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The social and human rights models of disability: towards a complementarity thesis

LAWSON, Anna
BECKETT, Angharad E
2020

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This article aims to reorient thinking about the relationship between the long-standing social model of disability and the rapidly emerging human rights model. In particular, it contests the influential view that the latter develops and improves upon the former (the improvement thesis) and argues instead that the two models are complementary (the complementarity thesis). The article begins with a discursive analysis of relevant documents to investigate how each of the two models has been used in the crafting and monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This highlights the increasing importance of the human rights model in this policy context. It also provides examples of the operation of the two models which inform the remainder of the discussion. We then critique the comparisons between the models which underpin the improvement thesis; and, drawing on Foucault’s technologies of power and Beckett and Campbell’s ‘oppositional device’ methodology, deepen and develop this comparative analysis. The result, we argue, is that the two models have different subjects and different functions. In the human rights context, their roles are complementary and supportive.

The effect of school leadership on implementing inclusive education: how transformational and instructional leadership practices affect individualised education planning

LAMBRECHT, Jennifer
LENKEIT, Jenny
HARTMANN, Anne
EHLERT, Antje
KNIGGE, Michel
SPÖRER, Nadine
2020

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Fostering equity by offering the best education possible to all students is one of the main goals of inclusive schooling. One instrument to implement individualised education is individualised education planning (IEP). IEP requires cooperation between special and regular teachers. From research on school leadership it is known that leadership styles are connected to the way, school leaders use their scope of action with respect to fostering collaboration. However, little is known about the relationship between the leadership of a school, the provision of structures for collaboration, and the implementation of IEP in an inclusive context. The article focuses on the question to what extent transformational (TL) and instructional leadership (IL) are connected to the provision of structures for collaboration and how TL and IL as well as structures for collaboration relate to the implementation of IEP directly and indirectly. Based on data of N = 135 German schools, a path model was calculated. It revealed medium relations between TL, IL, and structures for collaboration as well as a medium effect from structures to collaboration on implementation of IEP. The effect from TL towards implementation of IEP was fully mediated by structures for collaboration, while the effect from IL persisted.

Required to be creative. Everyday ways for dealing with inaccessibility

WÄSTERFORS, David
2020

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Today’s society promises that people with disabilities can access anything, but in practice there are numerous obstacles, and the ways in which people deal with them can be easily missed or taken for granted by policy makers. This article draws on a project in which researchers ‘go along’ people with disabilities in Sweden who demonstrate and recount accessibility troubles in urban and digital settings. They display a set of mundane methods for managing inaccessibility: (a) using others, (b) making deals and establishing routines, (c) mimicking or piggybacking conventions, (d) debunking others’ accounts and performing local politics. The employment of these shared but tailored methods shows the difficulties to be accepted that people with disabilities still face, as well as the wide-ranging tension that exists between the grand rhetoric of inclusion and modest results. The tension implies that people with disabilities are required to be creative.

  • Declarations and policies often say that people with disabilities should have access to anything, but in practice this is not the case.
  • This study investigates what people with disabilities actually do when they have trouble accessing various places or resources. The results show their common and practical ways, and these ways are often taken for granted, overlapping, and combined.
  • People with disabilities ask others to support them when they face troubles to access places or resources, they make deals with important actors and they develop routines. They also observe, imitate and follow others’ actions, to pick out precisely those ways that suit their needs.
  • When people with disabilities find their ways in today’s society they also act with words. They argue against other people’s excuses or justifications for not providing access.
  • The study has found a lot of frustration among people with disabilities who get blocked, excluded or delayed. This gives them motives to engage in politics.

An observation study of power practices and participation in group homes for people with intellectual disability

SVANELÖV, Eric
2019

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This study explored how participation constitutes and is constituted by practices of power in group homes for people with intellectual disability. The study used disciplinary power as theoretical perspective and was based on 50 h of observation in two group homes with a total of 15 residents. The analysis identifies practices of power and their relationship to individual agency and participation. The results show that institutional structures construct practices of power that define codes of conduct for the group home residents and their possibility for participation. This study offers implications for the daily lives of residents in group homes for people with intellectual disability.

Balancing care and work: a case study of recognition in a social enterprise

BLONK, L
HUIJBEN, T
BREDEWOLD, F
TONKENS, E
2019

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This paper discusses a case study of a Dutch work-integration social enterprise (WISE) to add to the debate on the contribution of employment to the citizenship of intellectually disabled people and those experiencing mental health conditions. In current welfare state policies, the value of labour market participation is narrowed down to regular employment, as workplace support and care provisions are seen as stigmatising and segregating. We argue that a more nuanced understanding is needed of the intersection of support arrangements with the benefits of employment. Building on ‘recognition theory’ by the German philosopher Honneth, our findings show that the work-integration social enterprise under study is successfully balancing the contrasting demands of logics of care and work, leading to experiences of ‘recognition.’ However, this balance is fragile and does not undo the misrecognition of disabled people as unable to live up to the productivity norms of a capitalist labour market.

An amalgam of ideals – images of inclusion in the Salamanca Statement

MAGNÚSSON, Gunnlaugur
2019

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The Salamanca Statement is a primary point of departure in research and policy on inclusive education. However, several problems have surfaced in the 25 years since its publication. In particular, several different interpretations of the concept of inclusive education and its enactment in practice have arisen. For instance, the definition of the pupil groups in focus varies greatly. There are also varying definitions of the importance of pupil-placement, when it comes to organisation of inclusive education. Using a theoretical framework combining Bacchi’s [1999. Women, Policy and Politics. The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage Publications] poststructural policy-analysis and concepts from Popkewitz [2009. “Curriculum Study, Curriculum History, and Curriculum Theory: The Reason of Reason.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 41 (3): 301–319. doi:10.1080/00220270902777021], this article illustrates that The Salamanca Statement allows for a variety of interpretations of inclusion. As a policy-concept, inclusion encompasses an amalgam of political ideals, including welfare-state ideals where education is viewed as a public-good, as well as market-ideals of education as a private-good. Policies of inclusion also define the desired citizen, through categories of disadvantaged children, the ones excluded but to be included for their own good as well as for the good of the future society. The conclusions are that researchers and policy-makers should elucidate what they mean by inclusion with for instance moral- and practical arguments rather than vague references to The Salamanca Statement.

Interpretative accounts of work capacity assessment policy for young adults with disabilities

STAFFORD, Lisa
MARSTON, Greg
BEATSON, Amanda
CHAMORRO-KOC, Marianella
DRENNAN, Judy
2019

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Young adults with disabilities are a specific target of the welfare-to-work policy introduced by many OECD countries over the past decade. The implementation of these policies is a significant concern for service delivery organisations and advocates in Australia and internationally due to complex intersecting structural barriers that persist for many young adults with disabilities. A particular focus of this article is work capacity assessments. Drawing on socio-political theories and interpretive policy analysis, the 22 in-depth interviews with personnel from service delivery organisations and advocacy organisations reveal how the deemed capacity to work process is not only interpreted as flawed, but the current policy approach disables young adults, perpetuates stigma, and creates division between service users and service providers. The accounts reinforce the need to contest such assessments and instead turn towards a rights-based capability approach permitting young adults with disability self-determination over their education-to-employment pathway.

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