This innovative work argues that a psychological framework of disability is an essential part of developing a more cohesive disability movement. Presenting conceptual ideas which describe psychological dynamics confronting disabled people in an exclusionary and prejudiced world, this volume is an important contribution to the literature. It will interest students and researchers of disability studies.

The first comprehensive volume to integrate social-scientific literature on the origins and manifestations of prejudice against disabled people Ableism, prejudice against disabled people stereotyped as incompetent and dependent, can elicit a range of reactions that include fear, contempt, pity, and inspiration. Current literature—often narrowly focused on a specific aspect of the subject or limited in scope to psychoanalytic tradition—fails to examine the many origins and manifestations of ableism. Filling a significant gap in the field, Ableism: The Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice is the first work to synthesize classic and contemporary studies on the evolutionary, ideological, and cognitive-emotional sources of ableism. This comprehensive volume examines new manifestations of ableism, summarizes the state of research on disability prejudice, and explores real-world personal accounts and interventions to illustrate the various forms and impacts of ableism. This important contribution to the field combines evidence from multiple theoretical perspectives, including published and unpublished work from both disabled and nondisabled constituents, on the causes, consequences, and elimination of disability prejudice. Each chapter places findings in the context of contemporary theories—identifying methodological limits and suggesting alternative interpretations. Topics include the evolutionary and existential origins of disability prejudice, cultural and impairment-specific stereotypes, interventions to reduce prejudice, and how to effect social change through collective action and advocacy. Adopting a holistic approach to the study of disability prejudice, this accessibly-written volume: Provides an inclusive, up-to-date exploration of the origins and expressions of ableism Addresses how to resist ableist practices, prioritize accessible policies, and create more equitable social relations with pages earmarked for activists and allies Focuses on interpersonal and intergroup analysis from a social-psychological perspective Integrates research from multiple disciplines to illustrate critical cognitive, affective and behavioral mechanisms and manifestations of ableism Suggests future research directions based on topics covered in each chapter Ableism: The Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice is an important resource for social, community and rehabilitation psychologists, scholars and researchers of disability studies, and students, activists, and academics across political, sociological, and humanistic disciplines. “This book is an excellent resource for both members of the academic field and lay readers seeking to know more about disability prejudice and ways to address it.” ~ Charlotte Schreyer, Syracuse University, Published on H-Disability (September 2022)

Covering the period from Antiquity to Early Modernity, A Historical Sociology of Disability argues that disabled people have been treated in Western society as good to mistreat and – with the rise of Christianity – good to be good to. It examines the place and role of disabled people in the moral economy of the successive cultures that have constituted ‘Western civilisation’. This book is the story of disability as it is imagined and re-imagined through the cultural lens of ableism. It is a story of invalidation; of the material habituations of culture and moral sentiment that paint pictures of disability as ‘what not to be’. The author examines the forces of moral regulation that fall violently in behind the dehumanising, ontological fait accompli of disability invalidation, and explores the ways in which the normate community conceived of, narrated and acted in relation to disability. A Historical Sociology of Disability will be of interest to all scholars, students and activists working in the field of Disability Studies, as well as sociology, education, philosophy, theology and history. It will appeal to anyone who is interested in the past, present and future of the ‘last civil rights movement’.

Passionate, engaging and challenging, this second edition of the ground-breaking Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction is a contemporary introduction to this diverse and complex field. Taking an interdisciplinary and critical approach, the book: examines a diverse range of theories and perspectives and engages with current debates in the field explores key areas of analysis, with chapters devoted to the individual, society, community and education applies a global perspective encompassing examples from the UK, Australia, Scandinavia, the US, and Canada. Encouraging and stimulating readers using thought-provoking questions, exercises and activities, Disability Studies is a rich and rewarding read for students and researchers engaging with disability across the social sciences.

Discourses on Disability bridges academic and personal voices from India to address the diverse and fluid conversations on disability. It seeks to critically engage with the concept of being dis/abled, attempting to deconstruct ableism while advocating for inclusive politics. Narratives from people with bipolar disorder, autism, and locomotor disabilities serve to examine how it feels to exist in a world conditioned by deep-seated cultural taboos about disability. The chapters in this book show how India still has a systemic silence about people with disabilities.

This first-of-its kind volume spans the breadth of disability research and practice specifically focusing on the global South. Established and emerging scholars alongside advocates adopt a critical and interdisciplinary stance to probe, challenge and shift common held social understandings of disability in established discourses, epistemologies and practices, including those in prominent areas such as global health, disability studies and international development. Motivated by decolonizing approaches, contributors carefully weave the lived and embodied experiences of disabled people, families and communities through contextual, cultural, spatial, racial, economic, identity and geopolitical complexities and heterogeneities. Dispatches from Ghana, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Venezuela among many others spotlight the complex uncertainties of modern geopolitics of coloniality; emergent forms of governance including neoliberal globalization, war and conflicts; the interstices of gender, race, ethnicity, space and religion; structural barriers to redistribution and realization of rights; and processes of disability representation. This handbook examines in rigorous depth, established practices and discourses in disability including those on development, rights, policies and practices, opening a space for critical debate on hegemonic and often unquestioned terrains. Highlights of the coverage include: Critical issues in conceptualizing disability across cultures, time and space The challenges of disability models, metrics and statistics Disability, poverty and livelihoods in urban and rural contexts Disability interstices with migration, race, ethnicity, ge nder and sexuality Disabilit y, religion and customary societies and practice · The UNCRPD, disability rights orientations and instrumentalitie · Redistributive systems including budgeting, cash transfer systems and programming. · Global South–North partnerships: intercultural methodologies in disability research. This much awaited handbook provides students, academics, practitioners and policymakers with an authoritative framework for critical thinking and debate about disability, while pushing theoretical and practical frontiers in unprecedented ways.

Social services for people with disabilities have undergone substantial changes over time, in particular in the past two decades. Whilst lack of affordable and appropriate housing is a barrier to community living for many people with disabilities, it is only one part of the jigsaw. This book traces some of these changes, in particular related to living situation and support available, in a range of different countries and considers the factors that have influenced these changes. This book considers other aspects of what is needed to bring about real change in the lives of all people with disabilities.

Outlining the key developments of the Disability Hate Crime policy agenda, this book analyses the contributions of activists, politicians, policy makers and criminal justice system practitioners and recommends progressive policy changes.

Being an ‘active citizen’ involves exercising social rights and duties, enjoying choice and autonomy, and participating in political decision-making processes which are of importance for one’s life. Amid the new challenges facing contemporary welfare states, debate over just how ‘active’ citizens can and ought to be has redoubled. Presenting research from the first major comparative and cross-national study of active citizenship and disability in Europe, this book analyses the consequences of ongoing changes in Europe – what opportunities do persons with disabilities have to exercise Active Citizenship? The Changing Disability Policy System: Active Citizenship and Disability in Europe Volume 1 approaches the conditions for Active Citizenship from a macro perspective in order to capture the impact of the overall disability policy system. This system takes diverse and changing forms in the nine European countries under study. Central to the analysis are issues of coherence and coordination between three subsystems of the disability policy system, and between levels of governance. This book identifies the implications and policy lessons of the findings for future disability policy in Europe and beyond. It will appeal to policymakers and policy officials, as well as to researchers and students of disability studies, comparative social policy, international disability law and qualitative research methods.

This book examines the relationship between contemporary cultural representations of disabled children on the one hand, and disability as a personal experience of internalised oppression on the other. In focalising this debate through an exploration of the politically and emotionally charged figure of the disabled child, Harriet Cooper raises questions both about what it means to ‘speak for’ the other and about what resistance means when one is unknowingly invested in one’s own abjection. Drawing on both the author’s personal experience of growing up with a physical impairment and on a range of critical theories and cultural objects – from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel The Secret Garden to Judith Butler’s work on injurious speech – the book theorises the making of disabled and ‘rehabilitated’ subjectivities. With a conceptual framework informed by both psychoanalysis and critical disability studies, it investigates the ways in which cultural anxieties about disability come to be embodied and lived by the disabled child. Posing new questions for disability studies and for identity politics about the relationships between lived experiences, cultural representations and dominant discourses – and demonstrating a new approach to the concept of ‘internalised oppression’ – this book will be of interest to scholars and students of disability studies, medical humanities, sociology and psychosocial studies, as well as to those with an interest in identity politics more generally.