Critical Disability Perspectives Research Articles

Teacher education students’ experiences navigating inherent requirements within their courses of study

ABSTRACT Inherent requirements define core competencies that all students must demonstrate to be accepted, progress, and successfully complete professionally accredited programmes such as teaching. This paper presents research that examines how students of teacher education navigate supposed abilities to teach through their courses of study, to inform the development of a statement of inherent requirements for a large school of education in an Australian university. Drawing on critical disability perspectives, we present results from a survey conducted with students enrolled in teacher education courses. This analysis demonstrates that inherent requirements have little affect for students whose bodily capacities align with preconceived notions of abilities to teach. Yet, students with disabilities will likely experience impose barriers to their success within teacher education because of perceived inherent requirements to practice, which is not easily addressed through disclosure and reasonable adjustments. The paper concludes with a discussion addressing how when seeking to expand their impact in support of inclusive local and global communities, universities must necessarily start by paying close attention to the ways that they frame competency in relation to equity. Here we draw from concerns raised by students in the present study, and critical disability theory, to support an institutional transposition from inherency to coherency, reframing how ability to teach can align with contemporary policy aspirations and inclusive practices. The paper is unique for drawing on student experiences to inform the development of knowledge in the field of teacher education along with critical disability perspectives with which to analyse them.

Lessons from Critical and Transnational Disability Perspectives for Social Work

Lessons from Critical and Transnational Disability Perspectives for Social Work

Drawing on critical disability and universal design perspectives within occupational therapy

Background Critical perspectives which focus on socio-political influences on occupation have gained increased attention within the occupational therapy profession. Critical disability studies (CDS) question prevailing assumptions about disability and how disabling ideologies and practices are perpetuated in society. Universal Design (UD) is a design approach that aims to operationalise issues of inclusion and justice. Aim To identify and discuss how the tenets of CDS and UD can contribute to occupational therapy practice and research. Methods and Results Drawing on the writings of leading scholars within CDS, UD and occupational therapy, we demonstrate the intertwined barriers faced by disabled children, youth, and adults who have participated in our studies and provide ideas on how practice can be guided by the tenets of CDS and UD to promote social equity. Conclusions Incorporating CDS and UD perspectives in occupational therapy practice and research requires a change in mindset and ways of working. Occupational therapy knowledge needs to be expanded to scrutinise disabling hindrances hidden within social and structural spaces, and implemented in services. We recommend working with disability communities to raise awareness and combat disabling barriers at various level of society, as mandated by policy.

Situating divergent perceptions of a rapid-cycling network in Montréal, Canada

As cities work to accelerate sustainable-transport transitions, the expansion of cycling networks has become a significant topic of debate. Even as cycling mode shares are increasing across a number of North American contexts, ‘bikelash’ (i.e. community opposition to cycling facilities) remains prevalent. In this paper, we draw from qualitative questionnaire data and spatial analysis from Montréal, Québec to contribute a situated understanding of factors influencing both positive and negative social perceptions of cycling infrastructure. Our analysis confirms general trends that contribute to residents’ overall satisfaction with recent cycling interventions, including enhanced safety considerations and family-friendly infrastructure. We also identify particular sources of bikelash that require deeper consideration, including conflicting ideas about the impacts of cycling facilities on local businesses, divergent opinions about the planning process, perceived inequities in the distribution of cycling networks, as well as issues of seasonality and modal integration. These findings can be of interest to practitioners and decision makers working to support sustainable-mobility transitions, including recommendations on public communication and consultation processes, winter cycling facilities, integrated infrastructure for active travel, as well as the inclusion of social equity and critical disability perspectives.

Intellectual Disability, Dehumanization, and the Fate of “the Human”

Dehumanization Studies is a burgeoning field that has much to teach Critical Disability Studies and philosophers of disability. Conversely, a critical disability perspective can inform and challenge theoretical approaches to dehumanization. This paper attempts to forge a conversation between these interdisciplinary areas by exploring the phenomenon of dehumanization in relation to people with intellectual disabilities. It begins with a definition of disability dehumanization, and then explores the ways in which this form of dehumanization functions dynamically at multiple levels, drawing from the history of ID and contemporary examples in moral philosophy. Ultimately it argues that it is essential to recognize the moral relevance of being human in order to challenge and prevent forms of disability dehumanization and de­fends this idea in the face of two objections (speciesism and posthumanism).

Situating occupational injustices experienced by children with disabilities in rural India within sociocultural, economic, and systemic conditions

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to diversifying and situating understandings of occupational injustices through presenting findings from the knowledge generation phase of a participatory action research (PAR) project that utilized participatory filmmaking with children with disabilities in rural South India as co-researchers. Centering on situations of occupational injustices generated through a participatory analysis conducted with the child co-researchers, a critical theoretical analysis, informed by critical occupational science and critical disability perspectives, was carried out. This theoretical analysis of data generated through the filmmaking process, as well as data generated with parents of children with disabilities, community members, and service providers, was used to elucidate forces shaping and perpetuating occupational injustices within the study context. Findings address the complex layers of sociocultural, economic, and systemic forces shaping occupational injustices, as well as ways contested responsibility and individualization of issues limited collective action. The paper illustrates the contributions that can be made through critical participatory approaches to enhancing understanding of the production and perpetuation of occupational injustices in ways that contribute to nuanced understanding of diverse human occupations. As well, issues of occupational injustice related to occupational marginalization, restricted occupational possibilities, occupational degradation, and non-sanctioned occupations are fore fronted.

Disability Law as an Academic Discipline: Towards Cohesion and Mainstreaming?

AbstractThis article calls for a strengthening of Disability Law as an academic discipline and offers orientation for its future development. It argues that there is a need for enhanced cohesion among those already applying a critical disability perspective within disciplines such as Equality Law, Mental Health and Capacity Law, and Social Care and Protection Law and also for greater mainstreaming of this approach across the full breadth of sociolegal scholarship. The article is divided into three main sections. The first contextualizes Disability Law by reflecting on its relationship with other legal disciplines and broader pools of scholarship. The second focuses on issues of scope and structure. The third offers orientation for future Disability Law work by outlining four key cross‐cutting challenges with the potential to bring together scholars with expertise in different areas of substantive law.

Integrating critical disability perspectives in nursing education

Undergraduate nursing education has a duty to make certain that the focus of both nursing practice with disabled people and nursing education are enabling, rather than disabling. However, depictions of disability in nursing education have been identified as inadequate and at times problematic, with insufficient attention paid to disability in curricula. In this paper, we provide an overview of representations of disability in nursing and examine the gaps and inadequacies in nursing education. We also support the argument that nursing educators must utilize critical perspectives on disability to challenge discrimination and address the gaps that currently exist. Finally, we focus on how nursing programs and educators can take action to support all nursing students to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours to meet the needs of disabled people in a more comprehensive and meaningful way. Practical and effective strategies are shared.

From Criminalisation to Individual Choice: Policy Responses to Changing Constructions of Intellectual Disability in Western Australia

This article uses an historical perspective to explore how constructions of disability influenced policy and services for people with intellectual disabilities in Western Australia (WA) from the time of British colonisation until the present day. The authors approach the discussion from a critical disability perspective in the analysis of disability constructs, political responses and social change, incorporating the Foucauldian concept of biopower to explain the physical infrastructure, classification and dividing practices that produced ‘docile subjects’. The authors argue that changing social constructions of disability since the 18th century affected the lives of people with disability in WA and continue, through their embodiment in infrastructure, to influence present-day practices, even after policy has changed. This approach illuminates the interplay between metaphorical and literal constructions of disability and allows the legacy of past assumptions to be examined.

Decolonial theory and disability studies: On the modernity/coloniality of ability

This paper applies a decolonial approach to hegemonic psychological science by engaging marginalized knowledge perspectives of Disability Studies (DS) to reveal and disrupt oppressive knowledge formations associated with standard understandings of ability. In the first section of the paper, we draw upon mainstream DS scholarship to challenge individualistic orientations to disability (evident in the medical model and positive psychology perspectives) that pervade psychological science. The purpose of this approach is to normalize disability by thinking through disabled ways of being as viable and valuable. In the second section of the paper, we draw upon critical race and global disability perspectives to denaturalize hegemonic accounts of ability. Rather than essential properties of human bodies and minds, the capabilities of the modern subject reflect technological and ideological investments that enable a privileged few, while disabling the marginalized global majority. We conclude by discussing implications of decolonial theory for DS and ways in which considerations of disability subjectivity can inform the decolonial project.

Using Participant Observation to Enable Critical Understandings of Disability in Later Life: An Illustration Conducted With Older Adults With Low Vision

Research with older adults aging with vision loss has typically been informed by a biomedical theoretical framework. With a growing focus, however, on critical disability perspectives, which locates disability within the environment, new methods of data collection, such as participant observation, are needed. This article, which reports on the findings from a critical ethnographic study conducted with older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL), aims to share those insights gained through participant observation and to demonstrate the utility of this method. Three insights were gained including the adaptive strategies tacitly employed to navigate the physical environment, a grounded understanding of social interactions that transpire in everyday contexts, and negating the presence of older adults with ARVL when accompanied by a perceived caregiver. The study findings unpack how participant observation can be used to understand social constructions of disability and gain a holistic understanding of environmental influences on the disability experience of older adults with ARVL.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme and access to education: progressive or coercive policy discourse?

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the experiences of a small group of families in Australia in relation to recent reform to disability policy by way of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Framed in critical disability perspectives of policy implementation research, the paper focuses on the extent to which the scheme articulates inclusive opportunities for children and young people with disabilities, particularly in relation to facilitating access to education. Interview data that illustrate families' expectations of the scheme and latter-day experiences, coercions and negotiations highlight the tensions that exist for scheme participants who draw on its provision to support their education. These first- and second-order policy effects indicate a welcome change to disability support in Australia, though the extent to which the scheme can advance inclusion for people with disabilities is uncertain, given the distance rendered between the policy and its participants and other service systems. The paper concludes with a theoretical discussion based on the analysis of how the NDIS is framed to interrelate with scheme participants and education and how it might be reframed for better outcomes.

Locating, understanding and celebrating disability: Revisiting Erikson’s “stages”

The assumption of universal human developmental tasks is central to Erikson’s influential Eight Stages of Man. While grand developmental theories have been strongly critiqued from a feminist perspective, it is necessary for feminists to also consider the implications of Erikson’s theory from a critical disability perspective. Applications of Erikson’s theory have claimed that disabled people experience stagnated development because they are unable to complete the achievements required for full participation in adulthood. However, we argue that the positioning of disabled people as diminished adults is open to question, as it is based on narrowly defined notions of “autonomy”, “industry” and “initiative”. Additionally, constructions of disabled adults as “dependent” or “vulnerable” render invisible the systematic exclusion of disabled people from social and economic opportunities. Human service workers who adopt normative developmental understandings may not realize the potential for “well-intentioned” disability services to cause harm through paternalism and a culture of low expectations. It is essential that universalized models of adulthood are deconstructed from both feminist and critical disability perspectives, in order to locate, understand and celebrate diverse developmental experiences. We offer some ideas about how this deconstruction might be enacted within a university education context.

Neoliberal disorientations: changing landscapes of disability and governance in India

This article delves into questions of neoliberal disorientations experienced by disabled people in the context of a participatory development self-help group project from the World Bank in south India. I explore ways in which neoliberal development regimes produce exclusionary forms of inclusion by producing subjects who are ‘able-disabled’. I ethnographically examine ‘who gets counted’ and ‘what gets counted’ within the neoliberal governance framework, and what remains outside. Deconstructing participatory development approaches from a critical disability perspective, the article sheds light on processes of inclusion through exclusion in the neoliberal framework of governance. It highlights what is at stake for disability futures in the context of austerity in the Global South.

Disability Media Participation: Opportunities, Obstacles and Politics

This article discusses participatory media from a critical disability perspective. It discusses the relative absence of explicit discussion and research on disability in the literatures on community, citizen and alternative media. By contrast, disability has emerged as an important element of participatory cultures and digital technologies. To explore disability participatory cultures, the article offers analysis of case studies, including disability blogs, ABC's Ramp Up website and crowd-funding platforms (such as Kickstarter).

Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things: Disability in <em>Game of Thrones</em>

Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things: Disability in <em>Game of Thrones</em>

Rethinking criminal responsibility from a critical disability perspective: The abolition of insanity/incapacity acquittals and unfitness to plead, and beyond

Viewed from a critical disability perspective, criminal responsibility requires both formal and substantive equality. This article examines criminal responsibility using provisions of the Convention on the Rights on Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on equal recognition before the law, access to justice, liberty and security of the person, and equality and non-discrimination. In light of the CRPD, declarations of unfitness to plead, the negation of criminal responsibility based on disability or alleged incapacity, as well as commitment to psychiatric institutions in either a civil or criminal context, are discriminatory measures contrary to the rights of persons with disabilities, and must be abolished. Beyond abolition, which will achieve formal equality, this article proposes an inclusively designed framework that may meet the need for substantive equality between persons with disabilities and others in the adjudication of criminal responsibility.

Navigating Risks and Professional Roles: Research with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer Young People with Intellectual Disabilities

We examine ethical issues that emerged during a community-based participatory research (CBPR) study in Toronto, Canada, exploring sexual health attitudes and practices among lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people (ages 17-26) labeled with intellectual disabilities. These ethical concerns included: (1) managing the risk of coercion, (2) consent to participate in the study, (3) issues of confidentiality and disclosure, (4) balancing beneficence with self-determination, and (5) role conflict for researcher-practitioners who participate in CBPR projects. Incorporating critical disability perspectives and a heightened awareness of professional role conflict into CBPR practices has the potential to foster development of more inclusive and accessible sexual health initiatives and research environments.

Youth for Sale: Using Critical Disability Perspectives to Examine the Embodiment of ‘Youth’

‘Youth’ is more complicated than an age-bound period of life; although implicitly paired with developmentalism, youth is surrounded by contradictory discourses. In other work [1], I have asserted that young people are demonized as risky and rebellious, whilst simultaneously criticized for being lazy and apathetic; two intertwining, yet conflicting discourses meaning that young people’s here-and-now experiences take a backseat to a focus on reaching idealized, neoliberal adulthood [2]. Critical examination of adulthood ideals, however, shows us that ‘youthfulness’ is itself presented as a goal of adulthood [3–5], as there is a desire, as adults, to remain forever young [6]. As Blatterer puts it, the ideal is to be “adult and youthful but not adolescent” ([3], p. 74). This paper attempts to untangle some of the youth/adult confusion by asking how the aspiration/expectation of a youthful body plays out in the embodied lives of young dis/abled people. To do this, I use a feminist-disability lens to consider youth in an abstracted form, not as a life-stage, but as the end goal of an aesthetic project of the self that we are all (to differing degrees) encouraged to set out upon.

Constructions of Disability: A Call for Critical Reflexivity in Occupational Therapy

Within professional and practice knowledge there are many assumptions about disability that underpin occupational therapy philosophy. The objectives of this paper are to (a) critically examine how disability has been constructed in mainstream society by introducing perspectives from contemporary disability studies theories, and (b) apply a critically reflexive lens informed by disability studies perspectives to occupational therapy practice. Drawing upon critical disability perspectives, notions of "nondisabled" versus "disabled"; metanarratives of disability; built environments and social structures; and social and attitudinal constructions of disability and identity are examined. Key issues pertaining to rehabilitation, norms, client-centred practice, language, and education within occupational therapy are discussed. This critically reflexive examination has revealed the ways in which occupational therapy and society at large are embedded in discourses that may reinforce negative connotations around disability. A renewed understanding of disability may challenge current practices.