Physical and social barriers to social relationships: voices of rural disabled women in the USA

Through exploring the lived experiences of disabled women, this study investigates how physical and social barriers affect their social relationships. In‐depth tape‐recorded interviews investigating a variety of social and interpersonal issues were conducted with 24 women with physical or visual impairments who lived in a rural region of the midwestern USA. Using content analysis, the researchers examined interview data for common themes and patterns relating to social relationships. The findings indicate that physical barriers, related to the physical environment and personal physicality, along with social barriers, involving preconceptions of others about impairment and restrictions in personal networks, hamper the initiation and maintenance of social relationships. Further, the experiences of this group of disabled women corresponded most closely with the premises of a social relational understanding of disability.     

Out in the Margins

Using a social construction model of both disability and lesbianism this paper focuses on the intersection of these two identities in questioning the accessibility of the lesbian community to women who are both lesbian and disabled. Whilst many physical barriers and lack awareness can contribute to the exclusion of disabled lesbian women from the lesbian community, so also can the unquestioned assumptions by many ablebodied lesbian women that disabled lesbian women are asexual and are somehow 'other', and are 'different' from themselves. Disabled lesbian women may be forced to contend with, and resist, discrimination from both an ablebodied heterosexist society and ablebodied discrimination from within the lesbian community. Within the discussion of identities will be an attempt to problematize my own ablebodied lesbian identity in both doing the research and in writing this paper. The challenges of addressing the complex issues of identity commonality, difference, and diversity will be discussed within a feminist perspective.     

用大学生身体素质的变化评价大学体育教学质量

运用测试法,对苏北部分高校的大学生体质健康现状进行测试和调查,对学生的身体形态、机能和素质进行比较分析。结果发现:大学生在大学期间的身体素质呈明显的下降趋势,建议进一步加强对大学生的体质了解,提高高校体育课教学和体育辅导的针对性,积极采取有效的教学内容、教学手段、评价机制等,引导和帮助他们科学锻炼,培养健康的生活方式。     

The Researched Opinions on Research: disabled people and disability research

Thirty-five disabled people with a range of physical, sensory and mental impairments were interviewed about (1) their experiences of research; (2) their general opinions concerning research; (3) whether they thought research had served/was serving disabled people well; (4) how research on disability should be conducted; (5) who should conduct research on disability; and, finally, (6) what they would like to be researched. In this paper, the results of aspects two to five are reported. It was found that the opinions of disabled people mirror quite strongly the recent arguments forwarded by disabled academics concerning the need for emancipatory and empowering research strategies. In particular, the respondents articulated a need for inclusive, action-based research strategies, where disabled people are involved as consultants and partners not just as research subjects, There were few arguments, however, for an exclusive approach, where disability research would be conducted solely by researchers who were themselves disabled.     

‘It’s better if someone can see me for who I am’: stories of (in)visibility for students with a visual impairment within South African Universities

Issues of visibility, invisibility and the non-disabled gaze are very relevant to the lives of many disabled persons. With this article we tentatively show that, despite the physical ‘over’-visibility of disabled bodies, many intricate parts of their personhood remain obscured and invisible. Interviews with 23 students with a visual impairment revealed that they sometimes experienced stares and averted gazes from their sighted counterparts. In response, they often hid their entire impairment, or parts thereof, in an effort to conform and gain acceptance and to earn membership to a non-disabled peer group. Acceptance was often found in companionship with fellow disabled peers. Since these stories told of continuing exclusion for disabled students on tertiary grounds, further participatory research is recommended.     

Counselling Disabled People: a counsellor's perspective

For many years professionals have assumed that disability is a problem for impaired individuals and that it is the disability that causes emotional or psychological problems. Whether this is true and whether a specific model of counselling is needed to help disabled people to cope with the emotional effects of their disability has not been widely researched and this is examined in this piece of research. The causes of psychological distress are discussed and the ways in which counsellors work are studied. Using a grounded methodological approach, disabled and able bodied counsellors of disabled people were interviewed as this was considered to be the most sensitive way of exploring this area. The findings show that more often than not it is the client's lack of control over their physical and social environment and not the impairment that causes emotional difficulties. Counsellors indicated that, through the facilitation of counselling, a sense of self empowerment in practical, emotional and social areas could be achieved and this was the central theme emerging as the most distinctive aspect of counselling clients with physical impairments.     

New Voices in Iceland. Parents and Adult Children: juggling supports and choices in time and space

This paper deals with parents' perspectives and experiences of bringing up children with a variety of impairments in Iceland, and how they impact the young disabled adults' approach to the status of adulthood. The paper is based on a qualitative study that explored perspectives and experiences of 36 young disabled adults (16-24 years old), their parents, friends and teachers. The purpose of this paper is to share themes related to patterns of parents' reactions and choices when coming to terms with parenting a disabled child, the support they found from their social network and professionals, and their sons or daughters' subsequent views of themselves and their prospects as young adults. The paper includes different perspectives on adulthood and the extent to which the young disabled people expect to reach that status or remain as 'eternal youth' enmeshed in segregated services. Findings show that the type and nature of early support for parents of disabled children is critical for the young adults' approaching adulthood in regular society or expecting to remain in the limbo of 'eternal youth' within segregated settings. Early 'betrayals' may, however, be revisited at each subsequent transition point. Furthermore, parents and their disabled children who struggled for social inclusion could obtain full active membership in society, even against social and physical barriers, and medically defined disability labels.     

Disabled people and dirty work

Based on a longitudinal case study of the work offered by a Swedish sheltered work organization that can be regarded as ‘dirty’, in the sense that it stigmatizes those people that do it, in this paper I analyze how ‘dirty work’ can be seen as an important yet so far neglected source of the social construction of disability. Specifically, the aim of the paper is to suggest how an individual can become a ‘disabled person’ by doing dirty work. By working on ‘tainted tasks’ people (irrespective of their mental or physical condition) may come to be regarded and even officially labeled as ‘disabled’, i.e. incapacitated and impaired for any ‘normal’ and ‘clean’ character of work.     

Wounded/monstrous/abject: a critique of the disabled body in the sociological imaginary

Contemporary sociology has made sense of bodily difference by mobilising a number of tropes. ‘Wounded’ (or vulnerable), ‘monstrous’ and ‘abject’ stand out by virtue of their ubiquity though they do not exhaust the repertoire. These categories highlight the conceptual tensions between the sociology of the body and Disability Studies. In this paper, I will examine the value of these tropes to Disability Studies and suggest that while they can help to clarify the processes that bring about the misrecognition of disabled people, understanding the nature and scope of the lives of disabled people in modernity requires a more embodied language rather than one that has been generated from a sociological imaginary that is strongly influenced by a non‐disabled subject position in which repulsion for the other – which one must become – is never fully resolved. Disability has had little impact on sociological theories of the body and when sociology ventures into disability it has tended to conflate it with an ontology of human frailty or gloss it with tropes that may be instructive about the generic or gendered modernist structure of exclusion but it tells us little about the specific forms of invalidation experienced by disabled people.     

Facilitated Sex and the Concept of Sexual Need: disabled students and their personal assistants

This paper explores the complex issue of facilitated sex, an issue that has received very little attention by the disability movement. It draws on a small, qualitative study of a personal assistance scheme in a British University, and on interviews and correspondence with disabled students and personal assistants. The paper discusses the way in which disabled students define their sexuality as a 'need', but highlights how this view is not shared by those providing assistance. Personal assistants are more inclined to define sexuality as a sexual 'want' and to conflate physical impairment with either asexuality or a limited potential for sexual activity. The discussion concludes by suggesting that, whilst the issue of facilitated sex is morally complex, the sexual needs of disabled people are more likely to be met if the issues of sexuality and facilitated sex can be discussed and negotiated, in a frank and open manner.     

ARE THE DISABLED LESS LOSS AVERSE? EVIDENCE FROM A NATURAL POLICY EXPERIMENT

Research findings show that disabled persons often develop physical and psychological mechanisms to compensate for disabilities. Coping mechanisms may not be limited to the psychophysiological domain and may extend to cognitive bias and loss aversion. In this study, we apply unique microdata from a natural policy experiment to assess the role of loss aversion in home purchase among nondisabled and disabled households. Results of survival analysis indicate that the physically disabled are substantially less loss averse in home purchase. Furthermore, loss aversion varies with other population characteristics and attenuates with degree of disability. Findings provide new evidence of diminished cognitive bias and more rational economic decision‐making among the physically disabled. (JEL D03, C9, R38)     

Why do able‐bodied people take part in wheelchair sports?

Recently able-bodied people have taken up wheelchair sports. This paper aims to explore why people are taking up a sport which may be considered to 'belong' to disabled people and explore the impact of reverse integration. A questionnaire covering demographic details, experiences of wheelchair sport and perceptions of both able-bodied and disabled wheelchair athletes was distributed by e-mail via elite wheelchair athletic associations in the UK, Canada, The Netherlands and the USA. Twenty participants were recruited (11 disabled athletes, four female, and nine able-bodied athletes, three female). Able-bodied people initially became involved in wheelchair sports in order to share an activity with their disabled friends or family. Continuing participation was reinforced by friendship, challenge, achievement, the opportunity for good competition, development of the sport and to change society's perceptions of disability. Perceptions varied according to the policies relating to inclusion adopted by the sports governing body within the participants' countries.     

Evolved Disease-Avoidance Processes and Contemporary Anti-Social Behavior: Prejudicial Attitudes and Avoidance of People with Physical Disabilities

Drawing on evolutionary psychological logic, we describe a model that links evolved mechanisms of disease-avoidance to contemporary prejudices against individuals with physical disabilities. Because contagious diseases were often accompanied by anomalous physical features, humans plausibly evolved psychological mechanisms that respond heuristically to the perception of these features, triggering specific emotions (disgust, anxiety), cognitions (negative attitudes), and behaviors (avoidance). This disease-avoidance system is over-inclusive: Anomalous features that are not due to disease (e.g., limb amputation due to accident) may also activate it, contributing to prejudicial attitudes and behaviors directed toward people with disabilities. This model implies novel hypotheses about contemporary variables that may amplify or reduce disability-based prejudice. We discuss past research within this context. We also present new evidence linking chronic and temporary concerns about disease to implicit negative attitudes toward and behavioral avoidance of disabled others. Discussion focuses on the conceptual and practical implications of this evolutionary approach.     

Integration versus segregation: the experiences of a group of disabled students moving from mainstream school into special needs further education

Although the latest education policy for disabled students is one of inclusion, some students are moving out of mainstream schools into specialist colleges for their further education. This research uses a combination of group and individual interviews to explore why this move away from mainstream education is made. Results show that these students' moved into specialist education because of the inadequate physical accessibility of their mainstream colleges, the quality of disability services available to them and their previous experiences whilst in mainstream school. These students were able to identify both strengths and weaknesses within mainstream and special education for disabled students, and believed that educational placement should therefore be a matter of choice depending on the physical, academic and emotional needs of the individual. It would appear, however, that for the students participating in this research, their local mainstream colleges were unable to cater for their needs, indicating that their decision to move into a special needs college was not based on a real choice. Mainstream colleges are challenged to create a truly inclusive environment so that disabled students are offered a real choice.     

Physical Disability in 1986 and Beyond: A Response to Simon Brisenden

The report of the Royal College of Physicians Physical Disability in 1986 and Beyond has been criticised by some disabled people because it deals exclusively with medical aspects of disability and not with the whole range of services and resources that disabled people require. This criticism is unfair since it would be totally inappropriate for a committee composed only of doctors to make recommendations other than of a medical or N.H.S. managerial nature. There are many deficiencies in the medical support of disabled people, particularly those with complex impairments and those with brain damage. Correcting these deficiencies needs a change in medical practice and in the N.H.S. resources devoted to rehabilitation medicine. The College report has defined very clearly the scale of this problem, suggested specific practical solutions and how they should be audited, and provides guidelines which all those concerned with disabled people can use to check on the medical services that should be available and to identify those who are responsible for providing them.     

The Intersubjective Experience of the Physical Body in the Clinical Setting of Eating Disorders

This paper will illuminate one dimension of self-disclosure as it relates to the inescapable presence of the body in treatment, and the female clinician’s ability to bring her physical body into clinical discussions during an encounter with a female client with an eating disorder. Although the clinical literature on eating disorders validates that transference and countertransference issues are particularly powerful, it generally neglects the exploration of these issues specific to the body’s physical presentation. Since body dissatisfaction is increasingly normative for women today, female clinicians need to have a theoretical road map on which to rely when they encounter a shared body experience. Thus, in order to encourage discussions of the therapist’s body in clinical social work practice, the body needs to be situated in a larger theoretical framework within which it can be explained and located; this framework is object relations theory viewed through an intersubjective lens. Concepts from object relations theory will demonstrate the importance of the body in the clinical exchange by highlighting the parallel between Winnicott’s ‘good enough’ mother and the ‘good enough’ therapist’s body. When the therapist is able to judiciously invite discussions of her body into the clinical arena, the client is given the opportunity to move from object relating to object usage. A case presentation exemplifies how this conceptual framework can be applied to clinical social work practice, strengthening the relationship between knowing and doing.     

Barriers to employment: voices of physically disabled rural women in Thailand

Employment is an essential activity that can generate income for people with disabilities, but very little is known about the interplay between disabled women, family and paid jobs. This article, therefore, sets forth a qualitative method for examining barriers that affect the employment opportunities of physically disabled women. Findings drawn from face-to-face interviews with 20 physically disabled women who live in rural poverty in Thailand clearly indicate that physical barriers from built environment, personal limitations; attitudinal barriers from the non-disabled community, especially employers; and over-protection from families limit their employment opportunities. Despite showing their interests in the labour market, these women are still left behind and trapped in rural poverty. The author argues that this situation is due to the non-disabled community ignoring the potential of these women. The author also recommends that the government of Thailand, NGOs and disability organisations should introduce strong tailored interventions and a multifaceted approach to address the medical, social and legal aspects of restricted participation in the labour market in order to improve the employment prospects of women with physical disabilities.     

Genes Spell Danger: mental health service users/survivors, bioethics and control

The focus of this discussion is disability, culture and identities in relation to bioethics and mental health service users/survivors. Taking account of the inclusion of mental health service users/survivors within the administrative categories of disability, this article argues for debates about bioethics and disabled people to address and include the perspectives of psychiatric system survivors, and their concerns about psychiatry and bioethics. There is currently an increasing emphasis in both the media and government policy on the danger, threat and 'otherness' of mental health service users, and increasing provisions to restrict their civil and human rights. This development is international and has also tended to be racialised in its public presentation. While genetic approaches to physical and sensory impairment can be seen to be concerned with physical and bodily conformity, genetic approaches to madness and mental distress that are gaining increasing power and official legitimacy, are also closely associated with regulating diversity, divergence and dissent in thinking and perceptions. The aim of this article is raise and explore these issues, and highlight the common and different concerns for us as survivors and disabled people as a basis for encouraging alliances, shared understanding and common resistance.     

Body Image among Women with Physical Disabilities: Internalization of Norms and Reactions to Nonconformity

Abstract

Body norms for women are based on stereotypical gender expectations regarding physical appearance. Although women in general are exposed to societal standards of the ideal body, women with physical disabilities encounter unique circumstances in meeting these expectations. Women with physical disabilities are often stigmatized because they violate norms of body aesthetics and body shape. This research examines the extent to which women with physical disabilities internalize body norms and the reactions these women have to their nonconformity to societal body standards. In-depth tape-recorded interviews, investigating a variety of social and interpersonal issues, were conducted with 21 female university students with physical disabilities. Using content analysis, the researchers examined the interviews for common themes and patterns relating to body image. The major categories that emerged were (1) awareness of body norms, (2) compliance with body norms, and (3) reactions to nonconformity to body norms. The study illustrates that women with physical disabilities have two general reactions to societal expectations of the ideal female body: emotional responses and stigma management. The lack of questioning of cultural body norms by respondents is discussed as it relates to the rural, small town study location.     

Enterprising? Disabled? The status and potential for disabled people’s microenterprise in South Korea

This article explores the position, potential and scope for self-employment and microenterprise for disabled South Koreans. The chronic barriers experienced in disabled people gaining paid work suggest that self-employment and enterprise might offer a good alternative to paid work. The self-determined nature of running a microenterprise has been shown to connect with disabled people who may not conform to standardised notions of body and brain that underpin many mainstream work contexts. Despite this promise, several barriers continue to beset disabled people’s access to micro-enterprise activity; barriers ranging from Confucian precepts, to employment protections that are geared largely towards paid employment and to the lack of training, finance and business support for disabled people starting up and sustaining microenterprise in Korea. The extension of legal protections, meaningful start-up subsidies, better business support and bridges between paid work and microenterprise are all seen as important policy correctives that would better support disabled people.