Parental Participation in Issues Concerning their Sons and Daughters with Learning Disabilities

'Participation' is much in vogue in current service parlance. This paper brings together literature on the participation of parents of people with learning disabilities. Research has focused mostly on participation during the school career, although increasing attention is being paid to participation at times of transition to adult services and moves from the family home. A number of issues surrounding participation are discussed: information, service philosophy, parental expectations for their sons and daughters and relative levels of parental and professional responsibility, aiming to illustrate the complexity of this concept and issues that exist for research and practice.     

Longitudinal Relations of Parental Influences and Adolescent Career Aspirations and Actions in a Collectivist Society

Using social cognitive career theory as a framework, we examined the longitudinal effects of proximal parental contextual influences on career aspirations and actions in a collectivist context. We used a sample of 954 Indonesian high school students and measured parental career expectations, adolescent‐parent career congruence, self‐efficacy, outcome expectations, career aspirations, planning and exploration, twice, 6 months apart. The best‐fitting model was reciprocal, with the results showing that parental career expectations predicted subsequent career aspirations and planning, and aspirations and congruence with parents regarding career matters predicted future exploration. Self‐efficacy and outcome expectations were reciprocally related over time. Self‐efficacy served as an across‐time predictor of both parental contextual variables. Career exploration predicted future self‐efficacy and planning predicted later outcome expectations.     

Social Class and Expectations of Rural Adolescents: The Role of Parental Expectations

This study investigated mechanisms involved in the intergenerational transmission of social class, specifically addressing the prediction of career expectations. The results indicated that among rural high school students (N= 200) in Grades 10–12, there was no direct effect of socioeconomic status (SES; as measured by parent education and occupation) on career expectations. However, there was a direct effect of educational expectations on occupational expectations. Building on the importance of educational expectations in the prediction of occupational expectations, the results suggested that perceived parental expectations explain variance in educational expectations. Overall, it seems that the effect of SES on occupational expectations was mediated by educational expectations; therefore, individuals of lower SES who have increased educational expectations are more likely to have occupational expectations similar to those of their higher SES peers. Moreover, increased parental expectations were positively associated with educational expectations among individuals of various SES levels.     

Citizenship and culture: the role of disabled people in Navajo society

Cultural constructs of disabilities can vary from one culture to another and significantly affect how the individual with disabilities is perceived, accepted, and accorded citizenship rights and responsibilities. This anthropological study of Navajo individuals with disabilities investigates these cultural constructs in a non-Western society from the perspective of the Navajo community members. Factors analyzed include child-rearing practices, the Navajo concept of childhood, and Navajo notions of health and unwellness. Historical attitudes toward disabled people are also explored, as well as changing attitudes due to the influence of Western biomedical explanations and interventions.     

Challenging the Image: the involvement of young people with disabilities in volunteering and campaigning

Much of the debate about young people with disabilities focuses on the difficulties these young people experience and their needs in terms of service provision. Rarely is there a focus on the positive contribution that disabled young people themselves make to society. The paper describes research which aimed to highlight the contribution that young people with disabilities make to their communities, by focusing on their participation in volunteering and campaigning. A national survey of disabled young people's participation was undertaken, as well as two case studies of particular projects. The paper describes the range of voluntary and campaigning activities being undertaken by young people with disabilities, highlights the effects of participation on the young people and those around them, and identifies issues for organisations wishing to enable more young people with disabilities to participate in this way.     

Accessibility to micro-finance services by people with disabilities in Bushenyi District,Uganda

The Poverty Reduction Strategy of the Ugandan Government identified provision of microfinance as one of its interventions. Despite the known connection between poverty and people with disabilities, it remains unclear to what extent this intervention includes or accommodates them. This study seeks to gain a better understanding of how people with physical and sensory disabilities access existing microfinance services in the Bushenyi District of Uganda. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies are used. The findings suggest that people with disabilities are not necessarily denied access to microfinance if they meet the desired requirements. These relate to adequate savings or collateral and perceived trustworthiness. These are seen to be key determinants of success and can be linked to impaired functioning relating to limited mobility, distance, poorer access to information and disabled people’s own negative attitudes. Increasing access and utilization of microfinance services by people with disabilities requires formulation of financial policies that accord them special consideration. At the same time, improvement is needed in the knowledge, attitudes and skills of the people with disabilities themselves and also microfinance providers.     

The Caring Wife: The Experience of Caring for a Severely Disabled Husband in the Community

Modern medicine has dramatically increased the chances of survival following major trauma such as a severe head injury or high level injury to the spinal cord. Greater numbers of seriously disabled people are thus returning to live in the community. This article examines the situation of the wife who assumes a caring role following the onset of severe disability in her husband. The study examines community care for people with traumatic disabilities and the social expectations of women's role in the provision of that care. Reference is made to the British situation although similar experiences are shared by women in other developed countries. As health care and social service professionals seek to serve the needs of their physically disabled client it is recommended that they view also the needs of their other client-the carer.     

How context influences the ideologies and strategies of disabled people’s organisations: a case study from Cambodia

Abstract

Studies of disability movements have centred on exploring how movements have emerged and how their strategies have been devised to effectively advocate for the rights of the people with disabilities they represent. However, little attention has been focused on examining their organisational contexts and how they shape ideologies and choice of strategies, which have implications for the success of their advocacy endeavours. This article seeks to contribute to knowledge in this area by studying the case of a disabled people’s organisation in Cambodia. The resource dependency of disabled people’s organisations on international development partners results in their ideologies and strategies being driven by the latter. This has not only fragmented their resources, but also made their endeavours less relevant to the needs of people with disabilities. This may act to prevent such organisations from building a common ground for collective action, and from effectively pressing for social change.     

Class and Disability: influences on learning expectations

This paper describes some findings from in-depth interviews with 10 adults with disabilities, most of whom had strong working class connections. It places the findings in the context of feminist post-structuralist theory. Whilst the research is not directly to do with gender relationships, the theoretical framework highlights notions of difference, cultural value and meaning which play a significant role in the power relationships between dominant and subordinated groups. The interviews invited participants to tell their life story with regard to educational experiences. Analysis of these stories indicated that expectations, rather than ambitions, had influenced most people's educational activities as adults. The combination of poor childhood experiences, class and disability attitudes, had a powerful influence on personal goals, which appeared to misrepresent real potential or real interest, once stimulated. The extract here is part of a larger research project which is looking at differentials amongst three different learner group cultures. The research is concerned with the mismatch of expectations among university continuing education providers and those of under-represented groups.     

Work and Work Alternatives for Disabled Young People

This paper presents results from a population based action research study in East Devon of the needs of 383 young people aged 16-25 years with a whole range of impairments and disabilities, and 152 able-bodied controls. A comparison between these two groups is made of their current and past experiences of work and work alternatives. The aspirations and expectations of the disabled young people are also compared with those of their families and service providers, and the preferred occupations of the young people, with various profiles of disability, are explored. Although the analysis pinpoints groups of disabled young people with particularly high levels of employment handicap, there is, throughout the study group, a need for progress out of static or unstable occupational paths. The handicapping features of employment services that impede this progress are discussed together with an examination of society's response to high levels of unemployment among disabled people. The research findings, set within this context, provide a basis for action research now being undertaken in local communities within East Devon to improve employment opportunities.     

Negotiating accommodations so that work-based education facilitates career development for youth with disabilities

Workers with disabilities are entitled to have their individual needs accommodated in a way that allows them to perform the essential duties of their job. However, adults with disabilities are often lacking in career development and are ill-prepared to negotiate workplace accommodations. This has led educators to seek workplaces that can accommodate the needs of adolescents with disabilities, so these adolescents can learn to negotiate accommodations and enhance their career development through work-based education. This paper reports on two case studies in which employers had agreed to accommodate the needs of adolescents with disabilities participating in work-based education. Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) framed the analyses of these two cases - a case of a student with physical disabilities and a case of a student with developmental disabilities. SCCT proves valuable in understanding the role of work-based education in the career development of disabled youth.     

'Doing Motherhood': some experiences of mothers with physical disabilities

In this paper, we discuss the experiences of physically disabled mothers. We interviewed 30 women in the age group 28-49 with medical diagnoses such as: multiple sclerosis, neuromuscular diseases, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injury Becoming a mother implied for many 'capturing' a gender or 'recapturing' a lost gender. They women felt they had to go to great lengths to 'present' themselves and their children as managing 'normally' in order to be accepted as 'ordinary' mothers. Eventually, they feared that their children might be taken away from them if they did not live up to other people's expectations. One possible explanation for what they experienced as other people's scepticism might be that disabled people on the whole are primarily still looked upon as being dependent on other people's help and care. In short, they are often looked upon by professionals and lay people as receivers, and not as carers.     

Career Aspirations and Expectations of Black,Mexican American,and White Students

The career aspirations and expectations of Black, Mexican American, and White college freshmen were examined. In addition, students' career expectations were compared to the jobs available in the labor market. Results suggested that (a) there seem to be more gender than ethnic differences in students' career aspirations and expectations, (b) differences in the career aspirations and expectations among Mexican American and White students followed traditional gender patterns, and (c) with some exceptions, the career expectations of students resembled the distribution of jobs in the labor market.     

Unmet health care needs of people with disabilities: population level evidence

The present study examined population level data on unmet needs for adults with physical, sensory and cognitive disabilities, using the National Population Health Survey. The study revealed that disabled adults (aged 20–64) reported more than three times as many unmet health care needs as their non‐disabled counterparts. Even after controlling for the effects of age, gender and poor health, disability had a significant effect on the perception of unmet needs, particularly disabilities associated with pain, hearing impairment and emotional problems. The greatest deterrent to receiving needed services among individuals with disabilities was cost. Despite being publicly funded and thereby presumably equally accessible to all, the health care system in Canada fails to meet the needs of some of its most vulnerable constituents – adults with disabilities.     

Disabilities and sexual expression: A review of the literature

Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, scholars have sought to advance a more nuanced and robust understanding of the sexual lives of disabled people. In doing so, these scholars have identified some of the barriers to sexual expression that disabled people face as well as some of the positive and pleasurable aspects of disabled people's sexual lives. This article reviews research regarding the sexual expression and activity of disabled people as well as some of the challenges to sexual expression that people with disabilities experience. Persons with disabilities—whether they are acquired, congenital, intellectual, physical, and/or sensorial impairments—continue to encounter alienation, stigmatization, and discrimination, particularly in terms of their sexuality. However, I argue that if proper laws, policies, and adequate supports are in place, people with disabilities can further challenge and push past these barriers to engage in a wide array of sexual and erotic acts. Furthermore, although the amount of disability‐sexuality‐related research has increased over past decades, I argue that many intersections of disability and sexuality remain under‐studied and that further research in this field is necessary.     

Pathologising the victim: law and the construction of people with disabilities as victims of crime in Ireland

Victimologists have for many years explored the construction of identities associated with the ‘victim of crime’, and how certain groups in society are understood as more ‘deserving’ of victim status than others. This paper considers the victim subjectivities ascribed to people with disabilities¹¹ In Ireland, ‘people with disabilities’ is the preferred term to ‘disabled people’.View all notes as victims of crime in Ireland by exploring the legal frameworks that shape their encounters with the criminal justice system. The legislative bricolage that exists is shaped by disjuncture, whereby anti-discrimination measures grounded in people with disabilities’ equal rights to access the justice system sit alongside those that construct them in terms of incapacity. Criminal law overwhelmingly pathologises people with disabilities as crime victims, with impairment dominating their victim status. The paper suggests that notions of victimhood that associate people with disabilities with dependency and passivity will do little to raise awareness of the disabling barriers that characterise their encounters with the criminal justice system.     

Why Are Some People's Needs Unmet?

Australia has legislation that states that 'people with disabilities have the same rights as other members of society to services', yet nearly one-third of all people with spinal injuries have their need for community services unmet. If all people have the same rights, why are some people's needs unmet? How equitable is the distribution of services? This study challenges service providers' beliefs that decisions about the provision and distribution of services are made objectively and equitably. To obtain needed services, people had to demonstrate their worthiness by conforming to providers' stereotype-based expectations of the disabled, based in entrenched philosophies. Service structures reinforce these disabling ideologies Service provision must thus undergo fundamental philosophical and structural change in order to meet community service needs.     

Employees with Long Term Illnesses or Disabilities in the UK Social Services Workforce

Between 6% and 16% of the working age population have a long term illness or disability. 'Disability' is not consistently defined, however, and neither the distribution of disabled employees nor the nature of their disabilities is well documented. This paper presents the findings of a study of statutory social services employees in the UK and for the first time provides an estimate of the proportion of workers with long term illnesses or disabilities. Over a fifth had a self-reported long term illness or disability, 8% a condition which affected daily life. The distribution and nature of these, and the effects of gender, age, occupational categories, and work experience such as job satisfaction, stress and sick leave, are examined. Changes in legislation and the profile of the working age population are likely to increase the number of people with disabilities in work. The paper concludes that at a time of difficulties with recruitment and retention, social services and other social care employers must develop a range of responses to support and retain the diversity of people with disabilities in work.     

Social Cognitive Approach to Career Development: An Overview

This article provides an overview of a social cognitive framework for understanding career interest, choice, and performance processes. Derived primarily from Bandura's (1986) general social cognitive theory, the framework features several variables (self-efficacy, outcome expectations, personal goals) through which people help to guide their own career development. It also includes a discussion of how these variables interrelate with other aspects of persons (e.g., gender) and their environments (e.g., supports, barriers) within the process of career development. The framework is intended as a base both for unifying existing career theories and for conceptualizing developmental and remedial career interventions.