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Beyond Disability
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Beyond Disability
Towards an Enabling Society

Edited by:


208 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
An important new text, Beyond Disability draws together a wealth of experience to present theoretical and practical insights into the way in which society intervenes in the lives of disabled people, and considers how resources could be used to be more supportive and helpful. The contributors stress the social contexts within which disabilities become apparent, highlighting that disabled people:
  • Only have practical difficulties in the area of life affected by their disability, and in other respects are no different from anyone else.
  • Are handicapped not by the parameters of their disability but by the demands and attitudes of society.

This enlightening text demonstrates that society's interventions do not always achieve the aim of helping and supporting but can sometimes be counterproductive; at worst, they demean and diminish individuals. In the process of making suggestions for improving services, the contributors consider the position of people with specific types of disability, explore both sides of the "care" and "counseling" equations, and discuss training, legislation, and aspects of management and attitudes among professionals.

Students, researchers, and practitioners alike in social work, health and medicine, nursing, and social policy will find this text an important contribution to thought on the disabled in society. Beyond Disability is also a course reader for The Open University Course, "The Disabling Society."

Gerald Hales
Introduction
 
PART ONE: SETTING THE SCENE
Ann Macfarlane
Aspects of Intervention
Consultation, Care, Help and Support

 
Collette Welch
Key Issues in Support
 
PART TWO: THE PRACTICALITIES
Sue Napolitano
Mobility Impairment
Colin Barnes
Visual Impairment and Disability
Mairian Corker
A Hearing Difficulty as Impairment
Sheila Ford
Learning Difficulties
 
PART THREE: HOW DOES IT FEEL?
Sian Vasey
The Experience of Care
Bernard Leach
Disabled People and the Equal Opportunities Movement
Sallie Withers
The Experience of Counselling
Ray Woolfe
Being a Counsellor
 
PART FOUR: MAKING IT WORK
Sally French
Simulation Exercises in Disability Awareness Training
A Critique

 
Ken Davis
Disability and Legislation
Rights and Equality

 
Deborah Cooper
Legislation
A Practical Example - Young People and Education

 
Brenda Smith
Working Choices
Sally French
The Attitudes of Health Professionals towards Disabled People
 
PART FIVE: THE WAY FORWARD
Dick Leaman
Four Camels of Disability
Vic Finkelstein and Ossie Stuart
Developing New Services

`Beyond Disability... raises questions such as why services tend to miss the needs experienced by disabled people themselves, what is it like to be disabled - and what is it like to experience different impairments such as mobility, visual or intellectual impairments. The volume includes sections on legislation (anti-discrimination), counselling, the attitudes of professionals, and concludes with a `diagnosis of the present', co-authored by one of the grand old men of the British disability movement, Vic Finkelstein.' Acta Sociologica

`Overall,the book is an insightful investigation into the perceptions and experiences, struggles, and responsiblities of a society concerned about sensitively addressing issues of disability' - Contemporary Psychology

`This text moves the disability debate onwards from blunt challenges to prevailing models of disability.... It Explains both the complexities and the practicalities of access from a vairety of perspectives.... It [the book] offers alternatives to assumptions about intervention which are profoundly challenging. I would recommend it to all readers who are interested in reflecting upon their role in the alleviation of communication disability' - Bulletin

`The value of this section [Section II] is that the authors bring out common themes from the basis of different impairments - and highlight some of the complexities which are hidden by using broad categories of disability.... This wide-ranging book provides a broad overview of disability and social responses witha balance of personal experience, policy analysis and theoretical perspectives' - Social Policy

`This book is a useful tool.... I rather like the "beyond disability" notion' - Community Care

'The second section is by far the most rewarding with the chapter [ten] on the changing perceptions of impairment in Nicaragua and its political symbolism and uses being a cross between anthropoligical study and cultural studies. It is this mix of disciplines which enables this text to rise above single discipline texts as its salience and analysis has a depth to it which is rarely achieved.... The editor's own chapter on the import of Norway's rehabilitation ideology to the unsuspecting hands of Botswana is a wonderful example of how such an analysis should work' - Disability and Society


A good read for my students who are doing disability studies in 2nd year of the social care course

Ms Fiona Walshe
Humanities, Athlone Institute of Technology
April 23, 2012

A good read tackling a number of disabilities and issues.

Dr Diane Willis
School of Social and Health Sciences, University of Abertay, Dundee
March 13, 2012

Informative book, I would, as a visually impaired lecturer like to see a little larger print.

Some very well informed chapters,

Mrs Andrea Bailey
Social Work, Advice Work & Soc Studies, Staffordshire University
November 17, 2011

I have recommended this to my Disability Policy Students. It is a very accessible book and as the title suggests, provides the students with a range of perspectives which go 'Beyond Disability'.

Dr Jodie Croxall
Human Sciences, University of Wales - Swansea
November 18, 2009

Gerald Hales