Handbook of Disability Studies

Front Cover
Gary L. Albrecht, Katherine D. Seelman, Michael Bury
SAGE, 2001 - Medical - 852 pages
This path-breaking international handbook of disability studies signals the emergence of a vital new area of scholarship, social policy and activism. Drawing on the insights of disability scholars around the world and the creative advice of an international editorial board, the book engages the reader in the critical issues and debates framing disability studies and places them in an historical and cultural context. Five years in the making, this one volume summarizes the ongoing discourse ranging across continents and traditional academic disciplines. To provide insight and perspective, the volume is divided into three sections: The shaping of disability studies as a field; experiencing disability; and, disability in context. Each section, written by world class figures, consists of original chapters designed to map the field and explore the key conceptual, theoretical, methodological, practice and policy issues that constitute the field. Each chapter provides a critical review of an area, positions and literature and an agenda for future research and practice. The handbook answers the need expressed by the disability community for a thought provoking, interdisciplinary, international examination of the vibrant field of disability studies. The book will be of interest to disabled people, scholars, policy makers and activists alike. The book aims to define the existing field, stimulate future debate, encourage respectful discourse between different interest groups and move the field a step forward.

From inside the book

Contents

An Institutional History of Disability
11
Counting Disability
69
Disability Definitions Models Classification Schemes and Applications
97
Theorizing Disability
123
Methodological Paradigms That Shape Disability Research
145
Disability An Interactive PersonEnvironment Social Creation
171
Representation and Its Discontents The Uneasy Home of Disability in Literature and Film
195
Philosophical Issues in the Definition and Social Response to Disability
219
InclusionExclusion An Analysis of Historical and Cultural Meanings
490
DISABILITY IN CONTEXT
513
Disability Culture Assimilation or Inclusion?
515
Identity Politics Disability and Culture
535
Making the Difference Disability Politics and Recognition
546
Disability Human Rights Law and Policy
565
The Political Economy of the Disability Marketplace
585
Disability and Health Policy The Role of Markets in the Delivery of Health Services
610

Disability and the Sociology of the Body
252
Intellectual Disabilities Quo Vadis?
267
Disability Bioethics and Human Rights
297
Disability Studies and Electronic Networking
327
EXPERIENCING DISABILITY
349
Divided Understandings The Soeial Experienee of Disability
351
Mapping the Family Disability Studies and the Exploration of Parental Response to Disability
373
Disability and Community A Sociological Approach
396
Welfare States and Disabled People
412
Advocacy and Political Action
430
Health Care Professionals and Their Attitudes toward and Decisions Affecting Disabled People
450
The Role of Social Networks in the Lives of Persons with Disabilities
468
Disability Benefit Programs Can We Improve the RetumtoWork Record?
633
A Disability Studies Perspective on Employment Issues and Policies for Disabled People An International View
642
Science and Technology Policy Is Disability a Missing Factor?
663
Disability Education and Inclusion CrossCultural Issues and Dilemmas
693
Support Systems The Interface between Individuals and Environments
711
The Relationship between Disabled People and Health and Welfare Professionals
734
Public Health Trends in Disability Past Present and Future
754
Disability in the Developing World
772
Author Index
793
Subject Index
813
About the Contributors
843
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About the author (2001)

Gary L. Albrecht is a Fellow of the Royal Belgian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Extraordinary Guest Professor of Social Sciences, University of Leuven, Belgium and Professor Emeritus of Public Health and of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. After receiving his Ph.D. from Emory University, he has served on the faculties of Emory University in Sociology and Psychiatry, Northwestern University in Sociology, Rehabilitation Medicine and the Kellogg School of Management and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in the School of Public Health and in the Department of Disability and Human Development. Since retiring from the UIC in 2005, he divides his time between Europe and the United States. He works in Boulder, Colorado and Brussels, Belgium. He was recently a Scholar in Residence at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH) in Paris, a visiting Fellow at Nuffield College, the University of Oxford and a Fellow in Residence at the Royal Flemish Academy of Science and Arts, Brussels Katherine D. Seelman, Ph.D. is associate dean and professor of rehabilitation science and technology at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. She holds a secondary appointment in the School of Public Health and is co-scientific director of the National Science Foundation- supported Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center. During the Clinton Administration, she served as Director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). Her research and education interests include science and technology R&D trends that enhance independence for people with disabilities and older adults; end-user and stakeholder participation; Disability Studies; Science, Technology and Public Policy and International Rehabilitation. In 2006, Dr. Seelman was invited to serve on the World Health Organization 9-member international editorial committee to guide the development of the first world report on disability. She has lectured and keynoted in countries throughout the world including Japan′s National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities and World Health Organization′s Center in 2003 and in Vietnam for the World Bank in 2002. On the U.S. local and state levels, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell appointed her to two disability State Advisory Committees. She serves on the Pennsylvania Senate Technology Healthcare Working Group. The Mayor and the County Executive appointed her to the City of Pittsburgh/Allegheny County Task Force on Disability which she co-chairs. She was named "A Person Who Made a Difference" in 2002 by Pittsburgh′s leading newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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