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En/countering disablement in school life in Australia: children talk about peer relations and living with illness and disability
- Author:
- MCMAUGH Anne
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 26(7), 2011, pp.853-866.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This paper reports the experiential accounts of young people with physical disability or chronic illness as they made the transition to junior high school, with a particular focus on their social experiences with peers and friends. The participants were 24 young people, with a mean age of 12.4 years, with visible and physically limiting disabilities and health conditions including cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and cystic fibrosis. Their personal accounts were gathered in 3 interviews during the course of a year from late Year 6 to late Year 7. A total of 72 recorded conversations, amounting to more than 100 hours of communication, documented the transitional experiences of the participants. Children’s reports were examined in a reflexive, disability studies framework, in which commonalities and difference in experience were examined. The findings highlight a common experience of disability-related harassment and differential experiences of friendship, peer rejection and school culture. While children encounter and actively counter disablement in a variety of ways, it is clear that they are also cognisant of the stigma, prejudices and disabling expectations that are at the core of these experiences.