The mental health peer worker as informant: performing authenticity and the paradoxes of passing

The inclusion imperative in community care means that disabled people are now increasingly being employed as peer workers in the service systems that manage them. This article offers a timely inquiry into the role of the peer worker in mental health and homeless service sectors. Drawing on a four-year ethnography and in-depth qualitative interviews with fellow peer workers, I explore the paradoxical nature of new expectations for peer ‘authenticity,’ and the ways in which peer workers learn to manage the requirement to perform identity in our work roles. This analysis thus denaturalizes peer identity, and works to develop possibilities for doing disability identity-based work differently.     

Guattari,Deleuze, and Cultural Studies

This essay maps the changing ways that the concepts and writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari have been mobilized in the journal Cultural Studies over the past three decades, reflects on roads not taken, and invites readers into a new conversation about the implications of the work of Deleuze and Guattari for cultural studies.     

电子资源在中东研究中的基本使用途径探索

查找文献资料是国际问题研究的基础性工作,中东研究也是如此。在信息技术日新月异的今天,如能熟练使用电子资源,就会达到事半功倍的效应。电子资源有着快捷、高效的特点,克服了查找纸质资源费时、费力的不足。本文从如何检索国内外已有的研究论著、查阅国内外第一手资料以及利用档案馆、图书馆和科研机构的网络资源等方面入手,探讨与中东研究相关的电子资源的基本使用途径。     

Foucault and the politics of critical management studies

This paper explores the different ways in which we read Foucault in management and organisation studies but, more particularly, some of the features of his project that we seem often to exclude. In the context of a growing interest in more ‘engaged’ forms of scholarly practice among management academics, we argue that further consideration of Foucault might have something more to offer. Setting the main arguments in context, we suggest an outline of the dominant ways in which we read Foucault: the identities we assign to him. Hence we know Foucault primarily as a social theorist, genealogist, neo‐Weberian, and postmodernist. We then consider some of the engaged aspects of his project, focusing on his emergence as an activist intellectual in the 1970s. Possible implications for critical management scholars are then considered.     

Strategies to Foster the Career Development of People with Disabilities

Abstract

This paper addresses career development strategy within the context of social work practice in rehabilitation and disability. The author outlines the career development needs of people with disabilities and identifies contemporary ways of thinking about career development. Four specific career development tactics are discussed involving the provision of vicarious experiences, identification and appreciation of performance accomplishments, verbal persuasion to support appropriate risk-taking, and emotional arousal that facilitates the expression of feelings and the motivation to act. These tactics are promising avenues for strengthening vocational and career self-efficacy with the aim of helping people with disabilities to augment their career maturity and increase their personal flexibility.     

The Implications of Disability Protests for Social Work Practice

Abstract

This article examines the demands which have been made in the over 800 US protests this author has analyzed. Some demands are cross-disability, meaning they could apply to people with all types of impairments; these include demands for rights and accessibility in all domains. Other demands are disability-specific: they apply to people with specific types of impairments, ranging from mobility impairments to developmental disabilities. Many demands have been related to services, which can be either cross-disability or disability-specific. The paper examines the implications of these demands for social work practice. These include that disability be de-stigmatized by practitioners, that people with disabilities have choices, that they have control over their services, and that all aspects of social work practice be accessible to people with any type of disability.     

Reaching Out

Abstract

This article describes how a state health authority capitalized on the increased popularity of the Internet among consumers by launching a website devoted to improving communication among persons interested in children with disabilities and their families. The health authority collaborated with a local school of social work to redesign the website using the family-centered paradigm and evaluate its effectiveness. A sample of 51 respondents participated in the web-based survey. The article describes the process and methods of evaluation as well as the results of the survey to enhance feedback for the website's further development. Lessons learned for the design, development, and marketing of future websites are also covered.     

The impact of a faculty training program on inclusive education and disability

This paper describes the knowledge gained by 20 faculty members following their participation in a training program on inclusive education and disability. The study, which was conducted at an university in Spain, aimed to design, implement and evaluate a program for training faculty members to respond in an inclusive manner to the needs of students with disabilities. An initial, formative and summative qualitative evaluation was carried out and four instruments were used for collecting the data: group and individual interviews, written open-ended questionnaires and observations. The data were analyzed inductively, using a category and code system. The results reveal that, after the training program, faculty considered what they had learned to be useful for their professional practice and highlighted that they felt better-informed and better-trained in relation to disability and were more aware of the needs of students with disabilities. Finally, in the conclusions section, the paper discusses the results in relation to those reported by other studies, and offers some recommendations for universities planning to implement training policies designed to build more inclusive learning environments.     

Disability, (auto)mobility and austerity: shrinking horizons and spaces of refuge

In Britain, many disabled people have access to a car through the Motability Scheme. However, with recent news of thousands of disability claimants losing their cars in cuts, it is worth reflecting on the cultural and symbolic importance of the motor car. This article considers the car’s ability to expand spatial and experiential horizons and offer a site of sanctuary for disabled people, and asks what can be lost in the wake of the recent government reassessment of the scheme.     

Trailing my journey into disability insights

The following short article traces my journey towards a better understanding of disability in my personal and professional life. I argue that context, professional cultures and changing theories of disability have all intersected in my journey to this fuller understanding. In turn this provides me with a better theoretical and professional tool kit with which to grasp disability and the lives of Maltese disabled people.