Daisies on the Road

If disability studies is a form of cultural studies, then the study of disability studies might be a form of cultural studies in itself. The still-brief but continuing, welcome, and successful rise of disability studies in the humanities is an unusual case study in the maturation of a field. Two of the books I will discuss here are written by widely acknowledged founders of disability studies in the humanities. Following their field-defining books of the 1990s, Lennard Davis and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson now return in this decade with field-steering works. Michael Davidson meanwhile navigates a similar course in a book that illustrates some of the specifically literary implications of the latest turn in disability studies. Disability studies pioneers originally aligned the emergent field with racial and ethnic studies. One such field pioneer, Simi Linton, declared in 1998 that more curricular attention needed to be paid to “the minority-group status of disabled people, and the cultural, social, and political meanings of that status” (148). Certainly there is a practical justification for constructing the field as identity-based, if for no other reason than that the unemployment rate among disabled people is shamefully high, and identitybased fields offer practical strategies for identifying oppression and ultimately creating employment opportunities. But disability is no typical minority group, and the development of disability studies as an identity-based field has not been typical either. For one thing, disability is a minority group that anyone can join. “Everyone in this room hopes to be disabled,” I tell the students in my disability studies seminar on the first day that I meet them. Still preening with youthful invulnerability, they mostly look at me as though I have lost my mind. Then I explain to them that old age brings disability—unless they would prefer the alternative. And then I inform them of the acronym that the

In this essay, we propose that the Deleuzoguattarian rhizome offers a map and metaphor for the field of disability studies, especially as it develops outside the boundaries of a defined program or curriculum. As an example of rhizomatic growth, we discuss a series of events in the Philadelphia area in fall 2012 that focused on disability studies and disability arts and culture, including an art exhibition entitled What Can A Body Do? and a scholarly residency sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia Women’s Studies Consortium. We suggest that the art gallery offers a generative space for the growth of disability studies, disability aesthetics, and new models of access, and we emphasize the importance of cross-institutional collaboration in the development of disability studies not only as a field but as a field of energy.Keywords: rhizome, Deleuze and Guattari, art gallery, contemporary art, curator, access, audio description, multisensory, collaboration, consortium, disability aesthetics, What Can A Body Do?

This systematic literature review aims to critically review theories on disability movements in the social science literatures and explores the impact of disability movements on combating stigma against people with disability. Using a systematic approach, 18,594 articles were screened from the Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases, yielding 47 relevant articles. After a thorough review, 16 articles were selected for analysis based on their focus on the impact of disability movements on stigma. Two experts in the fields of social inclusion and social movement studies conducted the assessment to avoid bias. The findings of this study reveal a growing recognition of the importance of disability movements in challenging societal attitudes and promoting social inclusion from both social movement and social model of disability perspectives. The review concludes that disability movements play a significant role in reducing stigma against people with disabilities. This study contributes novelty by integrating theoretical developments in disability studies with the practical impacts of disability movements across sectors. By synthesizing impact classifications from charitable to empowering, this study underscores the importance of ongoing research in this area to strengthen the impact of stigma reduction and promote social inclusion for individuals with disabilities globally.

This paper discusses conceptual and methodological concerns in the study of physical disability and the human body from the perspective of a phenomenologically informed sociology.1 The study of physical disability and the human body has claimed the attention of philosophers, social scientists, psychologists, physicians, public health administrators, insurers, and so forth, each of whom brings a unique disciplinary perspective as well as distinct research interests and goals. In this paper I identify theoretical and conceptual biases in the study of disability that: (1) tend to narrow its understanding to a unitary phenomenon, i.e., as a dysfunction (either patho- physiological or psychological) affecting only the individual; (2) hamper its conceptualization as a form of difference; and (3) restrict the ability of persons with disabilities to live independent and respectful lives. Further, I demonstrate how socio-political conceptions of disability raise many theoretical and practical questions regarding research, as well as fostering the uncritical use of notions of normality and difference.2 Contemporary research on disability and the human body is faced with a challenge: to describe and analyze the world of disability within its social, political and human contexts without perpetuating biased assumptions, ignoring bodily differences, and marginalizing the experience of disability.3 This paper suggests that a phenomenologically-informed sociology can help researchers meet this challenge. Instead of seeing able-bodied and dis-abled persons as separate and opposed, disabled embodiment may be conceived as a form of human diversity, thus moving towards an understanding of dis-ability as difference. This paper discusses how researchers can reach this understanding through the phenomenological technique of bracketing and by listening to the criticisms offered by disability advocates and writers.

With rapid economic progress and increasing life expectancy in East Asian societies, more attention is being paid by their governments, the media and the academy to mental illness and dementia. While clinical research on mental illness and dementia in Chinese societies acknowledges the importance of culture in shaping people's experiences of these illnesses, how Chinese culture shapes people's understandings of and responses to mental illness and dementia has yet to be interrogated to any depth. Mental Illness, Dementia and Family in China breaks new ground in exploring how Chinese culture, namely, the understandings, norms, values and scripts that people acquire through being members of a Chinese community, shapes contemporary stories of mental illness, dementia and family care-giving. This book is innovative in examining and comparing stories which have been drawn from both real life ('life stories'), as well as from film and television productions ('filmic stories'). These two forms effectively complement each other, with life stories generally presenting an 'insider's' account and filmic stories generally presenting an 'outsider's' account. What remains unvoiced in one kind of story may be voiced in the other kind. Drawing on the perspectives and analytic approaches of narrative analysis and cultural studies, Guy Ramsay uncovers culturally-shaped continuities and departures in representations of time, identity and cause of illness as well as in the language employed in contemporary stories of mental illness, dementia and family care-giving in China. This book will be invaluable to students and scholars working on Chinese cultural studies and Asian social policy, as well as those interested in psychiatry, mental health and disability studies more broadly.

Organisation and Everyday Life with Dyslexia and other SpLDs is the second book in the series Living Confidently with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs). This book is about the wide impacts of dyslexia/ SpLD on everyday life. All dyslexic/ SpLD people live with the possibility that their mind will function in a dyslexic/ SpLD way at any moment, regardless of strategies that they have acquired or developed. Even people with many strategies can suddenly find themselves struggling with their dyslexia/ SpLD again. This book is adressed to dyslexic/ spld readers. Organisation is promoted as a tool to minimise the effets of dyselxia /spLD. The book covers: • situations that might disrupt organisation • a systematic approach to organisation • everyday life, study peripherals and employment. It has many life stories to help readers recognise the impacts of their own dyslexia/ SpLD. Dyslexic/ SpLDs have the potential to offer skills and alternative approaches to tasks. Often, the solutions that they devise for themselves are very useful to the non-dyslexic/ SpLD people around them, which can enhance their self-confidence. When organisation suits the individual with SpLD innate intelligence and potential can be realised.

This article draws on work undertaken as part of the Economic and Social Research Council's Learning Society Programme. The project from which data are drawn, entitled 'The Meaning of the Learning Society for Adults with Learning Difficulties', focused on lifelong learning opportunities available to people with learning difficulties and experiences of these services. The article begins by examining theories of late modernity, their use by feminist and disability studies theorists and their relationship to ideas of a learning society. Subsequently, using case study material, it is argued that the identities of people with learning difficulties are not chosen freely from a range of options but are socially ascribed. The status of learning difficulties is used as a dominant category to justify deprivation of basic political and economic rights. In addition, the lives of people with learning difficulties are structured by gender and class, and these intersect with the category of learning difficulties. For both women and men, the advantages of middle-class social and economic capital are overridden by the negative category of learning difficulties. In relation to gender, men with learning difficulties are more likely to receive post-school training, but in inappropriate areas of the labour market. Their domestic needs are also likely to be attended to by others, but in the absence of employment, they find themselves without any valued social role. Women with learning difficulties are also likely to be excluded from the labour market, but are more likely to be involved in reciprocal, albeit limited, social relationships. It is concluded that postmodernist theories are inadequate to describe the structuring of the lives of people with learning difficulties.

Theorizing the Position of People With Learning Difficulties Within Disability Studies

The subject of the study is family repositories, considered in connection with the personal history of each (any specific) person. The personal history of each individual is a new direction in the development of historical science, aiming to achieve "the historical immortality of a person" through the creation, preservation, and dissemination of the history of their life. The purpose of the article is to identify the potential of family repositories for creating, preserving, and disseminating a person's life story. The author examines and analyzes publications about family repositories in detail. The possibility of using a private network repository to create a family repository is considered, given that this repository is created by an ordinary individual. Special attention is paid to the properties, description, and selection of private network repositories; an example of a private network repository is presented. The functioning of a family private network repository is described as an element of a local data exchange network. Family private network repositories provide the technical capability to create, preserve, and disseminate a full-fledged digital history of a person's life and other family materials. The study employs interdisciplinary research methods that examine practical and theoretical issues related to the use of information and communication technologies in historical research. The main conclusions of the conducted research are as follows: 1. The task of creating family repositories remains relevant over an extended period, and its solution depends on the purpose of establishing the repository. 2. A family private network repository most fully aligns with the goal of creating, preserving, and disseminating the digital history of a person's life. 3. Creating a family private network repository is accessible to the average computer user, as widely available home private network repositories are used. 4. In the creation of a family private network repository, individuals close to the subject of the story participate as users, uploading files of literary memories, video files, audio files, photographs, and other materials collected with the aim of creating, preserving, and disseminating a file of the person's life story. 5. The conducted research on this topic is aimed at developing historical informatics in terms of using information and communication technologies in historical research.

For the better part of the last century, members of LGBTQ+ community have been constructing identities in a rapidly shifting cultural-historical landscape. How has this evolving ecological frame shaped identity development across generational cohorts of LGBTQ+ people? To answer this question, this chapter will introduce the life story model of identity and argue that life stories present a rich vantage point for observing the influence of culture on development. The cultural embeddedness of life stories is discussed first, with a focus on the significance of cultural and subcultural master narratives. An overview of life story research methodology is provided next. Finally, the chapter highlights three examples of how life story methods have been used to investigate identity development in generational cohorts of LGBTQ+ people. Life story work is more than a method for illuminating culture—it is a tool for transforming lives.

Readers of Cheaper by the Dozen remember Lillian Moller (1878-1972) as the nurturing mom who endures the antics of not only twelve children but also an engineer husband eager to experiment with the principles of efficiency - especially on his own household. What readers today might not know is that Lillian was herself a high-profile engineer, and the only woman to win the coveted Hoover Medal for engineers. She traveled the world, served as an advisor on women's issues to five U.S. presidents, and mingled with the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart. Her husband, Frank Gillbreth, died after twenty years of marriage, leaving her to raise their eleven surviving children, all under the age of nineteen. She continued her career and put each child through college. Retiring at the age of ninety, Lillian was the working mother who did it all. Jane Lancaster's spirted and richly detailed biography tells Lillian Gilbreth's life story - one that resonates with issues faced today by many working women. Lancaster confronts the complexities of how one of the twentieth century's foremost career women could be pregnant, nursing, or caring for children for more than three decades. Yet we see how Glibreth's engineering work dovetailed with her family life in the professional and domestic partnership that she forged with her husband and in her long solo career. The innovators behind many laborsaving devices and procedures used in factories, offices, and kitchens, the Gilbreths tackled the problem of efficiency through motion study. To this Lillian added a psychological dimension, with empathy toward the worker. The couple's expertise also yielded the Gilbreth family system, a model that allowed the mother to be professionally active if she chose, while the parents worked together to raise responsible citizens. Lancaster has woven into her narrative many insights gleaned from interviews with the surviving children and from historical research into such topics as technology, family, work, and feminism. Filied with anecdotes, this definitive biography of Lillian will engage readers intrigued by one of America's most famous families and by one of the nation's most successful women.

Current estimates of the contribution of education to economic growth have been questioned because they ignore the interaction of education with ability. Whether the neglect of ability differences in the analyses of the income-education relationship results in estimates that are too high was considered in an earlier paper by one of the authors (Griliches 1970), and a negative answer was conjectured. In this paper, we pursue this question a bit further, using a new and larger body of data. Unfortunately, a definitive answer to this question is hampered both by the vagueness and elasticity of "education" and "ability" as analytical concepts and by the lack of data on early (preschooling) intelligence. The data examined in this paper are based on a 1964 sample of U.S. military veterans. The variables measured include scores on a mental ability test, indicators of parental status, region of residence while growing up, school years completed before service, and school years completed during or after service. These have allowed us to inquire into the separate effects of parental background, intelligence, and schooling. The basic problem and analytical framework can be set out very simply. Let income be a linear function of education and ability, or, Y a + P1E + P(2G + u, where Y is income, E is education, G is ability,

Teachers in rural Sri Lanka find it challenging to support students with Learning Difficulties (LD) in regular classrooms. As a result, students with LD often quit school early. Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) projects located in rural areas sometimes provide learning opportunities for students who are school dropouts.Purpose: The research focussed on identifying an effective teaching approach that Developmental Assistants (DAs) can employ when teaching students with LD.Methods: An action research methodology with two action cycles was selected for this purpose. Each cycle consisted of four stages: analysing, reflecting, planning, and implementing, and monitoring. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews and real-time observations. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was adopted for data analysis. Research participants included 11 students aged 8-14 years, their parents and two DAs.Results: Outcomes suggest that students with LD actively engage in learning when an integrated approach that uses thematic units which reflect the students’ world, is in force. They also benefit when some elements of the behavioural approach to teaching-learning: explicit direct instruction, modelling, scheduled practice, reinforcement and feedback, are combined with certain components of the constructivist approach: independent work, group discussions and reflection.Conclusions: The study demonstrates that students with LD can succeed when the teaching-learning process is modified to suit their needs. Hence, CBR project workers ought to be trained to plan and design lessons that meet the needs of students with LD. It further validates the role CBR projects can play in diminishing negative views on disability and in creating inclusive societies.Limitations: The study’s illuminative design was appropriate within a limited sample of students. However, this sample is not wholly representative of the multicultural and multi-religious student population with LD in hard-to-reach areas of Sri Lanka.

Private stories in public discourse: Narrative analysis in the social sciences

This paper explores the divergent theoretical developments in the UK and US disability studies and posits some explanations for these differing trajectories. History, politics, space, place and the search for identity have all played important roles. These emergent and hotly debated developments add a wealth of material to the epistemological project. The recent collections by Barnes et al. (2002) Disability studies today, and Snyder et al. (2002) Disability studies: enabling the humanities, will be used as pivotal works. However, the question remains as to what explanatory power discourses developed within western metropolitan national cultures have for exploring the experience of disability in cultures on the peripheries. This analysis is being undertaken by an English born academic, who has been living in Australia for over 20 years and has been keenly watching and participating in the transatlantic battles over the past decade.