Using data from more than 40,000 soldiers of the Union army, this book focuses on the experience of African Americans and immigrants with disabilities, investigating their decision to seek government assistance and their resulting treatment. Pension administrators treated these ex-soldiers differently from native-born whites, but the discrimination was far from seamless - biased evaluations of worthiness intensified in response to administrators' workload and nativists' late-nineteenth-century campaigns. This book finds a remarkable interplay of social concepts, historical context, bureaucratic expediency, and individual initiative. Examining how African Americans and immigrants weighed their circumstances in deciding when to request a pension, whether to employ a pension attorney, or if they should seek institutionalization, it contends that these veterans quietly asserted their right to benefits. Shedding new light on the long history of challenges faced by veterans with disabilities, the book underscores the persistence of these challenges in spite of the recent revolution in disability rights.

Our children mean the world to us. They are so central to our hopes and dreams that we will do almost anything to keep them healthy, happy, and safe. What happens, then, when a child has serious problems? In Family Trouble, a compelling portrait of upheaval in family life, sociologist Ara Francis tells the stories of middle-class men and women whose children face significant medical, psychological, and social challenges. Francis interviewed the mothers and fathers of children with such problems as depression, bi-polar disorder, autism, learning disabilities, drug addiction, alcoholism, fetal alcohol syndrome, and cerebral palsy. Children's problems, she finds, profoundly upset the foundations of parents' everyday lives, overturning taken-for-granted expectations, daily routines, and personal relationships. Indeed, these problems initiated a chain of disruption that moved through parents' lives in domino-like fashion, culminating in a crisis characterized by uncertainty, loneliness, guilt, grief, and anxiety. Francis looks at how mothers and fathers often differ in their interpretation of a child's condition, discusses the gendered nature of child rearing, and describes how parents struggle to find effective treatments and to successfully navigate medical and educational bureaucracies. But above all, Family Trouble examines how children's problems disrupt middle-class dreams of the ""normal"" family. It captures how children's problems ""radiate"" and spill over into other areas of parents' lives, wreaking havoc even on their identities, leading them to reevaluate deeply held assumptions about their own sense of self and what it means to achieve the good life. Engagingly written, Family Trouble offers insight to professionals and solace to parents. The book offers a clear message to anyone in the throes of family trouble: you are in good company, and you are not as different as you might feel.

Much has been written about cognitive development in those who are cognitively impaired. Much is written about attachment for people who don't have disabilities. Yet people with disabilities have suffered discrimination and neglect of their emotional needs, perhaps because the pain of difference cannot be tolerated, perhaps because of lack of will or lack of knowledge. This book aims to help to fill the knowledge gap and to encourage others to overcome their resistance to facing the pain, and will be an important contribution to our understanding of the world of disability and emotional deprivation. In this book - a result of over twenty years experience with people who have disabilities and additional distress as a result of traumatic life experiences - an attempt is made to bring together what we know about early emotional development and the consequences of failure to provide an emotionally nurturing experience, and the results are then applied to people with disabilities.

Drawing from long term ethnographic work and practice in Guatemala, this incisive and interdisciplinary text brings in perspectives from critical disability studies, postcolonial theory and critical development to explore the various interactions and dynamics between disability and extreme poverty in rural areas.

Exclusion is the main predicament faced by people with disabilities across contexts and cultures, yet it is one of the least academically studied concepts. This book offers an applied linguistics perspective on critical and timely issues in disability research, filling in a number of gaps in discourse analysis and disability studies.

Disability and Disaster adds disaster research to the expanding area of disability studies. The book includes writings by international scholars and first-hand narratives from individuals with disabilities affected by disasters around the globe. Hazards described in these narratives include earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, and war.

This is the first book to challenge the concept of paid work for disabled people as a means to 'independence' and 'self determination'. Recent attempts in many countries to increase the employment rates of disabled people have actually led to an erosion of financial support for many workless disabled people and their increasing stigmatisation as 'scroungers'. Led by the disability movement's concern with the employment choices faced by disabled people, this controversial book uses sociological and philosophical approaches, as well as international examples, to critically engage with possible alternatives to paid work. Essential reading for students, practitioners, activists and anyone interested in relationships between work, welfare and disability.

The social position of learning disabled people has shifted rapidly over the last 20 years, from long-stay institutions, first into community homes and day centres, and now to a currently emerging goal of "ordinary lives" for individuals using person-centred support and personal budgets. These approaches promise to replace a century and a half of "scientific" pathological models based on expert assessment, and of the accompanying segregated social administration which determined how and where people led their lives, and who they were. This innovative volume explains how concepts of learning disability, intellectual disability and autism first came about, describes their more recent evolution in the formal disciplines of psychology, and shows the direct relevance of this historical knowledge to present and future policy, practice and research. Goodey argues that learning disability is not a historically stable category and different people are considered "learning disabled" as it changes over time. Using psychological and anthropological theory, he identifies the deeper lying pathology as "inclusion phobia", in which the tendency of human societies to establish an in-group and to assign out-groups reaches an extreme point. Thus the disability we call "intellectual" is a concept essential only to an era in which to be human is essentially to be deemed intelligent, autonomous and capable of rational choice. Interweaving the author's historical scholarship with his practice-based experience in the field, Learning Disability and Inclusion Phobia challenges myths about the past as well as about present-day concepts, exposing both the historical continuities and the radical discontinuities in thinking about learning disability.

Disability is a widespread phenomenon, indeed a potentially universal one as life expectancies rise. Within the academic world, it has relevance for all disciplines yet is often dismissed as a niche market or someone else's domain. This collection explores how academic avoidance of disability studies and disability theory is indicative of social prejudice and highlights, conversely, how the academy can and does engage with disability studies. This innovative book brings together work in the humanities and the social sciences, and draws on the riches of cultural diversity to challenge institutional and disciplinary avoidance. Divided into three parts, the first looks at how educational institutions and systems implicitly uphold double standards, which can result in negative experiences for staff and students who are disabled. The second part explores how disability studies informs and improves a number of academic disciplines, from social work to performance arts. The final part shows how more diverse cultural engagement offers a way forward for the academy, demonstrating ways in which we can make more explicit the interdisciplinary significance of disability studies - and, by extension, disability theory, activism, experience, and culture. Disability, Avoidance and the Academy: Challenging Resistance will interest students and scholars of disability studies, education studies and cultural studies.

Drawing from work in a wide range of fields, this book presents novel approaches to key debates in thinking about and defining disability. Differing from other works in Critical Disability Studies, it crucially demonstrates the consequences of radically rethinking the roles of language and perspective in constructing identities.

Over the past two decades, there has been increasing recognition of the ways in which disabled children and adults have been denied human and civil rights that others take for granted. In the year 2000, the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force. This book reviews the implications of the Act for disabled people. The book provides: an overview of key policy and legislative developments in the UK in relation to disabled children and adults in the post war period; an outline of the European Convention on Human Rights, The Human Rights Act 1998 and related procedures; an account of the ways in which disabled people's human rights have increasingly become a matter of concern and the implications of the Human Rights Act in relation to specific issues; a debate about the ways in which public bodies and practitioners within them can engage positively with the provisions of the Human Rights Act to develop better practice. Disabled people and human rights will be of interest to both disabled people themselves and organisations representing their interests, professionals whose work brings them into contact with disabled people, and students of social work, social care, disability studies and law.

This volume of "Research in Social Science and Disability" focuses attention on the dual themes of theory and methodology that must form a basis for studies of impairment and disability. It addresses issues that include: critiques of current concepts of disability; the fit between sociological role theory and the concept of disability; the operationalization of different definitions of disability; conducting surveys with people with impairments; and, the reliability and utility of several qualitative research methodologies as applied to impairment and disability. Overall, the papers in this volume represent the beginning of a resurgence of interest in social science theories and methodologies within the study of impairment and disability.

People with disabilities are among the most adversely affected during conflict situations or when natural disasters strike. They experience higher mortality rates, have fewer available resources and less access to help, especially in refugee camps, as well as in post-disaster environments. Already subject to severe discrimination in many societies, people with disabilities are often overlooked during emergency evacuation, relief, recovery and rebuilding efforts. Countries party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities must take all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of people with disabilities during situations of armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies, and natural disasters. Such aid should be designed to support preparedness, response, recovery and rebuilding. This book includes perspectives from around the globe and explores the implications at the policy, programme, and personal level, discussing issues such as: How can national laws, policies, and regulations provide guidance, methods and strategies to integrate and coordinate inclusive emergency management? What should people with disabilities know in order to be prepared for emergency situations? What lessons have we learned from past experiences? What are the current shortfalls (physical and cultural) that put people with disabilities at risk during emergencies and what can be done to improve these situations (e.g. through new technologies and disaster planning)? How does disability affect people's experiences as refugees and other displaced situations; what programmes and best practices are in place to protect and promote their rights during their period of displacement? How must disabled people with disabilities be factored in to the resettlement and rebuilding process; does an opportunity for ensuring universal access exist in the rebuilding process? What is the impact of disasters and conflicts on such special populations as disabled women, disabled children, and those with intellectual disabilities? Spotlighting a pressing issue that has long been neglected in emergency planning fields, this innovative book discusses how to meet the needs of people with disabilities in crises and conflict situations. It is an important reference for all those working in or researching disability and inclusion, and emergency and disaster management, both in developed and developing countries.

Founded in 1893, the National League of the Blind was the first nationwide self-represented group of visually impaired people in Britain. This book explores its campaign to make the state solely responsible for providing training, employment and assistance for the visually impaired as a right, and its fight to abolish all charitable aid for them.

This collection provides a comprehensive insight into disabled children and youth in Nordic countries. It seeks to understand the experiences of children from their own perspectives and takes a multidisciplinary approach grounded in the new social studies of childhood and the Nordic relational approach to disability.

Literature and Disability introduces readers to the field of disability studies and the ways in which a focus on issues of impairment and the representation of disability can provide new approaches to reading and writing about literary texts. Disability plays a central role in much of the most celebrated literature, yet it is only in recent years that literary criticism has begun to consider the aesthetic, ethical and literary challenges that this poses. The author explores: key debates and issues in disability studies today different forms of impairment, with the aim of showing the diversity and ambiguity of the term "disability" the intersection between literary critical approaches to disability and feminist, post-colonial, and autobiographical writing genre and representations of disability in relation to literary forms including novels, short stories, poems, plays and life writing This volume provides students and academics with an accessible overview of literary critical approaches to disability representation.

Fundamental rights for all people with disabilities, education and employment are key for the inclusion of people with autism. They play as facilitators for the social inclusion of persons with autism and as multipliers for their enjoyment of other fundamental rights. After outlining the international and European dimensions of the legal protection of the rights to education and employment of people with autism, the book provides an in-depth analysis of domestic legislative, judicial and administrative practice of the EU Member States in these fields. Each chapter identifies the good practices on inclusive education and employment of people with autism consistent with principles and obligations enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Articles 24 and 27). The book contains the scientific results of the European Project "Promoting equal rights of people with autism in the field of employment and education" aimed at supporting the implementation of the UN Convention in the fields of inclusive education and employment.

Personalisation means people, their families and carers having choice and control over their support on a day-to-day basis. To deliver personalised services, professionals and carers need to do more than just hand over financial control: they need to know what is important to a person, the best way to support them, how they communicate and how they make decisions. This book will show how to deliver personalisation through simple, effective and evidence-based person-centred practice that changes people's lives and helps them achieve the outcomes they want. It covers why person-centred practice is relevant to the personalisation agenda and what person-centred thinking and person-centred reviews are, introducing the tools that can help you carry them out. It also explores the relationship between person-centred plans and support plans, and how person-centred practice can be used in the journey of support through adulthood - from prevention or the management of long-term health conditions to reablement, recovery, support in old age and at the end of life. There is also a chapter on taking a person-centred approach to risk. This is an essential guide for all staff in health and social care including service providers, managers, practitioners and students.

In this book, leading authors in the field discuss developments of Ambient Assisted Living. The contributions have been chosen and invited at the 7th AAL congress, Berlin. It presents new technological developments which support the autonomy and independence of individuals with special needs. As the technological innovation raises also social issues, the book addresses micro and macro economical aspects of assistive systems and puts an additional emphasis on the ethical and legal discussion. The presentation is supported by real world examples and applications.

Disability and Inequality:Socioeconomic Imperatives and Public Policy in Jamaica explores the lived experiences of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Jamaica, examining measurable socioeconomic deficits that establish PWDs are more likely to experience inferior education, training, and labor market outcomes compared to persons without disabilities. The author provides an evidence-based, theoretically grounded, and implementable public policy framework, called Framework of Key Determinants for Political and Socioeconomic Inclusion of PWDs, which advances anti-discrimination legislation and a twin-track policy schema with interconnected enablers of human rights. Using this framework, Jamaica, the Caribbean, and other Southern countries looking for methods and strategies to fulfill commitments set out by the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will find approaches to sustain existing progress, and address structural systemic deficits which continue to deny PWDs long-term sustainable development.

Politics, Disability, and Education Reform in the South explores how race, gender, disability, and politics all came together to impact the career of one State Superintendent of Education in South Carolina who fought to improve educational conditions for African-Americans, women, and millworkers' children in South Carolina.

The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics were seen as a success and the hosts were praised for the promotion of equality, tolerance and unity as well as inspiring a legacy to continue these values. This volume contains a collection of sociological case studies which critically assess the diverse impacts of London 2012 and its key controversies.

Grouped around four central themes - illness and impairment, disabling processes, care and control, and communication and representations - this collection offers a fresh perspective on disability research, showing how theory and data can be brought together in new and exciting ways. Disability Research Today starts by showing how engaging with issues around illness and impairment is vital to a multidisciplinary understanding of disability as a social process. The second section explores factors that affect disabled people, such as homelessness, violence and unemployment. The third section turns to social care, and how disabled people are prevented from living with independence and dignity. Finally, the last section examines how different imagery and technology impacts our understandings of disability and deafness. Showcasing empirical work from a range of countries, including Japan, Norway, Italy, Australia, India, the UK, Turkey, Finland and Iceland, this collection shows how disability studies can be simultaneously sophisticated, accessible and policy-relevant. Disability Research Today is suitable for students and researchers in disability studies, sociology, social policy, social work, nursing and health studies.

Traditionally, the public health viewpoint on disability was geared toward primary prevention of disabling conditions or events. More recently, with the movement for disability rights and the emergence of disability studies, the challenge to the field has been to promote positive health outcomes in this underserved community. Such a change in public health culture must start at the educational level, yet training programs have generally been slow in integrating this perspective-with its potential for enriching the field-into their curricula. Public Health Perspectives on Disability meets this challenge with an educational framework for rethinking disability in public health study and practice, and for attaining the competencies that should accompany this knowledge. This reference balances history and epidemiology, scientific advances, advocacy and policy issues, real-world insights, and progressive recommendations, suiting it especially to disability-focused courses, or to add disability-related content to existing public health programs. Each chapter applies awareness and understanding of disabled persons' experience to one of the core curriculum areas, including: Health services administration, Environmental health science and occupational health, Health law and ethics, The school as physical setting, Maternal, child, and family health, Disasters and disability. In Public Health Perspectives on Disability, faculty, researchers, administrators, and students in graduate schools of public health throughout the U.S. will find a worthy classroom text and a robust source of welcome-and much needed-change.