Suchergebnisse

The emergence of both disability studies and the new social studies of childhood has seen a new approach in the study of disability in childhood. The focus has shifted from an exploration of impairment to one that prioritises the social with disabled children themselves placed at the centre of the research. This article concentrates on disability studies and examines its influence on the research agenda and its impact on childhood research on disability. It also critically examines recent developments in disability theory and their usefulness for providing an understanding of the lives of disabled children. The article finishes with recommendations for future research in the area.

AbstractDrawing on in‐depth qualitative interviews with 15 people who have learning disabilities, brain injuries, neurodiversity, or mental health conditions accused of a crime in Scotland, this article offers substantive and methodological insights to unpacking perceptions of justice accessibility. We explore barriers to participation in pretrial justice processes for disabled accused people, demonstrating that disabled people are systematically denied a voice and disadvantaged by poor identification and recognition of impairment, insufficient supports or adjustments, and inaccessible information. We discuss participants' accounts of feeling excluded from, and intimidated by, systems and decisions that are not routinely explained in accessible terms, which, in turn, adversely impacts access to justice and perceptions of fairness. Informed by criminology and disability studies, we argue that the failure of criminal justice systems and practices to acknowledge disability as an equality issue creates disabling barriers that serve to further marginalise disabled people within justice settings.

The emergence of the ultralightweight wheelchair has transformed the lives of millions of disabled people. It has radically changed the principles and practices of wheelchair design, manufacture, and prescription and redefined wheelchair users and wheelchair use. Designed and built largely by wheelchair users themselves, it was driven initially by a desire to improve sport performance and later by a wish for improved access to the community and built environment. In this paper, we draw on oral histories and documentary sources to reconstruct its sociotechnical history. We employ the analytical concept of "boundary object" to illuminate how the wheelchair as a technological artifact is implicated in relations of social change and show the role of wheelchair users in the development and emergence of the ultralightweight wheelchair. We highlight the tensions and negotiations within this history and the push and pull between different social groups. The emergence of the ultralightweight wheelchair helped to reconfigure ideas about wheelchairs and their users and allowed wheelchairs to gain a foothold within broader social and technological infrastructures. What makes this account powerful is that this is a success story for a group who have historically been excluded from design processes.

The first ten years of the twenty-first century has seen the British Government introduce radical change to its equality policy. These changes have included the creation of a single equalities body, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC); the expansion of the equality terrain to include age, sexuality and sexual orientation and faith and belief in addition to gender, race and disability as protected grounds; the decision to coalesce human rights and equality legislation under the direction the EHRC; the development of an Equalities Framework; the promulgation of a new Equality Act (2009) with the aim of creating a single legal framework to cover all equality legislation together with the development of specific Equality Duties for the public sector around the areas of gender, race and disability with the aim of 'mainstreaming' equality. Barbara Roche, the then Minister responsible for equality co-ordination across the UK Government described these changes as 'the most significant review of equality in over a quarter of a century'.

In the UK and many other European countries, there continue to be concerns about a range of social issues including the position of immigrants, the educational attainment of marginalised groups and the persistence of the gender pay gap. Increasingly, governments and NGOs assert that the promotion of equality and human rights policies are central to addressing these issues, with a view to creating societies which are both more equitable and more efficient. Over the past decade and a half, a period of economic growth followed recently by a major recession, the equality and human rights agenda enjoyed a high political profile. However, as we discuss in this review article, the social and economic optimism of the late nineties and early to mid noughties has been followed by economic retrenchment, a commitment to the shrinking of the state and the public sphere across Europe and a general move to the political right. In this article, we first review the political context which led to the rise of the equality and human rights agenda. Subsequently, we examine competing conceptualisations of equality and their operationalisation within British social policy. Finally, we assess the progress which has been made towards achieving a more equal society in the UK over recent years drawing on data gathered and analysed by the National Equality Panel (NEP, 2010).

On the surface, the wheelchair appears a simple machine: its function seemingly apparent and its workings relatively uncomplicated. Yet, despite this apparent simplicity, the wheelchair is a complex artefact imbued with a myriad of social as well as technical relations that act simultaneously to exclude and include, confine and liberate, shape and be shaped. The wheelchair's inextricable links to injury and illness have certainly shaped its definition as a medical device. Such a definition has labelled the occupier as passive or ill and shaped a wider understanding of the machine as a prison. Wheelchair users, however, perceive the machine as a means to independence: it enables rather than disables. We present evidence here to suggest that this is not a recent phenomenon as we show how wheelchair access has been on the political agenda for disabled people for most of the twentieth century. The paper also examines the role of the wheelchair in the development of this movement, and we suggest that, as the design of the wheelchair improved, so the demand for better access increased. The final section of the paper looks at how poorly the state and its agents understood the issue of access.