonstrates that disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to face disadvantages in terms of family formation. Disabled people are more likely to remain single over time, although there is less evidence for any differences in rates of relationship breakdown for those who enter them. Allied to these conclusions, disabled adults are less likely to form households where there are dependent children. These conclusions are supported by longitudinal results from the British Household Panel Survey.     

‘The language is disgusting and they refer to my disability’: the cyberharassment of disabled people

Disabled people face hostility and harassment in their socio-cultural environment. The use of electronic communications creates an online context that further reshapes this discrimination. We explored the experiences of 19 disabled victims of cyberharassment. Five themes emerged from the study: disability and health consequences, family involvement, misrepresentation of self, perceived complexity, and lack of awareness and expertise. Cyberharassment incidents against disabled people were influenced by the pre-existing impairment, perceived hate-targeting, and perpetrators faking disability to get closer to victims online. Our findings highlight a growing issue requiring action and proper support.     

‘A mockery of equality’: an exploratory investigation into disabled activists’ views of the Paralympic Games

This article offers an exploratory analysis of the opinions of disabled activists towards the Paralympic Games. With the use of a qualitative online survey, the work focuses on the perceptions of disabled individuals (n = 32) who are not Paralympic athletes but are affiliated to the disability rights group, the United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council. Working on the premise that the views of disabled activists have been excluded from Paralympic sports discourse to date, the results illustrate a nuanced yet negative view of the Games to contrast with an existing, yet overly positive, academic narrative. Participants were particularly cynical of the portrayal and production of the Games and its Paralympic athletes as they perceived that the wider population of disabled people is misrepresented. The overwhelming perception in this preliminary analysis suggests that the Paralympic Games can be counterproductive to disability rights beyond sport.     

Do self‐assessment and self‐directed support undermine traditional social work with disabled people?

In recent years, self‐assessment and self‐directed support have become mainstream options within disability services. The Disabled People’s Movement has advocated the need for such change for a long time but this has been persistently resisted by many social workers. In this article, it will be argued that both self‐assessment and self‐directed support undermine traditional social work and that social workers need to begin to work alongside disabled people, rather than ‘for’ disabled people, in order to achieve substantial system change.     

Do disabled people need a stronger social model: a social model of human rights?

Abstract

We introduce the social model of disability by reflecting on its origins and legacy, with particular reference to the work of the Union of the Physically Impaired against Segregation. We argue that there has been a gradual rolling back of the rights and entitlements associated with the social model of disability. Yet no alternative for the social model has been proposed in response to such threats to disabled people’s human rights. Disabled people need a stronger social model that acts as a means to a society which enables and ensures their rights; the right to live a dignified life, as well as to live in an environment that enables people to flourish with disability.     

Understanding disabling barriers: a fruitful partnership between Disability Studies and social practices?

Disabled people are regularly denied their human rights, since policies and laws are hard to translate literally into practice. This article aims to make connections between social practice theories and Disability Studies, in order to understand the problems faced by disabled people, using different methods to look in detail at how practices are shaped and how disabled people get excluded. Disabled people are active agents in making change, both informally on an everyday basis and through formal actions. Thus we also suggest that the insights of disabled people could bring a fresh perspective to social practice theories, by troubling the taken-for-granted in our everyday lives.     

Sustainable lifestyles for all? Disability equality,sustainability and the limitations of current UK policy

In recent years, various environmental threats have been highlighted in relation to disability. Growing knowledge of the effects of climate change and particular impacts on disabled people have been highlighted by a number of authors, including a recent critique of disabled people’s ‘vulnerability’ with respect to environmental hazard. This article focuses on the issue of citizen involvement with climate change mitigation – and more broadly individual and household-level efforts to reduce our impact on the environment. These more mundane aspects of climate change mitigation, for example through transitions to more sustainable lifestyles, also have significant implications for disabled people. The article argues that disability equality is a key component of sustainability. Limitations are demonstrated in policy designed to address these issues using the example of current UK policy, and it is suggested that policy approaches to sustainability should also be a concern of disability studies.     

Back to the future,disability and the digital divide

The aim of this article is to explore disability and the digital divide using a quantitative methodology. The research investigates what impact digital technologies have had in improving the life-chances for disabled people from deprived neighbourhoods in the northeast of England. The study explores how disabled people engage with digital and assistive technologies in order to overcome disabling barriers and social exclusion. Unfortunately, the analysis found no evidence that digital and assistive technologies had any impact on reducing social exclusion for disabled people. In fact, the research discovered that these technologies seemed to construct new forms of disabling barriers as a consequence of the digital divide.     

Disabled people and disaster management in New Zealand: examining online media messages

This article explores how disability and disabled people were portrayed in New Zealand online media between 2006 and 2016, with specific reference to disasters. Following a process of content analysis, the findings indicated that post disaster, persistent advocacy was required and ensuring accessibility, immediately following a disaster as well as in the recovery phase, was a significant issue. Disabled people were also primarily presented as a vulnerable cohort and the wide-ranging issues highlighted in the media suggest they currently have minimal voice in the four disaster management stages of risk reduction, readiness, response and recovery. This article emphasises the utilisation of relationships, skills and knowledge between individuals and Disabled People’s Organisations to strengthen the disability and disaster management discourse and activity. Increased inclusion of disabled people across all phases of disaster management will assist with the New Zealand government meeting its aspiration of a non-disabling society, especially during future disaster events.     

Charities, Authority and Disabled People: a qualitative study

Disabled people are greatly under-represented in positions of authority within traditional charities. Using qualitative data from original empirical research, this paper identifies some of the causes of their exclusion. The values, attitudes and beliefs of those who govern traditional charities accord largely with the 'personal tragedy' or medical model of disability, and a major consequence of this perspective is that disabled people are confined to roles in which they have little opportunity to exercise power in the traditional voluntary sector.     

'Out of Place', 'Knowing One's Place': space, power and the exclusion of disabled people

Disabled people are marginalised and excluded from 'mainstream' society. In general, our understanding of the processes of exclusion is grounded in time and history. In this paper, it is argued that space, as well as time, is instrumental in reproducing and sustaining disablist practices. Disability has distinct spatialities that work to exclude and oppress disabled people. Spaces are currently organised to keep disabled people 'in their place' and 'written' to convey to disabled people that they are 'out of place'. Furthermore, social relations currently work to spatially isolate and marginalise disabled people and their carers. Disability is spatially, as well as socially, constructed. It is contended that an understanding of society's reaction to, and the experiences of, disability should be framed within an approach that combines a spatialised political economy with social constructivism. Unlike neo-Marxist approaches this approach is centred on notions of power rather than capital. Using this approach, the spatialities of disability are explored.     

全国辅助器具服务网络建设研究

经过多年的建设,我国已建立了主体多元的辅助器具服务网络体系,主要由残联系统、民政系统、医疗系统和社会化的辅助器具网络组成。受管理体制的影响,分属于不同系统的辅助器具网络存在资源整合度不高、规模小、专业化水平不高、服务覆盖面小、定位定性不准确等问题。下一步辅助器具服务网络建设的重点工作包括:将残联系统辅助器具网络打造成中心化的辅助器具适配服务机构,加强县级及以下辅助器具机构的建设,提升基层辅助器具服务机构的能力,开拓社区资源,打造社区辅助器具资源平台。     

Cyborg anxiety: Oscar Pistorius and the boundaries of what it means to be human

Disabled people have a history of being viewed as not entirely human. In the age of spare part surgery and increasing sophistication of drugs, there are increasing concerns about what it means to be human, and, in particular, in what distinguishes people from machines. These concerns have clear resonance with anxieties about disability, and with disabled people being seen as not human. Oscar Pistorius is a disabled athlete whose wish to compete alongside able bodied competitors is causing great concern and worry that his prosthetic legs may give him an unfair - and non-human - advantage. The case of Pistorius breaks entrenched boundaries and lays bare core concerns in society about disability and the body.     

Screening Networks: shared agendas in feminist and disability movement challenges to antenatal screening and abortion

This paper identifies common ground in feminist and disability movement concerns with the social and ethical implications of antenatal screening and abortion. By examining the frameworks used by particular authors within each area, I argue that they both can and do have a shared agenda, which is focused on the social values that are embedded in antenatal screening and promote abortion as the obvious choice to the diagnosis of a congenital condition. It is important to develop some kind of shared agenda in order to construct theoretical and methodological approaches, which pay equal attention to pregnant women (disabled and non-disabled) and disabled people. To aid the development of such an agenda I draw on Actor Network Theory (ANT), which focuses on analysing the role of sociotechnical networks in securing particular social values and moral worlds. The issue for both disability studies and feminism is what kind of screening networks produce moral worlds that promote abortion, shape women's choices and express discrimination against disabled people?     

"Women and disability don't mix]" Double discrimination and disabled women's rights

Oxfam's experience with groups of disabled people has revealed that gender affects how disabled people are treated in various cultures. This experience runs counter to the often voiced (even by a consultant hired by Oxfam) assumption that gender analysis serves only to confuse any analysis undertaken of disability-based circumstances. This assumption is echoed in the disability movement itself where activists fear fragmentation through the introduction of gender analysis. Thus, gender is not yet understood as a factor which affects every aspect of life including race, class, ethnicity, caste, and disability. Because 75% of the 250 million disabled women in the world live in developing countries, development programs must consider the specific needs and rights of disabled women who suffer from double discrimination and are more likely than disabled men to live impoverished and isolated lives which lead to depression and despair. In many societies, disabled women, but not disabled men, lose their rights to marriage, family life, education, and health care. Mothers of disabled children are stigmatized, and fathers tend to "blame" defective genes on the mothers and to ignore their disabled offspring. These factors combine to make it difficult to improve the status and livelihoods of disabled women through development work. Disabled women activists have also voiced complaints about their lack of access to the preparatory meetings for the Fourth UN Women's Conference, but disabled women intend to use the Conference to lobby for their rights and to call for scrutiny of health policies which discriminate against the disabled.     

Equal Citizenship for All. Disability Policies in the Netherlands: empowerment of marginals

In January 2001, two of the Netherlands' National Councils of Disabled People and of Chronically Ill People merged to form the Dutch Council of the Chronically Ill and Disabled People (CG-Raad). The strategic policy plan of the newly-formed CG-Raad combines the principles of equality and diversity. This article discusses various aspects of current disability policies in the Netherlands and presents the Dutch welfare state as a 'constructed society' whose policy classifications deconstruct people's personal lives. Everyday life in a society of this kind is a very complicated affair for disabled people. Disability management is presented as a way of overcoming the problems caused by these complications. This article presents an alternative proposition--the 'varied society'. This is a society in which all people are regarded as worthwhile. It is also the principle on which the CG-Raad's strategic policy plan, entitled 'Equal Citizenship', is based.     

The social model of disability: thirty years on

This year marks exactly 30 years since I published a book introducing the social model of disability onto an unsuspecting world and yet, despite the impact this model has had, all we now seem to do is talk about it. While all this chatter did not matter too much when the economy was booming, now it no longer booms it is proving disastrous for many disabled people whose benefits and services are being severely cut back or removed altogether. In the article I restate my view of what the social model was and what I see as its potential for improving the lives of disabled people. Finally I focus on the unfortunate criticisms of it and the disastrous implications these have had for disabled people.     

A Critical Evaluation of the Contradictions for Disabled Workers Arising from the Emergence of the Flexible Labour Market in Britain

In Britain, as in all industrialised countries 'paid work' or employment is central to the economy of the state. This perspective raises important implications for theories of disability and work, and for further research in this area. This paper attempts to provide a critical evaluation of the contradictions arising from the flexible labour market for disabled workers and how the concept of the Disabled State has been eroded along with notions of disabled people as the 'deserving poor'. Policies now demonstrate a commitment to a labour market free from restrictive practices and regulation. It appears that new technologies and specific personal communication skills, initiative, flexibility and adaptability will play an increasing part in new labour working trends. In short, theories of disability and work must change focus from 'production' to 'process'.     

Disabling Homes: a study of the housing needs of disabled people in Cornwall

This research was carried out between January and July 1993. The study was an evaluation of housing need of disabled people who were wheelchair users through a process of consumer consultation. It was concerned to find out the extent and nature of that need whilst also testing out consultation through the use of research methods in comparison with a non-consultative approach taken by the local authorities. The nature of need was found to be qualitatively different to that found through the study of normative needs. A significant number of disabled people were being made more dependent by their housing and this was being reinforced by the agencies that were intended to help them. In particular, the failure to consult disabled people was leading the local authorities to make inappropriate plans for new build housing while the major need for adaptations was being undermined by their operation of the Disabled Facilities Grant. The findings support the call from other writers that the solutions to housing problems will only come through viewing disability as a civil rights issue.