Children’s experiences of disability: pointers to a social model of childhood disability

This paper explores the experiences of young people on the autistic spectrum (AS) who attend a special unit within a mainstream secondary school in England. The paper feeds into contemporary debates about the nature of inclusive schooling and, more broadly, special education. Young people on the AS have been largely neglected within these debates. The paper focuses upon processes of normalisation and abnormalisation to which the young people on the AS are subject, and how these are interconnected with inclusion and exclusion within school spaces. At times, the unit is a container for the abnormally behaving. However, processes of normalisation pervade the unit, attempting to rectify the deviant mind-body-emotions of the young people on the AS to enable their inclusion within the mainstream school. Normalisation is conceptualised as a set of sociospatially specifi c and contextual practices; norms emerge as they are enacted, and via a practical sense of the abnormal. Norms are sometimes reworked by the young people on the AS, whose association with the unit renders them a visible minority group. Thus, despite some problems, special units can promote genuine 'inclusive' education, in which norms circulating mainstream school spaces are transformed to accept mind-body-emotional diff erences.

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“…Recent literature has begun to address this gap (e.g. Connors and Stalker, 2007;De Schauwer et al, 2009;Shah, 2005).…”

Section: Educational 'Inclusion' Sen and Normalisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Special Units for Young People on the Autistic Spectrum in Mainstream Schools: Sites of Normalisation, Abnormalisation, Inclusion, and Exclusion

2012

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“…Our own view of disability is broadly informed by the social model of disability (Oliver, 1990(Oliver, , 1996 and social-relational theories (Connors & Stalker, 2007;Thomas, 2007).…”

Section: What Do We Mean By Disability?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Permanence for disabled children and young people through foster care and adoption: A selective review of international literature

Welch

Jones

Stalker

et al. 2015

Children and Youth Services Review

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This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/52269/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the Strathprints administrator: strathprints@strath.ac.ukThe Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output. 1Permanence for Disabled Children and Young People through Foster Care and Adoption A selective review of international literature AbstractChildren who have been removed from their parents need stability and permanence; this is as true for disabled children as it is for others. Yet many children are subject to extended periods of uncertainty and instability. Growing attention has been paid to the need to achieve permanence As disabled children are over-represented in looked after (in care) populations it is especially important that their needs are considered when formulating policy and practice in this area.This review of literature covers international material related to stability and permanence for disabled children, in particular permanence achieved through fostering and adoption. A scoping method was used to identify and analyse a broad range of material. Ninety texts were included in the review, including material from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, China and the Netherlands.Empirical research included quantitative, mixed methods and qualitative studies. Other sources included literature reviews and a small number of research-based 'think pieces' and briefings.Disabled children often have permanence outcomes and experiences which differ from those of other children; most often they are disadvantaged by systematic features of services and by the latent disablism of decision-makers, professionals, carers and potential carers. The findings alsoshow that disabled children are not a homogenous group and that characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity and impairment type show complex relationships with permanence through adoption and foster care.Important gaps in current knowledge are identified, including disabled children's views and experiences in relation to achieving permanence. Several areas of poli...

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“…In their research, Connors and Stalker (2007) apply the model to children. But merely asking what barriers stand in the way of disabled children's participation does not capture the full implications of the model, because it leaves the concept of childhood untouched.…”

Section: The Social Model Of Disability Children and Childhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…58). Connors and Stalker (2007) have sought to measure the relative importance to disabled children of external barriers and internal impairments, which the authors (Connors & Stalker, 2007, p. 31) and others (Watson, 2012, p. 196) understand as constituting the application of the social model to disabled children.…”

Section: The Social Model Of Disability Children and Childhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Clash of Conventions? Participation, Power and the Rights of Disabled Children

Sandland

2017

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This article considers the neglected topic of the relationship between the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with regard to the participation rights of disabled children. It analyses key articles in both conventions and considers relevant general comments from both convention committees (the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), and their interpretation by academic contributors. The article argues that much work on this topic fails to develop an adequate understanding of power relations, and that the 'social model of disability' which underpins the disabilities convention, when applied to 'childhood' (as opposed to 'children') suggests that the implications of that convention for the participation rights of all children, not only disabled children, are profound. This is because the disabilities convention rejects the relevance of tests of capacity and 'best interests' for disabled adults, for reasons which are equally germane to disabled children, and children in general. The article concludes with discussion of the difficulties in implementing the insights derived from the analysis of the disabilities convention in substantive law in the absence of a right to freedom from age discrimination for children, and suggests other, less far-reaching, reforms that could be made this notwithstanding.

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Children’s experiences of disability: pointers to a social model of childhood disability

Cited by 179 publications

References 13 publications

Special Units for Young People on the Autistic Spectrum in Mainstream Schools: Sites of Normalisation, Abnormalisation, Inclusion, and Exclusion

Special Units for Young People on the Autistic Spectrum in Mainstream Schools: Sites of Normalisation, Abnormalisation, Inclusion, and Exclusion

Permanence for disabled children and young people through foster care and adoption: A selective review of international literature

A Clash of Conventions? Participation, Power and the Rights of Disabled Children

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