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Disability inclusion in the Western Balkans and Eastern Partnership countries. Disability Inclusion Helpdesk Report No: 51.

CORBY, Nick
CLUGSTON, Naomi
September 2020

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This briefing note provides guidance on how to incorporate disability inclusion within economic and governance reform projects. It is intended to inform the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) Good Governance Fund (GGF). This Note provides basic, introductory guidance on disability inclusion to FCDO advisers and managers engaging with economic and governance reform and sets out opportunities for the FCDO’s programmes and policy dialogue to deliver positive impacts for people with disabilities. The Note addresses three key questions: 2 1. What is the broad status of the rights of people with disabilities in GGF countries and are there any significant differences between the countries? 2. What are the recommended entry points for incorporating disability inclusion within economic and governance reform projects within the five GGF thematic areas? 3. How should the GGF incorporate disability inclusion into the next business case?

 

An annex provides short notes on several factors for each country. The factors are: the legal framework; disability prevalence; economic inclusion; social inclusion; institutionialisation; access to justice; receptions and representation in the media.

Differentiation and individualisation in inclusive education: a systematic review and narrative synthesis

LINDNER, Katharina-Theresa
SCHWAB, Susanne
2020

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This study integrates research about differentiation and individualisation in inclusive education since the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006 (United Nations, 2006). The concept of inclusive education for all learners increases the requirement for teachers to create educational spaces that encourage stimulating teaching and learning processes. Accordingly, a methodological shift from the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ model to individualised teaching and learning offers a starting point for educational equity. The aim of this paper is to investigate the progress of differentiated and individualised teaching practices in inclusive classroom settings considering collaboration and teamwork, instructional practices, organisational practices and social/emotional/behavioural practices (see Finkelstein, Sharma, & Furlonger, 2019. “The Inclusive Practices of Classroom Teachers: A Scoping Review and Thematic Analysis.” International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1–28). Results of a criteria-based review considering papers from 2008 to December 2018 encompass 17 articles that were included in the narrative synthesis. Results indicated that the following aspects are characteristic of inclusive education: collaboration and co-teaching, grouping, modification (of assessment, content, extent, instruction, learning environment, material, process, product and time frame), individual motivation and feedback, and personnel support of students. Implications of the findings and gaps in the research have been outlined.

Building the inclusive city - Governance, access, and the urban transformation of Dubai

SANTIAGO PINEDA, Victor
2020

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This book is an anthropological urban study of the Emirate of Dubai, its institutions, and their evolution. It provides a contemporary history of disability in city planning from a non-Western perspective and explores the cultural context for its positioning. Three insights inform the author’s approach. First, disability research, much like other urban or social issues, must be situated in a particular place. Second, access and inclusion forms a key part of both local and global planning issues. Third, a 21st century planning education should take access and inclusion into consideration by applying a disability lens to the empirical, methodological, and theoretical advances of the field

Advancing equality - How constitutional rights can make a difference worldwide

HEYMANN, Jody
SPRAGUE, Aleta
RAUB, Amy
2020

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Combining a comparative analysis of equal rights in the constitutions of all 193 countries with inspiring stories of activism and powerful court cases from around the globe, the book traces the trends in constitution drafting over the past half century, and examines how stronger protections against discrimination have transformed lives. Looking at equal rights across gender, race and ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, disability, social class, and migration status, the authors uncover which groups are increasingly guaranteed equal rights in constitutions, whether these rights on paper have been translated into practice, and which nations and protections from discrimination lag behind

Amplifying the voices of women and girls with disabilities in Zimbabwe

UNESCO OFFICE HARARE
LEONARD CHESHIRE DISABILITY (ZIMBABWE)
AFRICA COMMUNITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTRE
2020

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This qualitative study on the aspirations, needs and concerns of women and girls with disabilities in Zimbabwe seeks to contribute to the growing knowledge on women and girls with disabilities globally, as well as to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on advancing the implementation of the CPRD in Zimbabwe

 

The specific aims were to:

  • Assess the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of women and girls with disabilities
  • Identify the aspirations of women and girls with disabilities from marginalized areas
  • Describe the needs and concerns of women and girls with disabilities for equitable participation in public life
  • Assess how current development interventions are responding to the needs of women and girls with disabilities, specifically SRH and GBV services delivery
  • Hear from women and girls with disabilities on practical recommendations for the advancement of disability rights and improving justice, SRH and GBV service delivery that meets their needs

 

The approach and methodology were designed with a view to gathering first-hand information and verbatim from an estimated 261 women and girls with disabilities, and from other stakeholders interviewed in marginalized areas, namely caregivers, OPDs, NGOs, traditional leaders, community cadres, and government officials. The study design was also guided by a range of participatory approaches that enabled women with diverse disability types to effectively participate in the qualitative study.

Disability at a Glance 2019: Investing in accessibility in Asia and the Pacific — Strategic approaches to achieving disability-inclusive sustainable development

TATA, Srinivas
et al
December 2019

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This report lays out foundational concepts and terminologies related to disability and accessibility, and outlines the tools and approaches for successful investment in accessibility. Furthermore, it identifies drivers and added values of investment, and analyses the status of disability-inclusive development and accessibility investment across Asia and the Pacific. Finally, it provides recommendations to governments across key areas of focus to ensure that societies are built to be sustainable and inclusive.

Case studies from Australia, the Republic of Korea and India are presented.

Exposing the protected: Ghana’s disability laws and the rights of disabled people

OCRAN, Joseph
March 2019

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This paper discusses the position that disabled people in Ghana continue to experience various forms of discrimination and social exclusion despite the fact that there are several anti-discriminatory laws that are meant to protect the rights of disabled people and facilitate their participation in mainstream social, political and economic activities

 

DISABILITY & SOCIETY 2019, VOL. 34, NO. 4, 663-668

https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2018.1556491

Participation, agency and disability in Brazil: transforming psychological practices into public policy from a human rights perspective

GESSER, Marivete
BLOCK, Pamela
NUERNBERG, Adriano Henrique
2019

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Participation is a little discussed or researched concept in the social sciences, despite its importance in understanding activism. This article presents some theoretical and methodological considerations for promoting social participation and agency for disabled people through the work of psychologists associated with Brazilian public policies. This article takes the form of a discursive study, based on the dialogue between: a) Brazilian legislation on disability; b) Bader Sawaia’s Ethical-Political Psychology; and c) Disability Studies. Based on the assumption that psychological practices should promote participation and agency for disabled people, we present the elements that hinder or control participation. We then present theoretical methodological contributions to build practices that promote participation and agency, highlighting: a) critiques of moral and biomedical models of disability; b) understandings of disability from intersectional perspectives that incorporate it as a category of analysis; c) including disabled people in the construction of research and professional practices disabled people and d) the rupture with ableism, which blocks the participation of disabled people. Participation has shown to be a multidimensional concept that covers a spectrum of aspects – from the practice of activism to the constitution of subjectivity in disabled people.

 

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2019, Vol. 6 No. 2

Disability in North Africa

ROHWERDER, Brigitte
April 2018

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This desk-based research reports explores the experiences of people with disabilities of inclusion and marginalisation in North Africa, and whether this has had an impact on regional/national economies and wider prosperity. 

Tensions and unity in the struggle for citizenship: Swedish disability rights activists claim ‘Full Participation! Now!’

SÉPULCHRE, Marie
2018

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This article analyses the claims of contemporary disability rights activists mobilising in a context where de facto second- class citizenship co-exists with legal and political declarations about the rights of disabled people. As an empirical case, it focuses on the blog ‘Full Participation.Now’, which was initiated by disability rights activists in Sweden. Drawing upon citizenship research, the article points to the tensions and dilemmas featuring the bloggers’ demand for participation and equality, as well as the challenges relative to their struggle. Although the bloggers formulate contrasting arguments, the article highlights that the activists share a common aspiration for ‘full citizenship’.

Normality and disability: intersections among norms, law, and culture

GOGGIN, Gerald
STEELE, Linda
CADWALLADER, Jessica
April 2017

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The central aim of this anthology of papers is to consider the place of law in political, social, scientific and biomedical developments relating to disability and other categories of ‘abnormality’. The papers consider how categories of abnormality relate to the privileged and frequently unmarked position of ‘normality’ and how legal interventions in abnormality relate to existing normative designations in the dominant cultural imaginary. This collection of papers has a range of disciplinary approaches

Paper titles:

  • Fit or fitting in: deciding against normal when reproducing the future
  • Eccentricity: the case for undermining legal categories of disability and normalcy
  • Eugenics and the normal body: the role of visual images and intelligence testing in framing the treatment of people with disabilities in the early twentieth century
  • The construction of access: the eugenic precedent of the Americans with Disabilities Act
  • Disability and torture: exception, epistemology and ‘black sites’
  • Mental capacity and states of exception: revisiting disability law with Giorgio Agamben
  • Not just language: an analysis of discursive constructions of disability in sentencing remarks
  • Policing normalcy: sexual violence against women offenders with disability
  • ‘The government is the cause of the disease and we are stuck with the symptoms’: deinstitutionalisation, mental health advocacy and police shootings in 1990s Victoria
  • Disruptive, dangerous and disturbing: the ‘challenge’ of behaviour in the construction of normalcy and vulnerability
  • Making the abject: problem-solving courts, addiction, mental illness and impairment
  • Cripwashing: the abortion debates at the crossroads of gender and disability in the Spanish media
  • ‘Figurehead’ hate crime cases: developing a framework for understanding and exposing the ‘problem’ with ‘disability’

Continuum 

Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Vol.31, No.3, pp. 337-340

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2017.1275077

Progress Report on the implementation of the European Disability Strategy (2010-2020)

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
February 2017

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The Strategy is the main instrument to support the EU's implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Progress in all eight areas of the strategy is reported: accessibility, participation, equality, employment, education and training, social protection, health and external action. Initiatives such as the Directive on Web Accessibility, the proposal for a European Accessibility Act, the EU Disability Card project (being piloted in 8 Member States) and provisions in the Erasmus+ programme (allowing better mobility for students with disabilities) are highlighted. 

 

This report presents progress achieved in the first five years of the Strategy and assesses implementation. Many stakeholders have contributed to this work. The United Nations reviewed how the EU has been implementing its obligations under the UNCRPD3, and issued Concluding Observations with concrete recommendations for follow-up. These contain guidance on priority issues while also highlighting the steps already taken (see Annex 3). The European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee subsequently prepared their own reports on the implementation of the UNCRPD, while civil society organisations provided analysis and proposals (see Annex 4). The Commission also launched a public consultation to collect views from a broad range of stakeholders on the current situation of persons with disabilities and the impact of the Strategy so far, gathering more than 1,500 contributions (see Annex 1). This report also looks at the role of the supporting instruments and at the implementation of the UNCRPD within the EU institutions. Finally, it looks ahead at how the Strategy will continue to deliver on its objectives. In addition, the report includes a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of EU legal acts with an impact on disability matters (Annex 5)

 

SWD(2017) 29 final

Disability law and reasonable accommodation beyond employment. A legal analysis of the situation in EU Member States.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTOR-GENERAL FOR JUSTICE AND CONSUMERS
WADDINGTON, Lisa
BRODERICK, Andrea
POULOS, Anne
November 2016

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This report analyses the situation in the 28 EU Member States with regard to obligations to provide reasonable accommodation outside the field of employment. More specifically, the report outlines the duties contained in Member States’ laws and policies with respect to reasonable accommodation in the areas covered by the 2008 proposal of the European Commission for a directive to protect people from discrimination on the ground of disability, as well as discrimination on a number of other grounds (henceforth 2008 proposal). The 2008 proposal addresses the fields of social protection, including social security, healthcare and social housing; education; and access to, and supply of, goods and services, including housing. It seeks to prohibit six kinds of discrimination including, in the context of disability, an unjustified denial of a reasonable accommodation

DOI: 10.2838/15305

Toolkit on disability for Africa

UNITED NATIONS DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS (UNDESA)
November 2016

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A Toolkit on Disability for Africa has been developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD). It is designed for the African context and aims to:

  • Provide practical tools on various disability-related issues to government officials, members of parliament, civil and public servants at all levels, disabled persons organizations (DPOs) and all those with an interest in the inclusion of persons with disabilities in society and development;
  • Support the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and disability-inclusive development;
  • Offer examples of good practices from many countries in the African region.

 

Toolkit Modules:

  • UN DESA toolkit on CRPD – Trainers’ tips
  • Introducing the UNCRPD
  • Frameworks for implementing and monitoring the UNCRPD
  • Disability-inclusive development
  • Accessibility
  • Building multi-stakeholders partnerships for disability inclusion
  • National plans on disability
  • Legislating for disability rights
  • Access to justice for persons with disabilities
  • The rights of persons with disabilities to work
  • Inclusive health services for persons with disabilities
  • Participation in political and public life
  • Information and communication technology (ICT) and disability
  • Culture, beliefs, and disability
  • Inclusive education

EU implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

ANGLMAYER, Irmgard
February 2016

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"This in-depth analysis, produced by the Ex-Post Impact Assessment Unit of the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), looks into the state of play of the implementation by the European Union of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), after the first round of the review process. The Convention's overarching principles entail mainstreaming of disability rights across all policies and within all institutions. This paper analyses the institutional arrangements required to monitor the implementation process, and subsequently puts the recommendations of the CRPD Committee ('Concluding Observations') into a broader context, outlining the progress made so far and the challenges ahead"

DOI: 10.2861/831248

China’s Mental Health Law: Analysis of Core Concepts of Human Rights and Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups

Hussey, Meghan Marie
Mannan, Hasheem
2016

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Purpose: The aim of this research is to assess China’s first Mental Health Law in terms of Core Concepts of Human Rights and equitable coverage of Vulnerable Groups.

 

Methods: The EquiFrame analytical tool provided the framework for evaluation of the inclusion of Core Concepts of Human Rights as well as Vulnerable Groups in the Law.

 

Results: China’s Mental Health Law scored 83% for Core Concept coverage, with a Core Concept Quality score of 76%. The Law had a 42% score for Vulnerable Groups coverage. This gave the Law an overall score of “Moderate” in terms of Human Rights coverage.

 

Conclusions: China’s Mental Health Law is a landmark document providing the country’s first ever legal framework for mental health. While the Law scores high on level commitment in Core Concepts of Human Rights, the potential for equitable protection would be enhanced by increased inclusion of Vulnerable Groups.

 

Limitations: Further analyses of health and social policies in the People’s Republic of China from a Human Rights perspective would provide a deeper understanding of the Law in context.

The Americans with disabilities act at 25 years : lessons to learn from the convention on the rights of people with disabilities

KANTER, Arlene S
2015

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“In this Article, the Author argues that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the subsequent ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), have not realized the goal of ensuring equality for people with disabilities. The Author suggests that the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities

(CRPD), adopted in 2006 by the United Nations, offers a new approach to realizing the right to equality for people with disabilities”

Drake Law Review, Vol. 63

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