DISABILITY: A STATE OF MIND?

Many people believe that discriminatory social attitudes are the fundamental cause of disablement. In this view, attitudinal change is regarded as the key to the emancipation of disabled people from the social oppression of disability. However, historical materialists, such as Abberley (1991a) and Oliver (1990), have rejected psychological accounts of disability on the ground that they fail to recognise the socio-economic causes of disablement. This article presents an historical materialist critique of the ‘attitudinal’ explanation of disability. The argument has three parts: the first reviews the recent application of historical materialist principles to the question of disability; the second considers the importance of space as a source of disablement; and the final part of the discussion is a report on recent research that has applied the materialist viewpoint to the study of disability in past societies.     

DEBATE A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM

The publication of Jonathan Swift's original Modest Proposal in 1729 caused outrage. His suggestion that, to survive, the Irish poor should make food of their own children (whether ‘stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled… in a fricassee or a ragout’) carried the logic of the government of his day to its brutal extreme. Polite society was not amused. But as the critic David Ward has noted: ‘Swift employs pessimism as a weapon to scourge away the smug credulity of most optimists, just as he employs the language of evil … to make us fear the worst in ourselves. ‘ In this piece Rodney Allen and Ian Hunt of the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Flinders University, find inspiration in Swift's pamphlet to make their own contribution to one of the the great debates of our day.     

INDIVIDUALS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY AND MENTAL ILLNESS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

This review highlights the urgency for a seamless and co‐ordinated approach to service delivery for people with intellectual disability and mental illness. There is emerging evidence of the high prevalence of mental illness in persons with intellectual disability. The notion that people with intellectual disability can have mental illness has only been recently acknowledged. Furthermore, people with intellectual disability also experience a wide range of psychiatric disorders often seen in the general population. Despite of recent developments in treatment options for these people, many of them continue to experience barriers in accessing mental health services.     

TOWARDS A MODEL OF CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING GROUPS

Consciousness-raising groups have potential to help their members realize both personal and social change. This article describes women's consciousness-raising groups, presents findings of a research study of these groups, and develops a model of the change process in these groups on the basis of those findings. The author concludes that change in consciousness-raising groups is a complex process, involving interaction between the group experience and factors outside the group. This suggests that group workers should pay more attention to the role of certain factors inside and outside the group in order to achieve a better fit between group conditions and group goals.     

CORRELATES FOR ACTIVE AND PASSIVE TYPES OF BURNOUT

An empirical approach to understanding burnout is presented. Data from 183 protective service workers revealed two types of burnout: active and passive. Correlation analyses suggest that active burnout is associated witb organizational factors or elements external to the professional; passive burnout appears to be associated with more internal social psychological factors. These findings help render consistent the variety of definitions offered in the literature, and they underscore a need to operationalize the phenomenon of burnout.     

VICTIMS OF CRIME AND LAW AND ORDER IDEOLOGY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This article will argue that conservative forces in the community have used the renewed concern for crime victims in order to further their own political positions, rather than to genuinely advance crime victims' interests. These forces, commonly referred to as the ‘law-and-order’ lobby, include right wing politicians, the police and some sections of the media. The ideology which informs their approach will be critically examined, as well as the most important specific policies relating to crime victims deriving from this ideology.     

THE IMPACTS OF DEREGULATION AND AGRICULTURAL RESTRUCTURING FOR RURAL AUSTRALIA

As a leader in the Cairns Group of Nations, Australia has been advancing deregulation in agri‐food trade. Successive governments have assumed that Australia would benefit from a greater deregulation of international trade because this would allow increased access to world markets for primary agricultural commodities. But regulation exists, at least in Europe, to protect the social value of the rural landscape. Australian governments, strongly influenced by economic rationalist ideology, have given insufficient consideration to the rural social landscape. Little critical reflection has taken place about whether Australia, and its farmers, would actually benefit from deregulation, or what the social impacts of this trend might be. Deregulation inevitably invokes structural adjustment, forces farmers out of agriculture, depopulates rural areas, and creates social hardship. There are also environmental ramifications. The exit of farmers from agriculture has not been as fast as was expected by economists and policy‐makers, with many farmers adapting to new situations.     

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGING EDUCATION AND GENDER INPUTS FOR POLICE DECISIONMAKING AND SUPERVISORY ROLES

This article reports the results of a survey of 43 Queensland police officers, half in supervisory roles and half immediately prior to induction. The purpose of the survey was to identify gender and educational differences between groups, and to identify any effect that these differences may have had on attitudes toward decision-making within the sample. The results were compared to a similar survey of American police chiefs. Attitudes toward decision-making were found to be similar among all groups with the exception of the perception of the ability to implement change. This was found to be significantly higher among women and those with a tertiary education. It was also suggested that female officers have the potential to excel in police managerial positions due to higher education levels, but they are currently seriously under-represented in supervisory and managerial positions.     

COMMUNITY-BASED SERVICES AND THE FRAGMENTATION OF PROVISION: A CASE STUDY OF HOME AND COMMUNITY CARE SERVICES IN A SUBURBAN COMMUNITY

Although the use of non-government organisations to provide assistance has long been part of Australian welfare history, the principles of community-based provision have only recently been adopted as part of the mainstream philosphy of service provision. This article examines the association between the expansion of community-based provision and the fragmentation of service provision using information drawn from a study of the provision of long-term care for a group of primarily elderly people through the Home and Community Care Program (HACC) and related provisions in a suburban community. The account focuses on the structure of formal service provisions, identifying organisational features which directly affect the operation of the system of local services, fragmenting the assistance made available. First, the organisations providing care are all of relatively recent origin and their operation continues to reflect many of the characteristics associated with their initial establishment. Second, the organisations involved are essentially hybrid bodies, being the product of both national/State programs and local initiatives. A number of tensions and conflicts arising from this characteristic are discussed. Third, service providing agencies tend to be highly specialised, with the consequence that the main division of labour is between, rather than within, organisations. Finally, the system of funding and administration has tended to orient agencies vertically, towards the source of funding, limiting their flexibility and capacity to develop horizontal patterns of cooperation with other services in the local area. Overall, the emergent system of services appears to be characterised by a large number of small organisations organised under a range of different auspice bodies, struggling to preserve their own autonomy and to operate within an insecure and continually changing policy environment. Recognising that reforms are likely, a number of broad alternatives to privatisation arc canvassed in the final section of the article.     

CASH,CUSTOMERS, AND CARE: THE EXPERIENCE AND MEANING OF DIFFERENTIAL PAYMENT FOR HIGH CARE PLACES IN AGED CARE FACILITIES

The introduction of new asset/income tested charges for high care residents was the 1997–98 Commonwealth government policy response to concerns about financing residential aged care. This in‐depth study of residents, families, staff and managers in three aged care facilities explores issues of equity, access and empowerment arising when some residents pay more for the same level of care and amenity. The study reports little evidence of financial contributions affecting access to high care places and the delivery of care, the potential for differential access to amenities such as single rooms linked to the extra payments, and no evidence of a sense of empowerment linked to payment of the new charges. The complexity of current financial arrangements, access to appropriate financial advice at the time of entry, and the potential for an informal two tier system in relation to the allocation of amenities are identified as developing policy issues.     

POVERTY,IDEOLOGY AND EMPLOYABILITY: CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN POLICIES FOR LOW-INCOME MOTHERS

A similar trend is apparent in Australian and Canadian programs to enhance work incentives and program effectiveness, but the Canadian provinces are increasingly insisting that low-income mothers with school-age children enter the workforce rather than accept social benefits to care for their children at home. There is no Canadian counterpart to the Sole Parent Pension or Parenting Allowance, although the provinces pay higher rates of social assistance to needy families than to individuals. Furthermore, there is little public support for the idea that low-income mothers should care for school-aged children at home at the taxpayer's expense. This paper discusses the similarities and differences in rhetoric and policies for low-income mothers, and seeks reasons for the stronger social support for mothering at home in Australia. Although the current discourse of economic rationalism suggests that enhancing work incentives and ‘employability’ will bring prosperity, this paper illustrates that neither paying mothers to care for their children at home nor pushing them into the workforce has reduced family poverty. To make employability programs more effective, governments need to deal with low female wages, the shortage and high cost of child care, and the lack of full-time permanent jobs.