<p>This study looked at two groups of adolescents aged 12-17 years who had participated in circus training. One group had some form of disability while the other had none. The study was carried out as a qualitative study with observations, interviews and a questionnaire used as methods of gathering data. A small part of the study was quantitative and an observation chart was used. The purpose was to examine the importance of teamwork, environmental factors and the necessary requirements during a learning situation. The results of the study showed that all of the factors, in combination with one another, were important during the learning situation. If the participants worked well together, the circus teacher was able to use relevant demands and the environment was stimulating and not stressful. The negative attitude towards the failure of others in the group became less prevalent and the participants felt more responsible with increased self esteem. Different approaches or theories about disability, or being different, were observed and had an effect on the participants’ self-esteem. The main conclusion was that a training situation is complex and that participants should be met with respect and with an attitude that no one should be afraid of failure. Another conclusion was that the approaches or theories about disability do not have to concur but should complement each other.</p>

<p>Both England and Sweden has an aim to improving the health of those groups that are most vulnerable to ill health, and those groups in society, who are most vulnerable to ill health, are also those who face the most discrimination.</p><p>The main purpose of this paper is to study how female mental health service user/survivor experiences their health. The paper is composed of two studies carried out in a city in Sweden and a city in England, UK.  Four women from Sweden participated and two from England, UK. The empiric material has been collected by semi-structured interviews and the method that has been used for analysing the material was qualitative content analysis.</p><p>The result shows that almost all of the women did experience discrimination. Almost all of the women that did experience discrimination did also express that experience of discrimination also influenced their health in a negative way. However, all of the women also resisted the experience of an oppressive society and the view that they are just “victims”, by reclaiming their identity and experiencing a collective identity or a self-identity. These experiences of identity have given them a sense of wellbeing and health.</p>

<p>This dissertation examines how disability researchers define disability. It is based on four studies. The first describes different definitions of disability in disability research. The second study is a conceptual analysis of the use of disability in a sample of disability research classics. In this study, it is evident that use of the concept is all but clear. It is concluded that especially environmentally based disability definitions would benefit from further empirical investigations. The notion that environmental factors (such as barriers) are a causal aspect of disability is rather widely accepted among disability researchers. However, it has not been empirically studied to such an extent that it is possible to construct workable theories of this relationship.</p><p>The third study focuses on administrative definitions of disability and investigates the possibility of using data on disabled people that have been gathered by Swedish welfare authorities. It is concluded that rich data are available, but also that researchers must scrutinize how disability has been defined in these contexts. These authorities often start from medical understandings of disability, which may clash with contemporary understandings of disability as being environmentally based.</p><p>The fourth study is a statistical analysis of the effects of different disability definitions on dependent variables. The analyses emphasize variables often included in studies of living conditions. There are major effects of choice of disability definition on the outcome in relation to such variables.</p><p>The dissertation strongly rejects efforts to standardize disability definitions; different analytical purposes require different kinds of conceptualizations. Instead, the dissertation suggests that case-constructing reflexivity be conducted. Case-constructing reflexivity means that the researcher starts with a careful analysis of how disability is best defined in relation to the aims of the study, and continues by being constantly aware of how the choice of definition may affect sampling, analyses and results.</p>

This dissertation examines how disability researchers define disability. It is based on four studies. The first describes different definitions of disability in disability research. The second study is a conceptual analysis of the use of disability in a sample of disability research classics. In this study, it is evident that use of the concept is all but clear. It is concluded that especially environmentally based disability definitions would benefit from further empirical investigations. The notion that environmental factors (such as barriers) are a causal aspect of disability is rather widely accepted among disability researchers. However, it has not been empirically studied to such an extent that it is possible to construct workable theories of this relationship. The third study focuses on administrative definitions of disability and investigates the possibility of using data on disabled people that have been gathered by Swedish welfare authorities. It is concluded that rich data are available, but also that researchers must scrutinize how disability has been defined in these contexts. These authorities often start from medical understandings of disability, which may clash with contemporary understandings of disability as being environmentally based. The fourth study is a statistical analysis of the effects of different disability definitions on dependent variables. The analyses emphasize variables often included in studies of living conditions. There are major effects of choice of disability definition on the outcome in relation to such variables. The dissertation strongly rejects efforts to standardize disability definitions; different analytical purposes require different kinds of conceptualizations. Instead, the dissertation suggests that case-constructing reflexivity be conducted. Case-constructing reflexivity means that the researcher starts with a careful analysis of how disability is best defined in relation to the aims of the study, and continues by being constantly aware of how the choice of definition may affect sampling, analyses and results.

Both England and Sweden has an aim to improving the health of those groups that are most vulnerable to ill health, and those groups in society, who are most vulnerable to ill health, are also those who face the most discrimination. The main purpose of this paper is to study how female mental health service user/survivor experiences their health. The paper is composed of two studies carried out in a city in Sweden and a city in England, UK.  Four women from Sweden participated and two from England, UK. The empiric material has been collected by semi-structured interviews and the method that has been used for analysing the material was qualitative content analysis. The result shows that almost all of the women did experience discrimination. Almost all of the women that did experience discrimination did also express that experience of discrimination also influenced their health in a negative way. However, all of the women also resisted the experience of an oppressive society and the view that they are just “victims”, by reclaiming their identity and experiencing a collective identity or a self-identity. These experiences of identity have given them a sense of wellbeing and health.

This study looked at two groups of adolescents aged 12-17 years who had participated in circus training. One group had some form of disability while the other had none. The study was carried out as a qualitative study with observations, interviews and a questionnaire used as methods of gathering data. A small part of the study was quantitative and an observation chart was used. The purpose was to examine the importance of teamwork, environmental factors and the necessary requirements during a learning situation. The results of the study showed that all of the factors, in combination with one another, were important during the learning situation. If the participants worked well together, the circus teacher was able to use relevant demands and the environment was stimulating and not stressful. The negative attitude towards the failure of others in the group became less prevalent and the participants felt more responsible with increased self esteem. Different approaches or theories about disability, or being different, were observed and had an effect on the participants’ self-esteem. The main conclusion was that a training situation is complex and that participants should be met with respect and with an attitude that no one should be afraid of failure. Another conclusion was that the approaches or theories about disability do not have to concur but should complement each other.

This essay is about the staff in integrated homes very complex profession and this is illustrated through twelve interviews in five integrated homes for disabled people. The profession changed when the institution closed and especially when the Law of Support and Service (LSS) was introduced in 1994. The purpose of this survey is to study how staff works with LSS intentions in integrated homes for disabled people and to increase the awareness about the structure of power and how this affects the daily life for those who live there. The main objective in this survey is to find out which the differences that lie between LSS intentions and the work that take place in integrated homes for disabled people. This survey tries to illustrate when and why these differences occur. This survey has a multidisciplinary perspective, where three models of disability and theories from Foucault, Sibley and Wendell have been included. The result shows that the staffs work is difficult, full of responsibility and has many facets. The staff needs education regarding disability, communication and LSS to reach the intentions of LSS.

Does a parent’s illness or disability hurt the educational attainment of their children? This dissertation consists of three essays on the impact of negative health events / activity limitation experienced by parents on their children’s human capital, and how the negative consequences of parental illness can be mediated by public policy. The first essay uses the 1991-2006 Chinese Health and Nutrition Survey and finds poor Chinese children whose parent has a serious illness are much more likely to drop out of primary or secondary school compared to other children whose parents remain healthy. The second essay, using Canada’s 1994-2008 NLSCY, discovers a similar “attendance gap” at the post-secondary level between Canadian youth of disabled parents and their peers of non-disabled parents. Finally, the third essay demonstrates that higher cash transfers made available to parents with a disability can boost children’s math test performance and facilitate non-cognitive skill development.

Notwithstanding the prominent focus on inclusion in the discourse of special education, students with significant intellectual disabilities in North America continue to receive a part of their education in segregated contexts (G. L. Porter, 2008; Schwartz, Mactavish & Lutfiyya, 2006; P. Smith, 2010). This situation creates an interesting and perplexing anomaly that I attempt to reconcile through an examination of the discursive conceptualizations of these students in Canadian introductory special education textbooks. My study is framed within (a) the academic field of disability studies, which re-imagines disability using new perspectives (Linton, 1998; Oliver, 1996), and (b) new philosophical concepts of “personhood”, which critique traditional definitions of personhood based on intellectual ability (Carlson, 2010; Carlson & Kittay, 2009; Nussbaum, 2006). Situated within social constructionism and discourse theory (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001), this analysis examines how students with significant intellectual disabilities are depicted in these textbooks. The language used in portraying these students suggests a discourse of individual pathology, medicalization and professionalization, distancing students with significant intellectual disabilities from other students because of their perceived lack of abilities, needs and behaviours. This discourse relies heavily on traditional understandings of people with significant intellectual disabilities as lacking in value. There is little discursive evidence to suggest that these students are presented in ways that challenge either historical or modern conceptualizations.

This dissertation, “‘Hire the Handicapped!’: Disability Rights, Economic Integration and Working Lives in Toronto, Ontario, 1962-2005,” argues that work significantly shaped the experience of disability during this period. Barriers to mainstream employment opportunities gave rise to multiple disability movements that challenged the social and economic framework which marginalized generations of people with disabilities. Using a critical analysis of disability in archival records, personal collections, government publications and a series of interviews, I demonstrate how demands for greater access among disabled people to paid employment stimulated the development of a new discourse of disability in Canada. Including disability as a variable in historical research reveals how family advocates helped people living in institutions move out into the community and rehabilitation professionals played an increasingly critical role in the lives of working-age adults with disabilities, civil rights activists crafted a new consumer-led vision of social and economic integration. Separated by different philosophies and bases of support, disability activists and allies found a common purpose in their pursuit of economic integration. The focus on employment issues among increasingly influential disability activists during this period prompted responses from three key players in the Canadian labour market. Employers embraced the rhetoric and values of disability rights but operated according to a different set of business principles and social attitudes that inhibited the realization of equity and a ‘level playing field.’ Governments facilitated the development of a progressive discourse of disability and work, but ultimately recoiled from disability activism to suit emergent political priorities. Labour organizations similarly engaged disability activists, but did so cautiously, with union support largely contingent upon the satisfaction of traditional union business first and foremost. As disability activists and their allies railed against systematic discrimination, people with disabilities lived and worked in the community, confronting barriers and creating their own circles of awareness in the workplace. Just as multiple sites of disability activism found resolution in the sphere of labour, the redefinition of disability during this period reflected a shared project involving collective and individual action.