Inclusive Research Project Research Articles

Having friends – they help you when you are stuck from money, friends and making ends meet research group

Accessible SummaryWe are people who do not get support from services and we have been doing some research about our lives, so we can share our stories about ‘money, friends and making ends meet’ with other people. We find it is hard to make ends meet and we do not know many people outside of our friends and family groups but we have each other, families and local groups such as churches for help and support.SummaryThis article is about the lived experiences and friendships of a small group of people with a learning disability who live without support in one of the most deprived areas in the UK. The findings are from an inclusive research project, that was named Money, Friends and Making Ends Meet and the participants who researched their own lives become known as the Money, Friends and Making Ends Meet research group. The group all experienced poverty, had limited social networks, many of whom are other people with a learning disability but did value the support they had from friends and family and local organisations.

Keeping wartime memory alive: an oral history project about the wartime memories of people with learning difficulties in Cumbria

This article discusses an oral history project funded by the Heritage Lottery. It recorded the memories of eight people with learning difficulties during the Second World War in Cumbria, UK, before their personal histories were lost forever. This qualitative, inclusive research project was supported by various organisations. The process of emancipatory research is examined in relation to the main project findings. There is an accessible website exhibition linked to this article. Some difficult issues were experienced by the team, such as the ill-health and death of participants, negotiating access with gatekeepers and concerns around decision-making. Cumbria experienced limited war activity, but people’s lives changed in subtle ways. This led to discussion around false/given memories; formal/informal interview processes and transcription/recording issues. The unexpected revelation of the study was the knowledge created around approaches to inclusion.

Including people with learning difficulties in cultural and heritage sites

This paper examines the processes involved in a participatory inclusive research project in Liverpool and Merseyside, UK. The project involved 25 people with learning difficulties – the Heritage Forum – visiting 13 cultural and heritage sites on more than 50 occasions across a 15‐month period. The research provides a much needed resource at a time when there is a lack of provision for, and research into, the intellectual accessibility of cultural and heritage sites in the UK and globally. This paper details the research approach taken by the Heritage Forum, providing a flexible protocol about ways of working with groups and individuals with learning difficulties. It also reports on the Heritage Forum’s general findings about the cultural and heritage sites, providing some initial guidance about how to best include this diverse population.

Internet access in Brazil: Social context and science and technology professionals

AbstractAccess to the Internet is an evidence of connectivity and has been considered an indicator of participation in today's knowledge society and in the globalization process, the latter also defined as “complex connectivity” and empirical condition of the modern world. However, evidences of the growth of this resource around the world is confronted with several questions regarding the discrepancies between developed and developing countries, regarding regional and social differences within countries and regarding the perspectives of its use by knowledge professionals. This subject – Internet access and use – has been included in the 2005 Annual Survey of the Brazilian Census Bureau. This paper is part of a more inclusive research project that focuses on the characteristics and perspectives of Brazilian society with regard to Internet access and use. Besides describing access to this resource, it tries to examine its several social, economic and work conditionings. In the data analyses presented here, emphasis is given, at first, to the description of socio‐demographic inequalities with regards to Internet access. A second emphasis is given to describing and comparing Internet access among Science and Technology professionals, particularly professionals in the field of Information and Communication, and between the public and private sectors.

Exclusion in an inclusive action research project: drawing on student perspectives of school science to identify discourses of exclusion

This article reports on the outcomes of an action research project on gender and science education carried out in two upper secondary schools in Sweden. The article focuses on how student voices draw on wider societal discourses when they talk about what it means to be natural science students at the beginning of the twenty‐first century. The article is divided into four sections. The first briefly describes the Swedish secondary school system, and identifies discourses of schooling and natural science in Swedish society. The second section contextualises the schools where the action research took place, concentrating in particular on the student focus groups. It further describes the methods used, the identification of themes from the students’ discussion, and the analysis of student voices in the light of societal discourses. The third section explores and analyses the issues raised in the focus groups, and these are further discussed in the final section where new insights are provided, at an individual as well as a more general level. Overall, the article draws attention to the importance of student ‘voices’ and of the student perspective in discourses of science, gender and education.

?Did you solve it yourself??: Evaluation of self narratives of discrimination by people with ?learning difficulties?

Narratives about personal experience are shaped by the interactional context, and people are required to tell their own stories in a variety of social contexts. For people with 'learning difficulties', veracity is a particular and paradoxical problem. New policies and strategies require them to take part in public debates, while they are traditionally judged to be incompetent to be witnesses to the 'truth'. Presenting data from an inclusive research project, this paper analyses some of the micro strategies by which people with 'learning difficulties' create their own research interviews by asking questions, telling stories and evaluating their own narratives about discrimination. The interplay of different levels of identity in the data and the concept of interactional rights were found to be useful analytical tools. By doing research and speaking up for themselves, people with 'learning difficulties' can collaborate to take on new situational identities; in this context, this paper shows precisely how they evaluate their own narratives to focus on various aspects of their own more permanent identity. Practical conclusions are drawn, both for people with 'learning difficulties' and for their interlocutors, challenging assumptions of blanket incompetence.

Paying the Piper and Calling the Tune? The Relationship Between Parents and Direct Payments for People with Intellectual Disabilities

Background The aim of this paper is to investigate the role parents are playing in direct payments provision for their son or daughter with intellectual disabilities.Materials and methods The paper draws on a UK‐wide inclusive research project, carried out by researchers who were members of an organization of people with intellectual disabilities. The purpose of the project as a whole was to explore what support works best for people with intellectual disabilities to access direct payments provision in the UK, and one of the key supports for certain people was found to be parents and families.Results Drawing on interviews with 29 family carers, the researchers found that parents were often strong advocates of independence for their son or daughter, and only acted as barriers to direct payments when they did not have sufficient information. Parents were found to be playing significant roles as initiators, managers and supporters of direct payments for their son or daughter; however, these roles were matched by important gains in quality of life and relationships within the family.Conclusions The paper considers the implications of the power balance between persons with intellectual disabilities, their parents and their staff. Direct payments can alter that balance radically, but it is still important to have a good, independent direct payments support scheme to enable the person with intellectual disabilities to be in control.