This thesis examines the potentially restorative power of adaptive sport, based upon the experiences of traumatically injured British military personnel. It investigates how participation in adaptive sport may contribute to personnel’s adaptation of identity and the re-establishment of their meaning of life post-traumatic injury. Through a series of in-depth interviews, I attempted to gain a greater understanding of the experience of and recovery from life-changing injuries, seeking to comprehend the impact of adaptive sport in this process. In line with current research in the field of disability studies, this research adopted a social construction approach. The results of the analysis are set within the social model of disability in order to try to highlight the impacts of the perceptions of disability, embedded in the dominant medical model discourse, on the participant’s lives. Key findings highlighted by this research are i; the influence that the medical model discourse has on the British military mentality and their approach to injury, ii; the process of identity adaptation and the importance of adaptive-sport-participation to provide focus and help individuals realise their potential, iii; the experience of adaptive sport as a tool to bring back meaning of life and iv; the process of ‘normalisation’ and the way individuals are self-determined to restore some sense of normality by participating in adaptive sport and positive adaptation to trauma, whereby adaptive sport acts as a tool to set the right conditions for individuals to experience positive phenomena. Throughout this thesis, I have attempted to provide an open and reflexive account of the whole research process in order to make the reader aware of the possible effects of my own background on the research outcomes.

This thesis analyses the categorisation of adult persons who need help to cope in everyday life as either older persons or persons with a disability. Despite the development of social services in the Scandinavian countries being guided by the principles of universalism and equality, adults in need of care have different rights to support depending on their current age and at which age disability occurs. This thesis aims to explore how age-based differences in access to care, support and service are legitimised. In the thesis, the concept of help is used to refer to care, support and service. Using a discourse analytic approach, Swedish elderly and disability policies and websites through which providers of help market their services were examined. The analysis, inspired by the theoretical framework of governmentality, draws attention to how users of help and helpers are constituted in two age-related discourses on help. The first discourse, help to maintain, is used mainly in relation to older persons. In this discourse older persons are constituted as subjects in need of safety, comfort and company while the helpers are represented as caring and knowing. The second discourse, help to change, constitutes younger persons with a disability as citizens in becoming. Help aims to improve the situation for younger help users in varying ways: the opportunity to fully determine the tasks performed by helpers is essential to users of personal assistance whereas personal development as regards both practical and social skills is the key to change for persons with an intellectual or mental disability. While help for younger persons is represented as a means to enhance the individual’s self-determination and ability to participate in society, help for older persons is represented as aiming to maintain past patterns of life, not aspiring towards change or improvement. It is argued that these representations support a lower ambition for eldercare than for disability services.

<p>  </p> <p>There is a deficiency in scholarly research on higher education service animal policy that has created definitive gaps in how disability service office (DSO) directors approach policy development and how higher education institutions (HEIs) ensure access for service animal handlers. Through a three-paper model, this dissertation addressed the intersection between federal and state civil rights legislation and the leadership qualities needed in developing higher education service animal policies. The first academic law review paper, titled “Service Animals in the Higher Education Environment: How the Law Guides Institutions in Supporting Disabled Student Handlers” laid a foundation for higher education service animal policy through a review of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which is federal civil rights legislation that grants protections and access for students with disabilities using service animals in higher education. The second academic law review paper, titled “State Legislation Regarding Service Animals: Informing Big Ten Higher Education Disability Policy” provided a comprehensive overview of six Midwest state’s service animal legislation and the legal application to higher education policy. The third paper is a qualitative research study, titled “A Big Ten Leadership Approach to Service Animal Policy Development in Higher Education” that explored how Big Ten Academic Alliance HEI DSO directors lead when developing institutional policy related to service animals.</p>