The Palgrave Handbook Of Disabled Children S Childhood Studies

Disabled children’s lives have often been discussed through medical concepts of disability rather than concepts of childhood. Western understandings of childhood have defined disabled children against child development ‘norms’ and have provided the rationale for segregated or ‘special’ welfare and education provision. In contrast, disabled children’s childhood studies begins with the view that studies of children’s impairment are not studies of their childhoods. Disabled children’s childhood studies demands ethical research practices that position disabled children and young people at the centre of the inquiry outside of the shadow of perceived ‘norms’. The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, as well as practitioners in health, education, social work and youth work.

This collection offers first-hand accounts, research studies and in-depth theoretical explorations of disabled children's childhoods. The accounts oppose the global imposition of problematic views of disability and childhood and instead, offer an open discussion of responsive and ethical research approaches.

A landmark publication in the field, this state of the art reference work, with contributions from leading thinkers across a range of disciplines, is an essential guide to the study of children and childhood, and sets out future research agendas for the subject.

A crucial contemporary dynamic around children and young people in the Global North is the multiple ways that have emerged to monitor their development, behaviour and character. In particular disabled children or children with unusual developmental patterns can find themselves surrounded by multiple practices through which they are examined. This rich book draws on a wide range of qualitative research to look at how disabled children have been cared for, treated and categorised. Narrative and longitudinal interviews with children and their families, along with stories and images they have produced and notes from observations of different spaces in their lives – medical consultation rooms, cafes and leisure centres, homes, classrooms and playgrounds amongst others – all make a contribution. Bringing this wealth of empirical data together with conceptual ideas from disability studies, sociology of the body, childhood studies, symbolic interactionism and feminist critical theory, the authors explore the multiple ways in which monitoring occurs within childhood disability and its social effects. Their discussion includes examining the dynamics of differentiation via medicine, social interaction, and embodiment and the multiple actors – including children and young people themselves – involved. The book also investigates the practices that differentiate children into different categories and what this means for notions of normality, integration, belonging and citizenship. Scrutinising the multiple forms of monitoring around disabled children and the consequences they generate for how we think about childhood and what is ‘normal’, this volume sits at the intersection of disability studies and childhood studies.

This edited collection explores the intersectionality of childhood and disability. Whereas available scholarship tends to concentrate on care-giving, parenting, or supporting and teaching children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, the contributors to this collection offer an engaging and accessible insight into childhoods that are impacted by disability and impairment. The discussions cut across traditional disciplinary divides and offer critical insights into the key issues that relate to disabled children and young people’s lives, encouraging the exploration of both disability and childhoods in their broadest terms. Dis/abled Childhoods? will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including Special Educational Needs; Childhood Studies; Disability Studies; Youth Studies; and Health and Social Care.

This handbook provides authoritative and cutting-edge analyses of various aspects of the rights and lives of disabled children around the world. Taking the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) as conceptual frameworks, this work appraises the current state of affairs concerning the rights of disabled children across different stages of childhood, different life domains, and different socio-cultural contexts. The book is divided into four sections: Legislation and Policy Children’s Voice The Life Course in Childhood Life Domains in Childhood Comprised of 37 newly commissioned chapters featuring analyses of UN documents and case studies from Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vanuatu, its multidisciplinary approach reflects the complexities of the lives of disabled children and the multifarious nature of the strategies needed to ensure their rights are upheld. It will be of interest to researchers and students working in disability studies, education, allied health, law, philosophy, play studies, social policy, and the sociology of childhood. It will also be a valuable resource for professionals/practitioners, allowing them to consider future directions for ensuring that disabled children’s rights are realised and their well-being and dignity are assured.

Many critical analyses of disability address important ‘macro’ concerns, but are often far removed from an interactional and micro-level focus. Written by leading scholars in the field, and containing a range of theoretical and empirical contributions from around the world, this book focuses on the taken-for-granted, mundane human activities at the heart of how social life is reproduced, and how this impacts on the lives of those with a disability, family members, and other allies. It departs from earlier accounts by making sense of how disability is lived, mobilised, and enacted in everyday lives. Although broad in focus and navigating diverse social contexts, chapters are united by a concern with foregrounding micro, mundane moments for making sense of powerful discourses, practices, affects, relations, and world-making for disabled people and their allies. Using different examples – including learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, dementia, polio, and Parkinson’s disease – contributions move beyond a simplified narrow classification of disability which creates rigid categories of existence and denies bodily variation. Disability, Normalcy, and the Everyday should be considered essential reading for disability studies students and academics, as well as professionals involved in health and social care. With contributions located within new and familiar debates around embodiment, stigma, gender, identity, inequality, care, ethics, choice, materiality, youth, and representation, this book will be of interest to academics from different disciplinary backgrounds including sociology, anthropology, humanities, public health, allied health professions, science and technology studies, social work, and social policy.