Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2004. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: p. 321-345.

This portfolio examines, contextualises and evaluates the contribution of six selected publications focussed on the social model of disability and discrimination within adult nursing in the UK. The publications all appear in peer reviewed journals and trace a developing understanding of the concept "disability‟, recognition of the impact of discrimination and the role that nurses play in sustaining this situation. It develops the idea that a shift towards the social model of disability will be instrumental in challenging disability related discrimination. Implications for adult nursing are examined including the potential of social advocacy and the need for a closer relationship between nursing studies and disability studies. The contribution to the knowledge base is unique in the context of adult nursing suggesting that embracing the social model may facilitate a legitimate contribution to the aims of the disability movement. A framework is developed for the evaluation of the contribution of the submitted papers using the concepts; Model of disability, Interests being served, Non-exploitative approaches and Challenging disablism by extensive dissemination [MINC]. The portfolio draws on many more than the six submitted papers in demonstrating an extensive dissemination strategy. The complexity of the concept of disability and the role of nurses in disability research is explored and critiqued. Contemporary critical theory is drawn on as an epistemological base combining critical analysis and reflexivity with empirical procedures. It concludes with tangible links into future developments of this body of work in championing the need for challenging discrimination and the potential use of the social model as a valuable tool in moving towards this goal.

Nationwide concerns include disproportionate discipline referrals and suspensions of certain student groups and the associated negative student outcomes. The state's department of education cited a school district for suspending Black students with disabilities (SWD) at more than 3 times the rate of all other student groups; yet, the complex nature of the disciplinary disproportionality in this district was unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate how student-related characteristics including race/ethnicity, gender, age, grade level, disability status, and school location, may predict number of discipline referrals, types of discipline referrals, and types of suspensions issued to students. Guided by the theory of behaviorism, this nonexperimental, ex post facto study examined archival discipline data for the 5523 students who received at least 1 office referral during the 2015-2016 school year. Chi-square analyses showed SWD had higher numbers of referrals, received referrals for subjective offenses, and were more likely to receive out-of-school suspension than no suspension or in-school suspension compared to nondisabled students. Regression analyses indicated students who were Black, male, identified as SWD, or in secondary school were at significantly greater risk of office referral and exclusionary discipline than other student groups. By understanding the patterns of discipline outcomes associated with student-related characteristics, school administrators within the local district are now able to select and implement evidence-based practices that may reduce exclusionary discipline, allowing all students to participate equally in school. Over time, these practices may lead to positive student outcomes including higher school engagement and increased graduation rates.

This research is the exploration of the lived experience of tertiary students in Australia with the medical condition usually known as ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis /Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) seeking to explore issues of equity and human rights from the perspective of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. Students feel that their difficulties are not caused just by the illness itself but by the failure of the tertiary institutions to understand the effects of this illness on them, the student, especially within the areas of accommodations and assessments. Their lived experiences are studied to ascertain if their experiences differ from those of other tertiary students. Forty participants came from every state and territory of Australia and twenty -four of Australia's universities as well as eight Technical and Further Education/Open Training Education Network (TAFE/OTEN) colleges are represented. The selection of the chosen methodology, Critical Ethnography from a Habermasian perspective, has been circumscribed by the medical condition which placed limitations on methodology and also data gathering methods. Non-structured stories, in which the participants wrote of their lived experience as students, were considered the most appropriate source of data. These were transmitted by electronic mail (with some by postal mail) to the researcher. A short questionnaire provided a participant background to the stories and was also collated for a composite overview of the participants. The stories are analysed in a number of ways: six selected stories are retold and the issues arising from these stories have been weighed against the remainder of the stories. Four intertwined themes were constructed from the issues raised in each story. Apparent infringements of the Disability Discrimination Act (1992) which impact on quality of life, human rights and equity are found. No accommodations are being made by the academic institutions for the cognitive dysfunctions and learning difficulties. Students are stigmatised and lack credibility to negotiate appropriate academic accommodations. A possible means of improving the ability of students to negotiate appropriate accommodations is explored. Finally the researcher reflects on her own involvement in the research as an 'insider' researcher.

Disability discrimination is an ongoing problem in Australian schools. This study analyses the tension that exists between the requirements of the disability discrimination legislation and the way that principals make decisions about the inclusion of students with disabilities in Queensland state schools. The findings from the study suggest that principals believe the disability discrimination legislation is relevant but it is not helpful in providing a framework for discrimination-free decision-making. Instead, the democratic governance processes of inclusion and collaboration are identified as essential elements of the school principal's decision-making process if inclusive school cultures are to thrive and if discrimination is to be reduced or eliminated. Habermas's critical theory of lifeworld and systems world provides the conceptual framework to analyse the complex lifeworld of the principal and the systemic requirements of the legislation. A lifeworld model of decision-making interactions within the inclusive school is proposed from the data collected in this study. Data were collected using a mixed methodology in which 120 principals responded to surveys about their perspectives on inclusion. This was followed by a series of in-depth interviews with six principals who described their schools as inclusive. Focus groups also provided group perspectives and verified the data collected from the surveys and interviews. Together, the quantitative data and the qualitative information complement each other to provide comprehensive perspectives from principals about inclusion and the law. Recommendations are made in the final chapters that propose a new legal paradigm for disability discrimination legislation so that the discordance between the systems world of the law and the lifeworld of the principal may be reduced. More specific policy and governance recommendations promote collaborative decision-making models to facilitate shared understandings about complex issues that relate to disability.

Disability Discrimination as a Specific Field of Anti-Discrimination Law? The aim of this thesis is to put together a complex material discussing disability discrimination from the perspective of anti-discrimination law. Firstly, however, it acquaints the reader with a broader theoretical context and therefore it briefly explains the concept of discrimination and its relationship to the constitutional value of equality. The question, which like a red thread meanders through the following chapters of the thesis, asks whether this type of discrimination is really so much different to deserve such a degree of special approach, which it receives from both the legislators and the judiciary. This thesis gradually collects findings and information so it could in the end at least indicate the answer to this umbrella question. For this purpose, it presents various models of thinking about disability, namely a medical model and a social model, which in many cases contradict each other. The thesis nevertheless tries to find an ideal combination of them. Furthermore it provides a detailed analysis of relevant legal and judicial definitions of disability as a concept of law, both at the level of international law as well as European and Czech law. Subsequently, it identifies specific characteristics of the...

This thesis is composed of four self-contained papers and focuses on discrimination in themarket place. Essay 1: “Disability Discrimination in the Rental Housing Market – A Field Experiment onBlind Tenants.” Although discrimination against disabled people has been investigated inthe labor market, the housing market has received less attention in this regard. This paperfocuses on the latter market and investigates whether blind tenants assisted by guide dogsare discriminated against in the rental housing market. The data are collected through afield experiment in which written applications were sent in response to onlineadvertisements posted by different types of advertisers. I find statistically significantevidence that one type of online advertiser, that is, the apartment owner (i.e., a person whoadvertises and rents out his/her own apartment(s) on his/her own), discriminates againstblind tenants, because of the presence of the guide dog, not because of the disability.According to the legislation, this behavior qualifies as illegal discrimination. Essay 2: “Does the design of correspondence studies influence the measurement of discrimination?”(co-authored with Carlsson and Rooth). Correspondence studies can identify the extent ofdiscrimination in hiring as typically defined by the law, which includes discriminationagainst ethnic minorities and females. However, as Heckman and Siegelman (1993) show,if employers act upon a group difference in the variance of unobserved variables, thismeasure of discrimination may not be very informative. This issue has essentially beenignored in the empirical literature until the recent methodological development byNeumark (2012). We apply Neumark’s method to a number of already publishedcorrespondence studies. We find the Heckman and Siegelman critique relevant forempirical work and give suggestions on how future correspondence studies may address thiscritique. Essay 3: “Does Labor Market Tightness Affect Ethnic Discrimination in Hiring?” (co-authoredwith Carlsson and Rooth). In this study, we investigate whether ethnic discriminationdepends on labor market tightness. While ranking models predict a negative relationship,the prediction of screening models is ambiguous about the direction of the relationship.Thus, the direction of the relationship is purely an empirical issue. We utilize three (butcombine into two) correspondence studies of the Swedish labor market and two distinctlydifferent measures of labor market tightness. These different measures produce very similarresults, showing that a one percent increase in labor market tightness increases ethnicdiscrimination in hiring by 0.5-0.7 percent, which is consistent with a screening model.This result stands in sharp contrast to the only previous study on this matter, Baert et al.(forthcoming), which finds evidence that supports a ranking model. Essay 4: “Relative Age Effect on Labor Market Outcomes for High Skilled Workers – Evidencefrom Soccer.” In sports and education contexts, children are divided into age groups that arearbitrary constructions based on admission dates. This age-group system is thought todetermine differences in maturity between pupils within the same group, that is, relative904627 Luca Furmaco_inl.indd 5 2015-02-24 16:58age (RA). In turn, these within-age-group maturity differences produce performance gaps,that is, relative age effects (RAEs), which might persist and affect labor market outcomes. Ianalyze the RAE on labor market outcomes using a unique dataset of a particular group ofhigh-skilled workers: soccer players in the Italian major soccer league. In line with previousstudies, evidence on the existence of an RAE in terms of representativeness is found,meaning that players born relatively early in an age group are over-represented, whileplayers born relatively late are under-represented, even accounting for specific populationtrends. Moreover, players born relatively late in an age group receive lower gross wages thanplayers born relatively early. This wage gap seems to increase with age and in the quantileof the wage distribution.

Disability Mainstreaming zielt (analog zu Gender Mainstreaming) darauf, Anliegen und Bedürfnisse der Personengruppe 'Menschen mit Behinderung' nicht allein in den für diese Gruppe offensichtlich wichtigen Bereichen anzusprechen, sondern sie in allen gesellschaftspolitischen Handlungsebenen mitzudenken und dementsprechende Forderungen umzusetzen. Dabei wird ‚Behinderung‘ vorrangig als soziale Konstruktion interpretiert, die mit der Erfahrung von Diskriminierung und Exklusion einhergeht.

This thesis explores how the general public understands and responds to dementia. In the context of this study the word ‘understanding' is used to convey the complex co-construction of knowledge and establishing of beliefs that constitutes public understandings of dementia. The study also examines the responses of members of the public to dementia, in the context of their understanding. Data were collected over a 12 month period and included a module in the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey, five focus groups and nine interviews with participants from the focus groups. The survey module included thirty measures examining levels of knowledge and attitudes towards dementia. 1200 participants were targeted and the survey was administered by the Northern Ireland Research & Statistics Agency with a response rate of 58%. The focus groups and interviews provided the mechanism to gather a more nuanced picture, exploring the beliefs behind the attitudes and the self-reported responses of participants to people with dementia. Findings indicate that the general public has a reasonable knowledge of the symptoms and pathway of dementia in line with a bio medical model. However the findings also indicate that the general public holds a mix of theoretical and empirical knowledge and that this is often contradictory. A complex mix of scientific or medical information, experience, anecdote and assumptions contribute to the discourse. This information is stored and conveyed in the form of stories and a consequence of this interplay is that individual experiences told in the form of stories are generalised to become building blocks in the construction of what the general public understands dementia to be. The current construction of dementia among the general public is found to be both nihilistic and ageist with clear evidence that dementia is stigmatised. I will argue that that the relationship between dementia and ageing in the minds of the general public is a symbiotic one. Dementia has become a cultural metaphor for unsuccessful ageing marking entry to the fourth age. The stigmatising response of the general public is the result of a complex interplay of multiple factors. I have expanded on previous ideas of multiple jeopardy and intersectionality, suggesting that the stigma associated with dementia is unique and driven as much by emotional responses as by the social location of the person with dementia. I have borrowed Brooker’s (2003) term “Dementia-ism’ to describe this stigma. This thesis argues for a more complex and sophisticated approach to changing public attitudes and reducing stigma. Dementia-ism must be addressed with the same strength of purpose currently applied to sexism, racism and ageism.

近年來在我國，有關就業歧視所引起的爭議，已經因各弱勢團體權利意識之覺醒，而有逐漸受到社會的重視，除了一般較為熟知之性別歧視外，尚有其他有關宗教信仰、族群、黨派、身心障礙、語言、年齡及容貌等因素所造成的工作機會或待遇的不平等之現象，也曾引起廣泛的討論，究竟這些現象在我國之嚴重程度如何？我國現行法規制度是否能夠有效因應？有沒必要參酌其他先進國家法制，作禁止歧視之統一性立法？都是值得進一步探討的課題。 因此，本論文針對禁止身心障礙就業歧視制度發展最完備的美國作為探討的對象，首先討論美國禁止身心障礙就業歧視制度之早期發展沿革，包括了禁止身心障礙之概念與理論之簡介以及一九六四年所通過之民權法第七章（Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964）、一九七三年通過之復健法（Rehabilitation Act of 1973）之重要規定及對於禁止身心障礙就業歧視問題之影響。其次，則針對一九九０年所通過之美國身心障礙人士法（Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990）作討論。而美國身心障礙人士法乃是禁止身心障礙就業歧視制度之核心規範，因此，本文除了討論該法之立法背景外，同時更針對該法之重要條款規定以及平等就業機會委員會（Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: EEOC）對於該法所頒佈之相關指導原則作一個綜合之分析討論。進而，更針對該法在美國所引發之重大爭議中，選取美國最高法院在最近所作出之最具代表性之六個判決，也對判決作一個綜合之評析，以明瞭其利弊得失之所在及我國可資借鏡參考之處。 再其次，則討論我國目前建構禁止身心障礙就業歧視制度之現狀及所遭遇之困境，主要是對於身心障礙者之就業困境及遭受就業歧視之情形、禁止身心障礙就業歧視之相關規範與制度、身心障礙之就業歧視評議制度運作情形及處理禁止身心障礙就業歧視所引發之爭議等幾個議題作分析，以期能夠對於我國目前建構禁止身心障礙就業歧視制度之現狀及其所遭遇之困境有所瞭解。最後，則以美國處理禁止身心障礙就業歧視問題之經驗，希望能對於我國建立一個正確之禁止身心障礙就業歧視制度之建構方向，以及關於目前我國在處理禁止身心障礙就業歧視問題之一些具體建議。 / Disputes resulted from the employment discrimination have been gradually noticed by Taiwan society due to the awakening consciousness of each disadvantaged minority in these years. In addition to the commonly known of sexual discrimination, other factors of unequal employment and treatment are also widely discussed, such as religion, race, party, disability, language, age and appearance. However, how serious are these phenomena in our country after all? Do existing laws and regulations could solve them effectively? Is it necessary to refer to other modern countries’ legal systems to legislate against discrimination? All of the above are worthy of further discussion. Therefore, America, the country with the most complete legislation system to protect a disability from employment discrimination, is the object for discussion in this article. First to discuss is its early development history, including the introduction of concept and theory, the important regulations of Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964 and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and their influences. Second to discuss is the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which is the core regulation of the legislation system to protect a disability from the employment discrimination; Therefore, in addition to discussing its legislation background, this article also discusses comprehensively of its important regulations and the regulations to implement the equal employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act on it at the same time. Then selects 6 most representative decrees made by Supreme Court of the United State with regard to the important disputes, and also analyze those decrees comprehensively to realize their advantages and disadvantages to find some experiences that could learned in Taiwan. Moreover, is to discuss that the situation and the difficulty in the establishment of the legislation system to protect a disability from employment discrimination, which mainly focus on the analysis of the employment difficulties and discrimination faced by the people with physical and mental disabilities, relevant regulations and legislation system against employment discrimination, operation of committee on employment discrimination, and disputes arose from employment discrimination. Finally, it is expected to establish a correct direction for the establishment of legislation system to protect a disability from employment discrimination and to seek out specific suggestions relevant to problems we have in the management of the employment discrimination faced by the people with physical and mental disabilities through America’s experiences.