Disabled people's attitudes toward other impairment groups: a hierarchy of impairments

This article seeks to explore, through the literature, the notion that a hierarchy of impairment exists from the perspectives of both disabled and non-disabled people. The literature suggests that disabled people, like non-disabled people, do not always wish to be associated with other impairment groups for a variety of complex reasons, including competing for scarce allocations of funding/resources, sexual attraction, stigma, etc. The article concludes that further research is required in relation to disabled people's attitudes toward other disabled people, in general, and other impairment groups. Such research would expand our knowledge with respect to the degree to which disabled people view themselves as a homogenous in-group, as a set of separate impairment groups, or viewing impairment as only one facet of identity. These findings would help the disability movement to achieve greater inclusiveness amongst different impairments.     

Interviewing Non-disabled People About Their Disability-related Attitudes: seeking methodologies

Within the field of disability studies there has been a concentration upon the representation of disabled people's experiences within a social context. However, research into non-disabled people's perspectives on disability and impairment has traditionally been based upon a psychologically-driven individualist model of disability which sees disabled people uncritically as 'the problem'. In this apparent epistemological divide, little work has been done on the exploration of non-disabled people's perspectives from a social model angle. This paper outlines a current study of the formation of such perspectives, and specifically explores the methodological conditioners of such an enquiry.     

Children's experiences of disability: pointers to a social model of childhood disability

The social model of disability has paid little attention to disabled children, with few attempts to explore how far it provides an adequate explanatory framework for their experiences. This paper reports findings from a two-year study exploring the lived experiences of 26 disabled children aged 7-15. They experienced disability in four ways—in terms of impairment, difference, other people's behaviour towards them, and material barriers. Most young people presented themselves as similar to non-disabled children: it is suggested they may have lacked a positive language with which to discuss difference. It is further argued that Thomas's (1999) social relational model of disability can help inform understandings of children's experiences, with 'barriers to being' having particular significance.     

The additional cost of disability: a new measure and its application to sensory impairment

This article introduces a method using consensual budget standards to estimate additional costs incurred by households that include disabled people with specified impairments. The article reports on a first application of this to UK single adults with sensory impairments. Using the Minimum Income Standard method, the research aims to identify the cost of disability by working with groups of disabled people to agree what additions to minimum budgets for non-disabled people are required for someone with a given impairment. This provides a more tangible account of the cost of disability than economic analysis of living standards achieved by disabled and non-disabled people, and adds to surveys of actual spending on additional items, which do not account for unmet need. The research on vision and hearing impairment yields new insights into costs arising from the way disabled people live their everyday lives, not just from spending on adaptations and equipment.     

Towards an Affirmation Model of Disability

In this paper we argue that a new model of disability is emerging within the literature by disabled people and within disability culture, expressed most clearly by the Disability Arts Movement. For the purposes of discussion we call it the affirmative model. It is essentially a non-tragic view of disability and impairment which encompasses positive social identities, both individual and collective, for disabled people grounded in the benefits of lifestyle and life experience of being impaired and disabled. This view has arisen in direct opposition to the dominant personal tragedy model of disability and impairment, and builds on the liberatory imperative of the social model. Critiques of the latter have been consistently expressed as, or interpreted as, re-affirmations of personal tragedy, particularly in relation to impairment. In this analysis the affirmation model addresses the limitations of the social model through the realisation of positive identity encompassing impairment, as well as disability.     

‘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.     

Disability, Ethnicity and Childhood: a critical review of research

Whilst there is an increasing body of literature on the perspectives of carers of disabled children, there is little research giving the disabled child's perspective from either majority or minority populations. Indeed, the voices of black and Asian children in disability research have been almost silent. This literature review collates and analyses existing knowledge about the perceptions held by disabled and non-disabled children, and young people from black and Asian families concerning issues of disability and impairment. The Disability Movement has long proclaimed its belief in the full participation and self-representation of all disabled people. However, despite this laudable objective, the Disability Movement in Britain has mirrored society in general and for the most part been led by white, middle-class, heterosexual, articulate males. This review discusses the simultaneous oppression faced by black and Asian disabled children, and concludes that their experience is unique and different from that of white disabled children. Accordingly, it emphasises the need for further research about the subjective experience of black and Asian disabled children in order to meet their particular needs.     

Negotiating Psycho-emotional Dimensions of Disability and their Influence on Identity Constructions

This paper uses Foucault's concept of 'technologies of power' to explore the ways in which the psycho-emotional dimensions of disability are created and maintained within society. The manner in which gaze and self-surveillance operate on the bodies of people with impairments to leave them feeling worthless, unattractive and stressed is considered, and the effects of impairment on these processes are also discussed. However disabled people are not simply passive victims of this form of emotional disablism--many exercise agency and resist. The manner in which disabled people resist the negative stereotypes is described and the process of 'coming out' as a disabled person is offered as an example of a 'technology of the self'. This interplay of dominating and emancipatory forces is shown to contribute to a disability identity, which is fluid and which better represents the diversity of the disability experiences of disabled people than an essentialist disability identity.     

Korean disabled artists’ experiences of creativity and the environmental barriers they face

This study explores the essence of disabled artists’ creative endeavours and investigates what constitutes the environmental barriers that hinder their creative activities. For the research 12 disabled artists were chosen from a list of renowned disabled artists. The study found that creativity is the same for both disabled people and non-disabled people, but for disabled people their surroundings often make it difficult for them to establish their identities. These findings clearly illustrate that the empowerment of disabled artists through art education is crucial. They also show that social attitudes toward disability need to change, since negative views regarding disability art are underpinned by negative views of disabled people. In addition, relevant policies to advance disability art should be instituted and supportive measures to solve the financial problems faced by disabled artists must be taken.     

Disabled People,Health Professionals and the Social Model of Disability: Can there be a research relationship?

The social model of disability is proposed as an alternative to models that have viewed disability as an individual, rather than a socio-political issue. The use of this model to guide both research theory and practice is proposed in order to equalise research power relationships, and involve and empower disabled people. Health professionals have traditionally reinforced the medical model of disability in both research and practice, and this has been seen as contributing to the oppression and marginalisation of disabled people. If the social model is to achieve wider dissemination, it would appear important to develop a dialogue between disabled people and health professionals. However, because of negative perceptions it can be difficult for health professionals to find an appropriate position in relation to disabled people, research and the social model of disability. While not denying the past, it appears essential to look at ways in which disabled people and health professionals can work together to overcome the oppression and marginalisation that has been linked to the provision of health services.     

Oppression Within the Counselling Room

This paper suggests that the oppression experienced by disabled people in society is sometimes replayed in the counselling room by counsellors who are unaware of their own disablist attitudes and prejudices. Whilst the provision of Disability Equality Training (DET) within counselling courses would ameliorate the problem, I believe that disabled people would be most empowered by a counselling approach which recognises the potential for oppression within the counsellor-client relationship. One solution may be the creation of a new counselling approach, disability counselling, which includes the social model of disability as one of the foundations. An alternative solution may be found within the emerging counselling approaches that treat counselling as a social and political process and place emphasis on developing comprehensive anti-discriminatory practice.     

Managing manipulation: tools and challenges in creative collaborations with intellectually-disabled people

There has long been an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality when it comes to the production of disability narratives on screen, driven by an assumption that non-disabled people cannot accurately interpret the disabled experience. Given the appalling history of representations by non-disabled filmmakers, it is easy to understand why many academics and members of the disability community favour the complete control of disability content by disabled people. But this approach has failed the many compelling ‘disabled voices’ that go unheard because they do not reach audiences. The most practical solution is to forge new models of creative collaboration between disabled and non-disabled people, something I attempted to do with my PhD film, a comedy feature entitled Down Under Mystery Tour. I discovered that the most important tool in such collaborations is the utilisation and management of manipulation, one that prioritises skill and experience and best expresses the unique perspective of intellectually-disabled collaborators.     

Does She Boil Eggs? Towards a Feminist Model of Disability

The Social Model of Disability is increasingly recognised as the theoretical and ideological underpinning for the collectivisation and politicisation of disabled people. This paper examines the Social Model from the perspective of disabled women. It then considers the position of disabled women in relation to both the women's movement and the disability movement. It argues that the former is oriented towards non-disabled women and the latter towards disabled men, with a consequent further marginalisation and disempowering of disabled women. Drawing on the history of black feminism, the author (who is a white non-disabled woman, and who teaches anti-discriminatory social work practice based on an integrated theoretical model) concludes by offering to disabled women a reframing of the analysis in which to explore their simultaneous experiencing of their gender and disability.     

Fitting in and looking pretty: experiences of students with visual impairment participating in ‘inclusive’ ballroom dance classes

Abstract

Greater participation in social, sporting and cultural activities by disabled people is important for inclusion. We discuss the experiences of four students with visual impairment who are partnered with sighted dancers in an inclusive ballroom dancing project. Their talk is discussed against the background of common images about dance, disability and performance. Participants experienced inclusive ballroom dancing as enjoyable. They also indicated the ways in which the dancing involved acting to conceal their impairments and to reinforce norms of non-disabled heteronormativity. We discuss the contradictions inherent in projects which espouse inclusion and are appreciated but which perpetuate exclusionary stereotypes.     

Conceptualising the psycho‐emotional aspects of disability and impairment: the distortion of personal and psychic boundaries

Recent feminist critics of the social model of disability have pointed towards a danger that disability studies may give relatively little attention to personal and emotional aspects of disablist oppression and impairment. We argue for consideration of the centrality of the distortion of personal and psychic boundaries as a key aspect of oppressive relational dynamics surrounding disability. Within the observer the disturbing psychic evocations of disability, and related defences, are connected to the maintenance of dynamics of unreal, collusory and alienating modes of relating, which may deprive disabled people of the recognition of subjective experience and personhood. Skewed socialisation of disabled people, involving inter alia the protection of the emotional lives of others, as well as the reality of inaccessible material resources, contributes to the internalisation of disablism and the ideological recruitment of disabled people as complicit in their marginalisation.     

Disability,embodiment and ableism: stories of resistance

Non-disabled responses to visible impairment embody either social invisibility or over-attentiveness. The subjective and inter-subjective experiences of impaired bodies and intersubjective encounters within society are important aspects of disablement and the construction of a disabled identity. Impairment is read by and influences the social structure of ableism. This paper attempts to understand how ableist discourses about impaired bodies have impacted on and been resisted by disabled people and how embodiment is related to identity. In pursuit of these aims, a qualitative study was conducted with seven people who have visible physical impairments. The results indicate that disabled embodiment is produced and experienced within an ableist context that mobilizes the charitable gaze and the medical model to signify impaired bodies at the expense of the recognition of disabled identity. In order to deconstruct ableism and to recognize and respect the value of the disabled identity, a politics of recognition is required.     

Personal and Political: A Feminist Perspective on Researching Physical Disability

Feminist theory and methodology have much to offer in understanding how disability research has been experienced as alienated research by disabled people. However, feminist research has failed to apply its principles to disability and disabled women's subjective reality has found no place in mainstream feminist work. The paper identifies the challenges for feminism in addressing the interests and reality of disabled women, asserting that it is not helpful to focus on 'double disadvantage'. Disability research itself has much to learn from feminist methodology, in particular the principle of making the personal political. The role of non-disabled researchers as allies of disabled people is discussed, and the importance of research which turns the spotlight on the way in which non-disabled society oppresses disabled people. Finally, it is asserted that disability research and politics are of general relevance because the experience of disability is an integral part of a society characterised by fundamental inequalities and ideologies which divide people against each other.     

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.     

Definitions of Need: Can disabled people and care professionals agree?

This paper attempts to examine the ideological frames of reference that inform the definitions of need that are used by disabled and non-disabled people. The main aim of the research upon which this paper is based being to test the degree of congruence of the non-disableds view of need with that of disabled people. Central to this is an exploration of the differences that exist in the perception of disability held by disabled people and nondisabled people. It investigates this through the use of a staged vignette based around a fictitious character (Mr Arthur Angus) and his family. The paper seeks to explore the multidimensional contexts in which individuals operate based upon a deconstruction of the medical/social locus of control model.     

Who am I? Concepts of disability and their implications for people with learning difficulties

The relationship between concepts of disability, group membership and self-concept was examined. It was argued that people with learning difficulties have been categorised, by non-disabled people, as 'belonging' to a devalued social group with a rigid boundary based on IQ level. Findings from studies of self-concept have shown little evidence of a sense of belonging. It was suggested that people with learning difficulties may prefer not to identify with this social group because of the negative effect it may have on their self-esteem. The analysis based on intergroup and social identity theories proposed that people with learning difficulties may be encouraged in creating a positive self-concept by abandoning the IQ criterion for social categorisation; softening the boundaries between disabled and non-disabled people; and adopting collective rather than individual strategies for social change.