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Penalised for having a job
- Author:
- UNITY Anabel
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 29.3.01, 2001, p.12.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
Many disabled people want to earn a living and be as independent as possible. Asks why the government changed the criteria for Independent Living Fund grants and marked paid work less attractive.
Disability, work, and welfare: challenging the social exclusion of disabled people
- Authors:
- BARNES Colin, MERCER Geof
- Journal article citation:
- Work Employment and Society, 19(3), September 2005, pp.527-545.
- Publisher:
- Sage
This article engages with debates relating to social policy and disabled people’s exclusion from the British labour market. Drawing on recent developments from within the disabled people’s movement, in particular, the concept of independent living and the social model of disability, and the associated disability studies literature, a critical evaluation of orthodox sociological theories of work, unemployment, and under-employment in relation to disabled people’s exclusion from the workplace is provided. It is argued that analyses of work and disability have failed to address in sufficient depth or breadth the various social and environmental barriers that confront disabled people. It is suggested that a reconfiguration of the meaning of work for disabled people - drawing on and commensurate with disabled people’s perspectives as expressed by the philosophy of independent living - and a social model analysis of their oppression is needed and long overdue.
Disability politics: understanding our past, changing our future
- Authors:
- CAMPBELL Jane, OLIVER Mike
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Publication year:
- 1996
- Pagination:
- 238p.,bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- London
Written by disabled people with the aim of enabling other people with disabilities to understand their past and change their future. Examines the changes in the profile of disabled people throughout Britain over the last 15 years, including the emergence of the disability movement. Concludes by considering possible future directions for disabled people in 21st Century Britain.
The development of direct payments in the UK: implications for social justice
- Authors:
- RIDDELL Sheila, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Society, 4(1), January 2005, pp.75-85.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Direct payments have been heralded by the disability movement as an important means to achieving independent living and hence greater social justice for disabled people through enhanced recognition as well as financial redistribution. Drawing on data from the ESRC funded project Disabled People and Direct Payments: A UK Comparative Perspective, this paper presents an analysis of policy and official statistics on use of direct payments across the UK. It is argued that the potential of direct payments has only partly been realised as a result of very low and uneven uptake within and between different parts of the UK. This is accounted for in part by resistance from some Labour-controlled local authorities, which regard direct payments as a threat to public sector jobs. In addition, access to direct payments has been uneven across impairment groups. However, from a very low base there has been a rapid expansion in the use of direct payments over the past three years. The extent to which direct payments are able to facilitate the ultimate goal of independent living for disabled people requires careful monitoring.
Social exclusion and young disabled people with high levels of support needs
- Author:
- MORRIS Jenny
- Journal article citation:
- Critical Social Policy, 21(2), May 2001, pp.161-183.
- Publisher:
- Sage
There are significant differences between the concept of social exclusion adopted by the mainstream policy agenda and what social exclusion means to young disabled people, particularly those with high levels of support needs. Currently, the experiences and concerns of this group are not being heard in the arenas where policies are developed. The silence about their experiences masks an assumption that, to have high levels of support needs, means dependency and exclusion are inevitable. It is unlikely, therefore, that current initiatives to tackle social exclusion will address the experiences of these young disabled people as they grow into adulthood. In contrast, a human rights agenda offers greater opportunities to challenge the way young disabled people with high levels of support needs are "shut out" from society.
Disability, dependency and the New Deal for disabled people
- Author:
- ROULSTONE Alan
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 15(3), May 2000, pp.427-443.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
The emergence of the 'New Deal' and its attendant claim to be part of a new political and social future based on the 'third way' seems to offer formerly excluded people new horizons for social inclusion. This article provides a critical exploration of the likely impact of the 'New Deal' for disabled people. The article contextualises the 'New Deal' in the wider ideology and rhetoric of 'Welfare at Work'. In doing so, it highlights similarities between 'New Deal', 'Welfare at Work' and the victim blaming ideas which characterised discussions of a growing 'social underclass' in the 1980's. In this way, its ideological underpinnings may simply reaffirm disabled people's economic and social dependency.
No wheelchairs beyond this point: a historical examination of wheelchair access in the Twentieth Century in Britain and America
- Authors:
- WATSON Nick, WOODS Brian
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Society, 4(1), January 2005, pp.97-105.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
On the surface, the wheelchair appears a simple machine: its function seemingly apparent and its workings relatively uncomplicated. Yet, despite this apparent simplicity, the wheelchair is a complex artefact imbued with a myriad of social as well as technical relations that act simultaneously to exclude and include, confine and liberate, shape and be shaped. The wheelchair's inextricable links to injury and illness have certainly shaped its definition as a medical device. Such a definition has labelled the occupier as passive or ill and shaped a wider understanding of the machine as a prison. Wheelchair users, however, perceive the machine as a means to independence: it enables rather than disables. We present evidence here to suggest that this is not a recent phenomenon as we show how wheelchair access has been on the political agenda for disabled people for most of the twentieth century. The paper also examines the role of the wheelchair in the development of this movement, and we suggest that, as the design of the wheelchair improved, so the demand for better access increased. The final section of the paper looks at how poorly the state and its agents understood the issue of access.
Disability and transition to adulthood: the politics of parenting
- Authors:
- PASCALL Gillian, HENDLEY Nicola
- Journal article citation:
- Critical Social Policy, 24(2), May 2004, pp.165-186.
- Publisher:
- Sage
What enables young people with significant impairments to make the transition to adulthood? Becoming householders, finding work, becoming parents, feeling included as citizens: these are all more challenging in the context of housing needs, a discriminatory labour market, the need for personal assistance and transport. The study interviewed a group of 31 young adults in receipt of disability living allowance, who had jobs and independent households, and smaller comparative groups, who had one or neither of these. The authors explored disabled people’s own accounts of adulthood and what had facilitated their achievement of jobs and independent living. Education, family, employment, personal assistance, housing, benefits and welfare services were on our agenda, but respondents’ own accounts are of ‘exceptional’ parents as the key. However, not everyone can have exceptional parents. The authors discuss the politics and economics of parenthood that prevailed while our respondents grew up, when parental responsibilities were extended and parental resources reduced. And they ask how much the politics of parenthood under New Labour offers to families with disabled children.
Working together on care and repair: a strategic view
- Author:
- SCOTLAND. Scottish Executive Development Department
- Publisher:
- Stationery Office/Scotland. Scottish Executive Development Department
- Publication year:
- 2001
- Pagination:
- 32p.,bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Edinburgh
Care and repair helps people to live independently in the community, complementing community care services. It is a service which supports many national and local objectives in housing, health and social care. Crucially it is highly valued by service users, demonstrated most obviously by their willingness to invest significant mounts of their own money in its services.
Whose voices? Representing the claims of older disabled people under New Labour
- Author:
- PRIESTLEY Mark
- Journal article citation:
- Policy and Politics, 30(3), July 2002, pp.361-372.
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
This article highlights some significant similarities and differences in the social claims made by groups representing older people and disabled people in policy debates under New Labour. Using recent policy examples, the analysis focuses on the claims being made by older and disabled people and the discourses, representations and strategies used to make them. The article suggests that there are considerable areas of common ground on which political alliances and common voice could be built, but there is also evidence of a tactical or discursive distancing between the two groups. These difficulties are interpreted with reference to the centrality of independence and paid employment within policy debates under New Labour.