Disability Identity Research Articles

NO LONGER IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT: THE IMPACT OF DRIVING ON IDENTITY AS A DISABLED PERSON

According to a growing body of literature, the decision to stop driving has profound implications for older adults’ mobility, social integration, involvement in out-of-home activities and can lead to worsening of depression. The effect of driving cessation on older adults’ orientation to the future in terms of goals and meaning in life is understudied. Using ordinal logistic regression, this study assessed the impact of driving cessation on older adults’ self-reported future goals and perceptions of meaningfulness and on their assumption of a disabled identity. The sample of 711 respondents (M = 83.74, 67.3% female) was obtained from eight waves of the Florida Retirement Study (Kahana, Kelley-Moore, & Kahana, 2012). Respondents were mostly amenity migrants from the Midwest, living in a large retirement community, that provided no services, in Clearwater, Florida. Between 1994 and 2001, 31% of the participants stopped driving. After controlling for age, gender, marital status, cognitive functioning, IADL, self-rated health, presence of chronic diseases, and having transportation support from friends or family we found that driving had a significant positive effect (β=0.461, p=0.000) on having clear future goals. The second model found no significant effect (β=0.089, p=0.535) of driving on the perceived meaningfulness of existence. The final model revealed that driving cessation led to an increase in assuming a disability identity, even after controlling for the functional level. These findings demonstrate the importance of driving for older adults’ perceived quality of life and suggest the need for initiatives that will maximize the self-sufficiency of older adults.

장애 이해를 위한 자기옹호 프로그램이 지적장애 청년의 장애정체성 및 장애개방 기술에 미치는 영향

장애 이해를 위한 자기옹호 프로그램이 지적장애 청년의 장애정체성 및 장애개방 기술에 미치는 영향

Emerging Adulthood Measured at Multiple Institutions 2: The Data

Collaborators from 32 academic institutions primarily in the United States collected data from emerging adults (Nraw = 4220, Nprocessed = 3134). Participants completed self-report measures assessing markers of adulthood, IDEA inventory of dimensions of emerging adulthood, subjective well-being, mindfulness, belonging, self-efficacy, disability identity, somatic health, perceived stress, perceived social support, social media use, political affiliation, beliefs about the American dream, interpersonal transgressions, narcissism, interpersonal exploitativeness, beliefs about marriage, and demographics. The data are available at (https://osf.io/qtqpb/) with details about the study and contributors at our main EAMMi2 page (https://osf.io/te54b/). These data may be used to examine new research questions, provide authentic research experiences for students, and provide demonstrations for research and statistics courses.

How do genetically disabled adults view selective reproduction? Impairment, identity, and genetic screening.

BackgroundGenomic medicine is rapidly evolving, particularly in the domain of reproduction. Population carrier screening for a range of disorders is becoming possible using whole genome/exome sequencing. However, very little is known about the views of genetically disabled adults toward selective reproduction.MethodsForty‐three in‐depth qualitative interviews were carried out with adults living with different types of genetic condition, recruited through support groups and clinics. Interviews covered participants’ experiences of their condition and their views toward genetic intervention in reproduction. Thematic analysis of the data using NVivo 11 was undertaken, and participants were assigned categories as either supporting, not‐supporting, or having ambivalent views toward selective reproduction.ResultsThe majority of participants (65%) expressed either disapproval of, or held ambivalent views toward, selective reproduction. Key reasons for non‐support included regarding genetic impairment as part of personal identity and the prioritization of social and environmental barrier removal. Key reasons for support of selective reproduction included negative and externalizing attitudes toward genetic impairment and a belief in the importance of informed reproductive decision‐making.ConclusionThe degree to which participants identified with their impairment, more so than how they valued it, was significant in determining attitudes toward selective reproduction. Those who supported genetic screening viewed their impairment as separate to themselves, while participants who considered their impairment as integral to their identity were most likely to report ambivalent or negative attitudes. Policymakers and stakeholders considering the role of genetic carrier screening panels might usefully engage with adults affected by heritable disease as well as disability identity politics when considering the acceptability and social impact of genetic screening programs.

Double Jeopardy: Plight of Female Students with Disabilities in Botswana’s Higher Education

Although substantial recent research addresses the importance of higher education (HE) for students with disabilities, this sector has remained under-researched in Botswana. The struggle of female students with disabilities to access and participate in HE remains an issue of great concern for disability activists and researchers. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe the lived experiences of female students with disabilities in their struggle to access and participate in three HE institutions in Botswana. Seven female students with disabilities participated in this research. Multiple methods, such as focus group discussions, photovoice and solicited journals, were used to collect data. The data were analysed using Atlas.ti 7.5 qualitative data analysis software. Three themes emerged, and they are (a) socio-cultural issues and disability identity, (b) access and participation in HE and (c) empowerment of female students. These findings served to inform Botwana’s HE institutions that include female students with disabilities, to help them to promote participation as well as quality of experiences.

Females With Visual Impairments in Physical Education: Exploring the Intersection Between Disability and Gender Identities

ABSTRACTPurpose: The purpose of this study was to use an explicitly intersectional approach to examine the embodied experiences of individuals identifying as female and as having a visual impairment in school-based physical education. Method: An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) research approach was used, and 8 adult women (ages 21–30 years) with visual impairments acted as participants for this study. The primary sources of data were semistructured audiotaped telephone interviews and reflected field notes. Data were analyzed thematically using a 3-step analytical process inspired by IPA. Results: Based on the data analysis, 3 interrelated themes were constructed from the participant transcripts. The first theme, “Girls don’t like gym anyway”: limited participation from the female perspective, described the participants’ experiences with limited participation and the influence of gender and visual impairment on these limitations. The second theme, “She can’t do what other kids can do”: teachers’ expectations and unable bodies, described how the participants’ unable or flawed bodies influenced their teachers’ expectations of their abilities in physical education. The final theme, “It was really awkward”: feelings about negative peer interactions, demonstrated participants’ embodied perspectives toward bullying and other negative peer interactions. Conclusions: Utilizing an IPA approach, the researchers constructed 3 themes that exposed central experiences and reflections that were informed by the participants’ identified gender and disability. Through the lens of intersectionality, these themes contribute to our understanding of how multiple identities (femaleness, visual impairment) contributed to disadvantages in physical education contexts.

Intersekcionalita útlaku u matek bez domova z azylových domů

This paper deals with how the intersectionality of oppression manifests in narratives of single mothers with experience residing in a homeless shelter. Oppression is of a structural nature and single mothers from homeless shelters encounter it in various forms and on various levels. Using a qualitative research strategy, in particular a participatory approach, it has been found that oppression is ever-present in the narratives of homeless mothers, and that their living experience can only be understood through the intermingling and intersecting of different forms of oppression, such as gender, motherhood, lone- parent families, andthe interrelated poor socio-economic situations, ethnicity, and homelessness. This intersecting of different forms of oppression leads to disabled identities, that resulting in segregation, marginaliszation, or social exclusion.

Shallow Inclusion (or Integration) and Deep Exclusion: En-Dis-Abling Identities through Government Webpages in Hong Kong

This article is primarily concerned with how government webpages in Hong Kong claiming to embrace social inclusion and provide services and support for persons with disabilities construct issues relating to disability. These texts are not read in isolation. Instead, they are considered in conjunction with discourse produced in several United Nations documents, especially the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which Hong Kong is a signatory. These documents appear to both proffer and retract social inclusion in ways that complicate, if not undermine entirely, their purportedly inclusionary intentions. This article also reflects upon commentary produced by university students at a public university in Hong Kong responding to government discourse. Such focus upon ‘non-disabled’ readers reveals how texts do more than merely mediate pre-existing messages. Instead, they constitute a “social location and organizer for the accomplishment of meaning”, thereby counting as “a form of social action” (Titchkosky, 2007, p. 27). Through the texts they conspire to make about disability, authors and readers become complicit in the production, maintenance, and reinforcement of non-disabled (or abled)/disabled identities and dis/ableist ideology in ways that implicate the entire population in exclusionary processes.

Walking small with ‘Paul’, a man with ‘severe learning difficulties’: on (not) passing in purportedly public places

This article primarily accounts for walks taken in purportedly public places with ‘Paul’, a middle-aged man who is currently diagnosed as having ‘severe learning difficulties’. These walks offer windows into the ways in which dis/ableist discourses and the powerful abstractions they produce descend to the level of practice, seeping into seemingly innocuous spaces, and the interactions and subjectivities therein. Through these encounters, persons become complicit in the production, maintenance and reinforcement of non-disabled (or abled)/disabled identities. This article nevertheless attempts to destabilize and defetishize the ontological categories that these encounters realize, and to recognize the vitality and presence set aside or concealed behind these concepts.

Diverse Pathways to Purpose for College Students With Disabilities

The sense of purpose, which directs and motivates goal attainment, is associated with health and happiness as students make transitions from high school to college and work. Despite its importance for student well-being, little empirical work has addressed the development of purpose among students with disabilities. This article expands on a model of the relationship between purpose development, career aspirations, and disability identity in a sample of 59 college students with a variety of visible and invisible disabilities. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach to the analysis of extensive interviews, results present five pathways to purpose and the processes through which students’ disabilities contribute to their sense of purpose. Implications for practice and future research emerge from this rich source of student voices.

Sharing Autism Through Metaphors. (Dis)ability, Difference and Diversity in Temple Grandin’s Portrayals of Autism.

Autistic people, professionals claim, lack the socio-emotional awareness to employ metaphors. Yet public, medical and neuroscientific discourse about autism is full of metaphors, including those used by autistic people themselves. Analyzing the autobiographic writings of Temple Grandin – livestock scientist and autism spokeswoman – I treat her metaphors as shared sociocultural resource negotiating the identities of autistic people within a larger context of changing American disability narratives and identity politics.

Implication and Effective Factors in the Components of Disability Identity of People with Disabilities

Implication and Effective Factors in the Components of Disability Identity of People with Disabilities

Toward Intersectional Identity Perspectives on Disability and LGBTQ Identities in Higher Education

Little has been published on the intersections of disability and queer identities among college students. I propose 5 intersectional identity perspectives based on semistructured interviews with 25 students at a research university who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer students with disabilities. Students articulated relationships among their disability and queer identities as (a) intersectional, (b) interactive, (c) overlapping, (d) parallel, and/or (e) oppositional. Students adopted multiple perspectives simultaneously to resist oppression, navigate changing contexts, and build resilience and community, suggesting implications for researchers and practitioners who might adopt a more nuanced view of students' intersecting identities.

Positive Disability Identity Predicts Sense of Belonging in Emerging Adults With a Disability

Positive Disability Identity Predicts Sense of Belonging in Emerging Adults With a Disability

‘Move it or lose it’: perceptions of the impact of physical activity on multiple sclerosis symptoms, relapse and disability identity

This study explores the roles which individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) ascribe to physical activity (PA). PA is becoming more heavily promoted by health care providers to individuals with MS due to the evidence of improved health outcomes with PA participation. However, there are possible negative outcomes with the medicalisation of PA (e.g. increased guilt over inactivity, constrained views of PA) that may be compounded by the uncertain nature of having MS and negotiating a disabled identity. Framing disability and impairment within a social-relational model of disability, we undertook an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of 15 semi-structured interviews conducted among adults with MS who had recently experienced a relapse. Our purpose was to understand how persons with MS describe the roles of PA and exercise as part of daily life with MS, relapses and disability identity. Our analysis indicated that PA occupies several roles related to MS and relapse. These roles were categorised into three main themes: PA has a paradoxical role in MS relapse; PA has a role in guilt and empowerment; and PA as defiance of disability. The roles that exercise/PA take may inform the negotiation of disability identity for individuals with MS by providing ambiguous control ‘over’ MS relapses and over impairment/disability. When not engaging in PA, our participants described feelings of guilt, worrying that increased impairment/disability would be their ‘fault.’ Because of this, PA should be promoted carefully as it occupies many important and sometimes conflicting roles in the life of an individual with MS.

An imagined community of practice: Online discourse among wheelchair users

People with disabilities often live in local communities primarily made up of people without disabilities: in the absence of a geographic community of people with disabilities, the internet becomes a valuable tool for connecting individuals across both local and global contexts. The power of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to allow individuals to interact both locally and globally has been well-studied in linguistics (e. g. Baron 2008; Page 2012), and this work has included the discourse of e-health (e. g. Hamilton 1998; Locher 2006, 2013) and the online discourse of people with disabilities (Al Zidjaly 2011, 2015). Less research has been done, however, on the implications of online discourse for understanding people with disabilities as a linguistic community.This paper argues that the community of people with disabilities can be viewed from a linguistic perspective as an imagined community of practice: an imagined community, because members recognize their common belonging even if they do not interact locally (Anderson 1983); a community of practice, because members use recognizable, if not identical, disability practices and engage in shared sense-making (Eckert 2006; Eckert/McConnell-Ginet 1992). This understanding of the community of people with disabilities is evidenced in online blogs by wheelchair users.A close discourse analysis of the blog posts shows shared sense-making around disability practices, even though individual bloggers’ practices may vary according to their specific strategies for accommodation. In their posts, the bloggers construct their disability identities in terms of practice and imagine themselves to belong to a community that is distinguished by disability practice. The analysis reveals shared sense-making: in particular, the way that the bloggers position themselves in opposition to the societal discourse that people with disabilities are an inspiration to people without them. In this way, the bloggers demonstrate their membership within an imagined community of practice made up of people with disabilities.

Resisting Body Oppression: An Aesthetic Approach

This article argues for an aesthetic approach to resisting oppression based on judgments of bodily unattractiveness. Philosophical theories have often suggested that appropriate aesthetic judgments should converge on sets of objects consensually found to be beautiful or ugly. The convergence of judgments about human bodies, however, is a significant source of injustice, because people judged to be unattractive pay substantial social and economic penalties in domains such as education, employment and criminal justice. The injustice is compounded by the interaction between standards of attractiveness and gender, race, disability, and gender identity. I argue that we should actively work to reduce our participation in standard aesthetic practices that involve attractiveness judgments. This does not mean refusing engagement with the embodiment of others; ignoring someone’s embodiment is often a way of dehumanizing them. Instead, I advocate a form of practice, aesthetic exploration, that involves seeking out positive experiences of the unique aesthetic affordances of all bodies, regardless of whether they are attractive in the standard sense. I argue that there are good ethical reasons to cultivate aesthetic exploration, and that it is psychologically plausible that doing so would help to alleviate the social injustice attending judgments of attractiveness.

"It's good, they're like me; the same but different." An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the identities of women with down's syndrome.

For people with disabilities, identity formation is based on responses to hierarchical values determined by able populations. Some adopt a disability identity, whereas others may seek to conceal their disability. No research has focused on how women with Down's Syndrome form an identity. Eight women with Down's Syndrome took part in semi-structured interviews designed to find out more about their individual and shared identities. The transcripts were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Negative assumptions of others and oppressive, paternalistic care often lead to a lack of ownership over narratives. "Finding a place in society" is an attempt to challenge this and gain a sense of ownership over their lives. This research uncovered the individual and shared identities that women with Down's Syndrome construct. Services need to be aware of the role they have in supporting these women to develop autonomy and ownership over their lives.

A Critical Metaphor Analysis of Disability Identity and Ideology in the Thai Undergraduates’ Home for Children with Disabilities Website Project

This study examines how the Home for Children with Disabilities and disability identities were construed by Thai undergraduates in their website project through an analysis of metaphors. Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) was the framework for analyzing the use of metaphors and the participants’ enactment of identity and social representation. The critical analysis revealed four dominant themes: ‘JOURNEY’, ‘FAMILY’, ‘OBJECT’ and ‘HOPE’ all utilized to reproduce the Home for Children with Disabilities identity as a ‘warm’, ‘effective’ and ‘altruistic’ organization that provides their children with forms of care and compassion. The analysis, in addition, showed the participants’ representation of disability identity as a non-static and changeable entity. Children with disabilities were seen as ‘capable of becoming self-supporting’. Additionally, the semi-structured interviews conducted with the participants indicated that social oppression was believed to be the cause of disability-related issues and that true understanding was needed to terminate social discrimination.

Who self-identifies as disabled? An examination of impairment and contextual predictors.

According to Social Identity Theory, minority group members, like people with disabilities, manage stigma by either "passing" as majority group members or identifying with their minority group. Approximately 15% of the world's population has a disability, but only a fraction of those individuals identify themselves as people with disabilities. Disability identification has been associated with positive outcomes including psychosocial well-being, self-advocacy, and political engagement. The International Classification of Functioning (ICF) recognizes that "disability" is constructed through the intersection of impairment and context (i.e., personal and environmental factors). This is the first study to examine ICF impairment factors (duration, noticeability, presence congenital impairment, pain, severity, and total number of impairments), personal factors (age, ethnicity, gender, income, and psychological distress), and environmental factors (social support and stigma) that predict disability self-identification. Research Method/Design: Participants living in the United States completed an online survey measuring the factors listed above. To avoid selection bias, disability was not mentioned in recruitment materials. Those who reported at least 1 impairment (n = 710) were retained for analysis. Supporting the ICF proposition that disability results from a combination of impairment and contextual factors, disability identification was predicted by severity, age, income, and stigma. Stigma partially mediated the relationship between severity and identification. Stigma and severity were the strongest predictors of disability identification. Future work should examine ways to foster positive disability identity such as cross-impairment connections through support groups, mentoring, and collective action against stigma. (PsycINFO Database Record