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1
Burchardt, Tania. "Incomes, functionings and capabilities : the well-being of disabled people in Britain." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2005. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/133/.
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The central objective of this thesis is to explore whether the capability approach can be operationalised, using the well-being of disabled people in Britain as a case study. The capability approach proposes a shift away from measuring utility and income poverty towards identifying functionings (the states of being and activities which individuals achieve), and capabilities (the different combinations of functionings which individuals have the opportunity to achieve). To date there have been few empirical applications and many concerns about the usefulness of the approach remain. Disabled people are an interesting case study for the capability approach because of the challenge to conventional measures of well-being issued by the social model of disability: that we should move away from measuring individual deficits towards focusing on the barriers individuals with impairments experience in attempting to lead the lives they want to lead. The capability approach has the potential, in theory, to meet this challenge. In addition to providing in-depth analysis of the position of disabled people in society, the thesis makes three contributions, one theoretical and two methodological. The theoretical development is the distinction between capability as opportunity and capability as autonomy, that is, the distinction between an approach which treats preferences as exogenous and one which takes seriously the problem of conditioned expectations. The innovative methodologies are, firstly, the extension of techniques of equivalisation of income to take account of variations in needs due to disability, and, secondly, quantifying whether a particular functioning is within an individual's capability set. The thesis concludes that relatively straightforward adjustments to conventional poverty measures improve their validity. For fuller application of the capability approach, although there is a trade-off between conceptual soundness and complexity of data requirements, informative measures of opportunity and autonomy can be derived from existing survey data.
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Nilsson, Lina. "The experience of traveling for young people with a hearing impairment– Voices of invisible disabled." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för geografi, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-173059.
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Tourism has become a major part of today's society and has been seen as a human privilege. The expansion of tourism makes travel more accessible to more people. Still, people with a disability can face difficulties when traveling for the purpose of tourism. Information becomes important to accomplish accessible tourism for everyone, but the problem in various tourism disciplines occurs with the lack of knowledge about people with disabilities. Tourism has different disciplines. Transportation is one of the basics of making tourism accessible around the world. Transportation has a major impact on tourism development but also in tourist experiences. If the transportation mode is not accessible, it can be a negative experience for people with a disability and can affect the entire journey and their willingness to attempt further trips. Disability is a broad definition and it is important to understand that different disabilities require different needs and that everyone is individual. This study analyzes how hearing loss affects travelers and the understanding of; (1) What may be needed to assist people with hearing impairments when traveling; (2) How does traveling affect people with hearing impairment when they do not have accessibility? The method is a qualitative method with in-depth interviews because this study wants to understand and reflect participants’ experiences when traveling with a hearing impairment.
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Cobley, David Stephen. "Towards economic empowerment for disabled people : exploring the boundaries of the social model of disability in Kenya and India." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/4050/.
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The social model of disability, which provides the ideological basis for the recent UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, emphasizes the need for society to change, in order to remove all forms of disability discrimination and allow for full participation. However, literature debates have raised questions over the relevance of this ideology to the majority world context. This thesis aims to explore this dilemma, by examining the influence of the social model on a range of current approaches to promoting economic empowerment within Kenya and India - two countries that have signed and ratified the Convention. The methodology is based on a comparative analysis of 26 case studies, conducted between June 2010 and February 2011, which were focused mainly on three particular routes to economic empowerment: vocational training, formal sector employment and self-directed employment. The study concludes that, while inclusive strategies that were firmly based on social model principles tended to be among the most successful, a total reliance on this ideology would run the risk of excluding a large section of the disability population altogether. In particular, some of the segregated services were found to be continuing to play an important role in disability service provision.
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Elmehög, Isac. "PLÅNKAN : Visuellt stöd för kognitiva svårigheter inom ekonomi." Thesis, Luleå tekniska universitet, Institutionen för ekonomi, teknik, konst och samhälle, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-85977.
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Detta examensarbete bygger på en upplevd problematikav personal på ett LSS-boende för ungdomar som delgivitsmig. Genom denna kontakt kunde en tydlig beskrivning gesom problemområdet, förutsättningar och begränsningar,vilket gav projektet en tydlig initial utgångspunkt. Problematikensom urskiljts på boendet var kortfattat att brukarnainte har tillgång till bankomatkort och att vissa dessutominte har tillgång till sina pengar alls. Detta skapar svårigheterdå de skall handla på butiker som övergått till att varakontantlösa. Konsekvenserna av detta är tydlig, man kaninte betala för sig och detta grundar sig i två saker. Trendenav att digitaliseras och bli kontantlös samt att personer medintellektuell funktionsvariation har svårigheter med förståelsenför digitala pengar, där detta projekt främst fokuserarpå den slutliga problematiken.Denna problematik kommer att bemötas med en utgångspunktinom grafisk design och hur det kontantlösasamhället kan utvecklas genom olika designlösningar. Enidégenerering resulterade i att projektet inriktar sig på:att skapa en applikation som förenklar och förtydligar dedigitala pengarnas värde. Detta skall uppnås genom attförse användaren med visuella stöd som kan anpassasefter personlig preferens. Utöver detta skall verktyget ävenfungera som ett betalkort för att utnyttja möjligheten attgrafiskt visa en transaktions påverkan av totala saldot.This thesis is based on a perceived problem from staffmembers of an accommodation for youths with disabilitiesthat has been shared with me. Through this contact I got aclear view of the troubles that occured, the possibilities andlimitations that revolved around the subject. The problemthat had been identified was how the youths did not haveaccess to or sometimes were not trusted with a cash cardfor different reasons. This has created a problem for thesepeople when they are trying to shop from a store that hasbecome cashless. The consequences of this is clear, theycannot pay for themselves wich is based on two things.The trend of stores turning cashless and that people withintellectual disabilities have difficulties with understandingthe value of digital money. In this thesis I focus on the latter,the understanding of digital money.The problem will be treated with graphic design as a startingpoint and investigate how the cashless community canevolve to be more including. An initial idea session resultedin a focus of creating the following: An application thatsimplifies and clarifies digital monetary value. This will beperceived through providing the target group with a visualaid that can be customized based on the users comprehensionand preferences. The app will also include a paymentfeature that utilizes the opportunity to give the user visualaid. This can provide the user with a deeper understandingof the impact of the transaction on their total ammount.
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Foote, Tamlyn Lou-Ann. "“I won’t say I feel happy or sad”: experiences of siblings of young disabled people in disadvantaged socio-economic circumstances." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7774.
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The impact of having a disabled sibling has been well researched in first world countries, revealing complex and varied results. However, in disadvantaged socioeconomic contexts, where disability has been found to be more prevalent, and where arguably, the functioning and quality of life of a disabled person is more likely to be affected by an impairment, very little is known about how siblings of young disabled people are affected. In response, this qualitative study explores the experiences of five, isiXhosa speaking adolescents, living in Joza Township, Grahamstown, who have a brother or sister with an intellectual, physical or developmental impairment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and an interpretative phenomenological analytic approach was utilized to ascertain how the participants make sense of their worlds in relation to their sibling’s disability. Specifically, this research aimed at developing an understanding of how the participants experienced their family climate, self-concept, interpersonal relations and daily living in relation to their disabled sibling. The results of this study reveal a prevailing sense of incongruity experienced by the participants, although there are variances between their experiences. While family climate was largely experienced as warm, the participants were ambivalent about their relationship with their mothers who are experienced more as providers than nurturers. The participants described oscillating between feelings of protectiveness and alliance, and responsibility and sacrifice toward their sibling. A high incidence of incongruity pertaining to their sense of self was noted; this was described as impacting on their interpersonal relations where an underlying sense of negative public perception in relation to the disability is perceived. Although the participants expressed feeling supported within their homes, it was evident that they experienced little support from peers or the community at large. Four out of the five participants did not report experiencing a sense of deprivation, despite their socio-economic contexts and described a day-to-day existence that allows for their needs to be met. This included adequate time during their day to pursue personal interests as opposed to their time being spent taking care of their disabled sibling or assisting their parents, who may be overburdened due to the added care and responsibilities a disabled child might require. Furthermore, it is suggested that the incongruity experienced by the participants could be the result of various factors including age, gender, birth order and the nature of their sibling’s impairment. On the basis of the findings of this research, it can be concluded that the experiences of siblings of young, disabled people living in disadvantaged socioeconomic contexts cannot necessarily be described as being positive or negative, but are highly nuanced. In addition, the participants to some extent experience disability by association and are lacking in adequate support and opportunities to discuss their unique challenges. These insights serve to better inform disability studies in disadvantaged socio-economic circumstances. These findings are in accordance with earlier research.
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Carretta, Regina Yoneko Dakuzaku. "Pessoas com deficiência organizando-se em cooperativas: uma alternativa de trabalho?" Universidade Federal de São Carlos, 2004. https://repositorio.ufscar.br/handle/ufscar/3420.
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Co-operatives are been presented as an insertion alternative in trade work for disabled people, with different meaning from the most traditional proposals of leadings for formal jobs under Brazilian CLT (Consolidate Work Laws), in individual functions, in industrial activities, as the earlier proposal of professional rehabilitation models. On the other hand, the work co-operatives besides possibilities of work generation and profits are showed as a participative management and self-management in which there are social and economics goals. Nowadays, the work co-operative, specially the cooperative so named "popular" are been discussed and developed inside Solidary Economy, movement that search from solidary enterprises for an alternative to capital model of production. The popular co-operative involve socially excluded people, without economic sources and sometimes without both technical and professional knowledge which they might be able to develop economic activities like disabled people. With the main objective to know and evaluate the possibility of work cooperatives being able to include disabled people in work as well as to know the challenges and the outlooks, the present research proposed to develop case studies involving three kinds of enterprises. A lot of proposals and management were showed by analysed experiences, by showing the necessity of co-operative formation, challenges presented as a financial resources and technical capacitation, challenges in own participative management (hierarchy, involvement of co-operative workers in aggregative projects and challenges of owner management of choose economic activity (legalization, sources, diffusion, distribution of goods and trading). At last, the conclusion that co-operative management model could possible an alternative work/job generation and amounts to disabled people as well as, their participation and social inclusion. However, their building up there is no easy way and there are no handy formulas. There are a lot of challenges in collective and democratic management and by developing of own enterprise which confrontation involve not only technical meaning but both management and cultural capacitation.
As cooperativas têm sido apresentadas como uma alternativa de inserção no mercado de trabalho para pessoas com deficiência, diferentemente das propostas mais tradicionais de encaminhamento a empregos regidos por CLT, em funções individuais, em atividades industriais, como as propostas iniciais dos modelos de Reabilitação Profissional. Por sua vez, as cooperativas de trabalho, além da possibilidade de geração de trabalho e renda, apresentam-se como um modelo de gestão participativa e autogestionária, nas quais coexistem objetivos sociais e econômicos. Atualmente as cooperativas de trabalho, principalmente as cooperativas denominadas populares têm sido discutidas e desenvolvidas no âmbito da Economia Solidária, movimento que busca a partir dos empreendimentos solidários, a participação mais efetiva dos trabalhadores, em caráter autogestionário e emancipatório, como uma alternativa ao modelo capitalista de produção. As cooperativas populares envolvem a população excluída, destituída de recursos econômicos, e muitas vezes também do conhecimento técnico/profissional para o desenvolvimento de uma atividade econômica, como é o caso também, da população com deficiência. Com o objetivo de melhor conhecer e avaliar a possibilidade de as cooperativas de trabalho constituírem-se como alternativas para inserção da pessoa com deficiência no mercado de trabalho e como alternativa de inclusão social e econômica dessa população, bem como conhecer os desafios e perspectivas colocados, esta pesquisa propôs-se a desenvolver estudos de caso envolvendo três empreendimentos. As experiências analisadas mostraram formas variadas de proposta e gestão, necessidade de formação cooperativista, desafios colocados quanto a recursos financeiros e capacitação técnica, desafios na própria gestão participativa (hierarquia, envolvimento dos cooperados no projeto coletivo) e desafios colocados pela administração própria e pela atividade econômica escolhida (legalização, recursos, divulgação, distribuição e comercialização). Por fim, temos que o modelo de gestão cooperativa pode possibilitar alternativa de geração de trabalho e renda às pessoas com deficiência como também a participação e inclusão social. No entanto, a sua construção não é um caminho fácil e de fórmulas prontas. Há vários desafios colocados pela gestão coletiva e democrática e pelo desenvolvimento de um empreendimento próprio, cujo enfrentamento envolve uma capacitação não apenas técnica, mas também administrativa e cultural.
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Deal, Mark. "Attitudes of disabled people toward other disabled people and impairment groups." Thesis, City, University of London, 2006. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/17416/.
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This research set-out to: a) investigate attitudes of disabled people (adults) toward other disabled people; and, b) attitudes of disabled people toward different impairment groups. Comparative data from a non-disabled sample was also collected. Two new attitude rating scales were developed for this research: the General Attitude Scale Toward Disabled People (GASTDP) and the Attitude Toward Impairment Scale (A TIS). Both scales achieved acceptable levels of internal and external reliability. Positive attitudes toward disabled people were found from both the disabled (M = 41.08; n = 193) and non-disabled samples (M = 39.29; n = 120). However, a hierarchy of impairment also appears to exist, with the disabled sample producing a rank ordering of most accepted to least of Deaf, Arthritis, Epilepsy, Cerebral Palsy, HIV/AIDS, Down's Syndrome and Schizophrenia. The nondisabled sample rank ordering was the same for five of the seven impairment groups, with only Cerebral Palsy and HIV / AIDS being placed in reverse order. The GASTDP contains two sub-scales (Subtle and Blatant Prejudice subscales). Statistically significant results between the two sub-scales were found for both the disabled and non-disabled samples, suggesting people tend to hold subtle forms of prejudice toward disabled people. The discussion therefore utilises the term aversive disablism, based on aversive racism. This theory argues that whilst people may be reluctant to express negative attitudes toward disabled people, they may also support policies that are disablist, i.e. segregated housing. The contact hypothesis, whereby contact with members of a minority group influence attitudes, was not supported by the data. This thesis recommends further research into subtle forms of prejudice toward disabled people from an in-group perspective and attitudes toward different impairment groups.
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McNally, Bernard. "After the financial crash of 2008, how will the UK's welfare to work policies affect the attitude of Scottish private sector employers towards hiring jobless people who have been disabled by mental illness?" Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2018. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/9117/.
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During the economic boom of the late nineties and early noughties, the last Labour government identified paid employment obtained from the competitive labour market as a realistic goal for people disabled by mental illness. Despite the effects of the financial crash of 2008 and the consequent recession, its successors have continued to argue this is the case. One of the foundation stones of the policies they have used to pursue this goal is a biopsychosocial model of health, which sides with medicine in the longstanding dispute about the validity of the concept of mental illness. This model was used by the UK government to identify paid employment obtained from the competitive labour market as evidence of recovery in and recovery from mental illness. It did this by drawing on the belief recovery is an individual journey, the outcomes of disabled people's lives are determined by acts of agency; the language, but not the thinking, used by the disability movement to draw a distinction between disability and impairment; and research arguing people with a history of mental illness want to work and that they can obtain work from the competitive market when they are provided with appropriate support. Another one is neoclassical economics: a static, deductive and utilitarian theory-driven economic model that has dominated UK policy since the late seventies. Like the government's preferred approach to recovery, neoclassical economics prioritises agency over structure. It argues labour market activity is a risk-driven endeavour and that economies have natural rates of unemployment, which can only be reduced by the state dismantling institutions preventing scarce resources such as labour from being distributed via price competition. As with medical thinking about mental distress, the neoclassical idealisation of the labour market has its critics. Amongst them are the old institutional economics, the new institutional economics, stratification economics and the new economic sociology. Different mixtures of empiricism, inductive thinking, theorising and attitudes towards neoclassicism ranging from relative enthusiasm to outright hostility, have for different reasons, led them to conclude to various degrees that institutions are necessary to impose order on uncertainty, unemployment can be a consequence of their influence and the state has to take this on board when taking policy initiatives. The disputes within economics and between economics and sociology about the role of agency, structure and the state in the labour market raise doubts about the efficacy of the UK government's welfare to work policies regarding people disabled by mental illness. Doubts that have been echoed in comments made by the OECD in 2014, which voiced concern about the UK governments marginalisation of structural influences on the labour market. Surprisingly, the literature on disability and employability has not engaged with this dispute. This study starts to address this failure by drawing on the above models mental illness and the labour market activity to analyse how the UK government's welfare to work policies have affected demand from private sector employers in Scotland for labour from jobless people who have been disabled by mental illness. The analysis was conducted in two stages. First, it used evidence about the financial crisis of 2008 and statistics from the Westminster and Holyrood governments to paint a macroeconomic picture of the Scottish labour market for the period between 2008 and 2013. Then it conducted semi-structured interviews with thirty private sector employers about their understanding of mental illness and the labour market. The initial part of the analysis argues rational price competition between private financial organisations caused the flow of money through western economies to dry up and that this caused the global financial crisis of 2008 and the deepest worldwide recession since the 1930's. Then it shows the UK government's adherence to neoclassicism led it to respond to these developments by directing government spending away from redistribution and service provision towards facilitating market competition and that the current tranche of welfare to work policies are part of this response. Finally, it uses figures from the Scottish and UK government for the period between March 2008 and March 2013 to look at the challenges facing these policies. Here it is shown that although the rise in unemployment has been relatively small given the depth of the recession. However it is also shown that there has been a sharp rise in underemployment, a significant drop in the number of vacancies and that private sector demand for labour will have to grow by as much as a third if the Scottish labour market is to successfully absorb those people with a history of mental illness the UK government hopes to move off disability benefits. The second part found employers tend to link mental illness with strange and unpredictable behaviour; hold stigmatising beliefs about people with a history of these conditions; only hire them when information, which has been obtained independently of any vacancy, suggests they possess the technical and social skills necessary to fit in with how they do business; and they can discount the value of their labour. It then goes on to demonstrate five things. The first is that employers think workplace teams are different from the sum of their parts and that this has led them to believe the outcomes of recruitment decisions are always uncertain. The second is they protect themselves against uncertainty by taking a sequential approach to recruitment, one that involves ranking the sources of information they use to make recruitment decisions in terms of cost and reliability. In order of preference, these are personal experience, the experience of people they trust, recruitment agencies and open competition. The third is that their behaviour as they descend this hierarchy initially mirrors the thinking of the new economic sociology and stratification economists, then the new institutional economics until finally, it comes to bear its closest resemblance to neoclassical economics. The fourth is that employers descend the hierarchy for as long as their desire for profit outweighs their fear of harm. The implications of this sequential multifaceted approach to recruitment for the ability of the UK governments welfare to work policies to improve the employability of people disabled by mental illness are identified by drawing on Zelizer's ideas about the role of connected worlds, circuits of commerce and media of exchange in economic activity. These ideas emerged in response to the under and over socialised thinking about the economy such as that offered by the new neoclassical economics, the new institutional economics and the new economic sociology. They form a line of thought that resonates strongly with the heterodox approach to economic analysis of the old institutional economics and stratification economics. They also provide a theoretical framework - that does not automatically blame the jobless for being unemployed - to hang the findings of this study about employers’ multifaceted approach to recruitment; the co-existence of large numbers of vacancies and high rates of unemployment; the peripheral role played by human resources professionals in most recruitment decisions; the ignorance of employers about the UK government's welfare to work policies; and employers’ hostility towards welfare to work contractors. Taken together, the findings of this study indicate the people with a history of mental illness who will benefit most from the UK government's welfare to work policies will be those who inhabit the same social circles as private sector employers or those who have access to them.They also suggest these policies will be unlikely to increase the demand for their labour to anything like the degree necessary to absorb the numbers of them that will be moving off disability benefits. However, by using Zelizer's thinking about circuits of commerce and connected worlds to frame them, they offer hope welfare to work policies can be developed that recognise the importance of paid employment to recovery without conflating them. A set of policies that acknowledge the influence of impairments, social structures, job-related skills, and competition on employability, which accepts people diagnosed with mental illnesses will often need to be provided with rights and access to resources over and above those that support them to look for work. Realising this possibility will require researchers in disability studies to engage with the economic and sociological debates about the labour market and build relationships with businesses, economists and other branches of sociology that are conducive to investigating how the economic and social lives of employers influence their targeting of pools of labour; clarifying when it is possible to include people with a history of mental illness in these pools, establishing how to go about doing this, determining when it is in their interests to do so and identifying what to do when it is not.
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Fu, S. (Siqi). "Disabled people and E-inclusion." Master's thesis, University of Oulu, 2015. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201504031314.
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The fast developing technologies can benefit disabled people from many ways. However, it also formed new gap to them and caused their lives to be marginalized by the digital society. The purpose of this research was to find out issues and problems disabled people meet in the e-Society.
A literature study was conducted as the research method by trying to follow the principles of systematic literature review method. 51 articles were collected from the online publication database to support this research.
The results found out that the reasons caused the exclusion of disabled people are because of the issues of affordability, impairments of disabled people and social phenomenon. The price of mainstream technologies in the market is not affordable to the majority number of disabled people since the low employment rate and low income level keep most of them living in poverty. On one hand, the impairments of disabled people not only affect their lives and works, but also limited their ability to have the access to various technologies. On the other hand, the design of technologies has not fully covered the needs of disabled users, which causes many challenges and problems during the experiment of technologies. Moreover, due to the average low level of education, disabled people are lacking of technical knowledge in how to use ICT, especially in the group of female and senior people with disabilities.
The most important finding in this research paper demonstrates that more than half of the articles mentioned the issue of lacking awareness in disabled people. The situation of exclusion of disabled people in today’s digital world can be changed if the whole society could pay more attention to their challenges and problems.
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Hudson, M. H. "Disabled people and labour market disadvantage." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.604719.
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This dissertation considers how and why the labour market disadvantage of disabled people persists. Unpacking debates about how disabled people and labour market disadvantage can be conceptualised it reviews how theoretical insights from labour economics and sociology/disability studies can enrich a social model of disability. Drawing on the concepts of social claims and capabilities, the main task becomes one of exploring how a range of social actors and institutions are involved in enabling or constraining the capabilities that may facilitate the economic functioning of disabled people. Having noted the diversity embodied in the social category disabled people the emphasis is on capturing at least some of this diversity. This is done by exploring the experiences of people in the communities in which they live their everyday lives within the changing context of the labour market and public policy. The research uses an empirical base of material drawn from two localities in East London and Greater Manchester. It is interview based developing case studies at a number of levels: employed and non-employed disabled people, local employment projects and support services and public and private sector employers. Issues around the benefit system, and economic security, emerge as particularly prominent in the lives of the non-employed. Via an exploration of policy and practice, the quality of and balance between supply and demand-side policies that are ostensibly geared towards moderating the incidence and experience of labour market disadvantage are questioned. In so doing, there is criticism of the accounting framework that underpins capitalist employment relations and public policy . In concludes that both the supply and demand sides of the labour market are of fundamental importance in nourishing capabilities. There is a need to develop a policy framework that has a focus on how capabilities can be enabled with more pro-active measures to acknowledge and address inequalities of circumstance and the desire of disabled people to participate.
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Young, Sadie. "Personal constructs of intellectually disabled people." Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.262355.
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The main focus of this thesis is to investigate the mental worlds of intellectually disabled people. It is intended to provide information about how members of this population construe their environments and how recent changes in the philosophy of care have affected their construct systems. Personal construct theory is used as the model that underpins the studies in the thesis and a modified version of repertory grid technique is developed and used to explore physical and social aspects of each subject's environment. After a pilot study was conducted to establish the viability of using modified rep grid techniques with this population, a longitudinal study over a four year period investigated the social constructs of 15 intellectually disabled residents. Eight were still in an institution at the end of the study and seven had moved into the community during that period. A comparison group of eight staff were sampled at the beginning of the longitudinal study. Information is made available concerning the size and complexity of each subject's construct system. It was found that the size and content of the construct systems of intellectually disabled people is limited relative to the comparison group and does not change significantly over four years. construct systems were analysed using two computerbased programs that solved the patterns of interrelationships and a graphic presentation of the network of significant correlations between constructs was completed. It was found that the graphic presentation was adequate for the intellectually disabled respondents but not for the comparison group. No difference was found between the community-based group of intellectually disabled people and those still resident in the hospital after four years. A further study with 17 intellectually disabled people, parents and non-parents, found no difference in their construct systems of children. These results are discussed in the context of the present philosophy and practice of normalisation and social role valorisation.
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Salgård, Kajsa, and Josefina Raza. "Aid for Disabled People in India." Thesis, KTH, Maskinkonstruktion (Inst.), 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-143117.
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Indien är ett utvecklingsland med en ekonomisk tillväxt som ökar inom industri- och tjänstesektorn. Tyvärr verkar inte tillväxt och utveckling nå ut till funktionshindrade och fattiga människor. Under två månader genomfördes en fältstudie i norra delen av Indien; ett arbete som inleddes i Sverige där systemet för hjälpmedel undersöktes. Studien i Indien innehöll intervjuer, en användarstudie och flera besök för att undersöka situationen och starta utvecklingen av en prototyp. Målet var att utveckla en rullstol som lämpar sig för funktionshindrade i Indien och skapa en prototyp för användartestning. Produktutveckling ägde rum under hela projektet; målgrupp och krav på rullstolen kom fram genom brainstorming. Undersökningarna och fältstudien visade att det är en betydande skillnad mellan hur systemet för funktionshindrade personer fungerar i Indien jämfört med Sverige. De flesta av användarna i Indien hade en trehjuling som i grunden är en rullstol men med ett hjul i fronten och annan styrning. Som förbättringar ville användarna erhålla bättre ergonomi och säkerhet. Det slutliga konceptet har en ergonomiskt riktig sittställning, konstruktionen är lägre och mindre än den befintliga trehjulingen. Material för prototypen inhandlades på en marknad och en cykelverkstad i Kanpur. Prototypen jämfördes med den befintliga trehjulingen som är den typ av rullstol som kom närmast konstruktionen av prototypen. Denna jämförelse visade att prototypen är mindre, har ett sänkt underrede och en ny teknik för styrning. Nästa steg i utvecklingen skulle vara att expandera fältstudien, konstruera nästa prototyp och utföra ytterligare användartester.India is a developing country with an economic growth that is increasing in the industry and service sector. Unfortunately the growth and the development do not seem to reach out to disabled and poor people. During two months a field study was conducted in the northern part of India; the work begun in Sweden where the system of aid was investigated. Research in India contained interviews, a user study and several visits to investigate the situation there and to start a development of a prototype. The aim was to develop a wheelchair suitable for disabled people in India and to create a prototype for user testing. Product development took place throughout the project; target group and demands on the wheelchair was formed through brainstorming. The investigations and field study showed that it is a significant difference between how the system concerning disabled people and aid works in India in comparison with Sweden. Most of the users in India had a tricycle, which is basically a wheelchair with one wheel in the front and with different steering. As improvements, better ergonomics and safety was asked for. The final concept have an ergonomically correct sitting position, is lowered and smaller than the existing tricycle. Materials for prototyping were gathered at a market and a cycle repair shop in Kanpur. The prototype was compared to the existing tricycle, which is the type of wheelchair that came closest to the construction of the prototype. This comparison showed that the prototype is smaller, has a lowered undercarriage and a completely new technique of steering. Next step in the development could be to expand the field study, construct another prototype and conduct further user testing.
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Croft, David D. "An examination of the cognitive structural complexity of non-disabled peoples implicit knowledge of physically disabled people : implications for attitudes towards physically disabled people /." Title page, table of contents and abstract only, 1988. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09P/09pc941.pdf.
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Latham, Yvonne Louise. "Making connections : organisation, technologies and disabled people." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.578254.
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There are many 'voluntary sector' led attempts which use personal computers to facilitate improved participation of disabled people in social and economic life ('digital inclusion'). However, the organisation and longer-term outcomes of such projects have tended to remain under-researched. The thesis adopts a long-term focus on the challenges and workarounds that characterise successful or failed attempts by disabled people (typically using off-the- shelf applications for affordability and support reasons) to ensure meaningful connections. Much of the research on 'digital inclusion' projects of this kind tends to be conducted through questionnaires, and often suffers from a 'box-ticking' approach to issues such as 'installation' and 'ICT use' that tends to leave open questions regarding how any challenges were actually resolved (or not) in practice. Furthermore, an often extensive reliance on on- line interviews and questionnaires inevitably leaves non-users unaccounted for. Similarly, research often tends to adopt short-term approaches which overemphasise lCTs' "potential to improve disabled people's lot" (Sheldon, 2004) and thus fail to give a clear picture of what form (the hoped for) 'digital inclusion' did take in practice. Such research therefore tends to focus on end states (before/after) at the expense of questions of processes and practices. This, the thesis argues, is a critical omission since voluntary organisations which are the most common channel for digital inclusion schemes (Social Exclusion Unit, 2005) are unlikely to possess optimal equipment or support. What is often missing in this literature therefore, are accounts of how disabled people and their helpers "muddle through" the technical, support and other challenges they face. Drawing on qualitative research undertaken with a UK non-profit organisation, the thesis focuses on the ways in which disabled people are able (or not) to make use of information technology in their homes, and the challenges, workarounds that are involved in their successful or failed attempts at becoming 'connected'. The general contribution the thesis makes is to the ongoing debate within social science concerned with the role of technologies in social life. Through a focus on disabled people it offers a novel way of entering into this debate which serves to unpack the often taken for granted nature of the role the body plays (in this case, the impaired body) in the organising of 'social' and 'material' (sociomaterial) relations.
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Kasperova, Eva. "How do disabled people form entrepreneurial identity?" Thesis, Kingston University, 2017. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/41883/.
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This study examines how disabled people become entrepreneurs, using the concept of ‘entrepreneurial identity’ as a theoretical lens for explaining the effects of disability on venture creation. The original theoretical contribution is a novel conceptualisation of entrepreneurial identity, one that applies to all entrepreneurs whilst including the experiences of disabled people and people with long-term impairments and health conditions. Drawing on a critical realist philosophy, and a stratified, emergent ontology, entrepreneurial identity is defined as a personal power to create a new venture that succeeds in the marketplace. Entrepreneurial identity, as a causal power, is a tendency that may be possessed unexercised, exercised unrealised and realised unperceived. Although most people have the potential to become an entrepreneur, not everyone can, or is motivated to, exercise that power because of other countervailing powers – personal, material and social. Theorising identity as a causal power can account for both stability and change in identity formation, in contrast to studies that define entrepreneurial identity in terms of fixed characteristics determining behaviour, or as a dynamic process encompassing narrative performances. The empirical material comprises entrepreneur and stakeholder interview data, online visual data and shadowing field notes. The analysis reveals that the emergence of entrepreneurial identity presupposes three lower-level personal powers that must be exercised simultaneously: (1) the power to conceive of a new venture idea; (2) the power to commit to venture creation; and (3) the power to acquire new venture legitimacy. Depending on circumstances, disability can both enable and constrain individual capacity to realise the three powers, with implications for venture creation. The findings highlight the role of human relations with nature and the material culture of artefacts as well as society in the emergence of entrepreneurial identity. This novel theoretical framework is more inclusive in terms of the multiplicity of mechanisms at different identity strata and levels of reality that it can examine whilst accommodating the alternative approaches.
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Carew, M. "Fostering positive intergroup relations between non-disabled people and physically disabled people : contact quality and its social psychological antecedents." Thesis, Canterbury Christ Church University, 2014. http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/13628/.
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Although intergroup contact is a well-established area of inquiry within social psychology, the majority of research adheres to testing its traditional formulation, i.e. the extent that contact can reduce prejudice. Under this approach researchers do not investigate what happens during interactions, only if (and often, what sort of) contact has occurred. Consequently, it lacks the power to explain why interactions should be as they are between groups. Conversely, this thesis proposes that investigating contact as an outcome may provide a new and important insight into intergroup life. Specifically, this thesis investigated social psychological antecedents of contact quality among non-disabled and physically disabled people. This unique and challenging context is one that has largely been neglected by prior research. A review of the existing literature identified two key potential antecedents of contact quality, specifically the psychological concerns and embarrassment that both groups experience when interacting with out-group members. A qualitative study (Study 1) was then conducted to gain insight into the phenomenology of these constructs. Importantly, this allowed for the identification of the unique group-specific concerns that non-disabled and physically disabled people may hold. This thesis went on to test the impact of concerns and embarrassment on contact quality through a series of experiments involving both vignette-based and actual interactions (Studies 2-5). Among both groups, these studies revealed evidence of an indirect link between concerns and reduced contact quality. Furthermore, embarrassment was identified as the linking mechanism driving this important relationship. Subsequently the thesis tested a series of interventions directed at attenuating embarrassment and improving the contact quality of these encounters. Two of these studies (Study 6-7) tested the efficacy of an interpersonal feedback strategy, delivered by the physically disabled interactant across an actual (Study 6) and vignette-based (Study 7) interaction. Findings indicated that such feedback could improve contact quality perceptions among both groups, but it was unclear if it did so by reducing embarrassment. Additionally, among the physically disabled sample, the effects became non-significant when controlling for demographic factors. Finally, Studies 8a and 8b examined the potency of a societal-level intervention, the 2012 Paralympic Games. Over the period of the event, concerns and embarrassment were found to decrease in both groups but there was no reported change in contact quality. Additionally, differences once again disappeared when controlling for demographic factors. Implications of these findings, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
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Jayasooria, Denison. "Citizenship, social work and disabled people in Malaysia." Thesis, Oxford Brookes University, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.308929.
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Shires, Gina. "Freedom of action : significant factors for disabled people." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27130.
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The overall purpose of the study was the identification of factors which influence the freedom of physically disabled people, within South African society, to make choices that will enable them to conduct their daily lives independently. Qualitative research methods (observation and semi-structured interviews) were utilised to explore the problem from the disabled person's perspective. In total there were ten participants, sampling being purposive and opportunistic. The study was essentially narrative, with the results analysed and grouped thematically. Factors influencing independence related to the individual's functioning, as well as the social environment and the study's setting in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. The relative strength of each factor varied at any one time for a given subject, and between the respondents. Overall there was strong agreement amongst participants and with the literature. Recommendations made related to future research, student training and occupational therapy practise.
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Bezzina, Lara. "Disabled voices in development? : the implications of listening to disabled people in Burkina Faso." Thesis, Durham University, 2017. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12100/.
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Development discourse and practice have generally ignored, even silenced, people with disabilities. In response, this thesis draws on the case of Burkina Faso to bring geographies of development and disability into dialogue with postcolonial theory, which seeks to recuperate the voices of the marginalised and oppressed. It adopts a mixed ethnographic methods approach, including participatory techniques and interviews, in order to understand the lived experiences of disabled people in Burkina Faso. The thesis first examines the general context of Burkina Faso and the different aspects of Burkinabe life and society in which disabled people’s lives unfold. These aspects are interlinked with the perceptions of disability in Burkina Faso, both in how society perceives disability and in how disabled people view themselves. These perceptions, which are explored subsequently, affect the lived experiences of disabled people, which are often not taken into account by development practitioners who intervene in disabled people’s lives using western models and ideologies. Furthermore, development interventions influence the creation and functioning of grassroots disabled people’s organisations, and here the thesis looks at the challenges these organisations face with regard to their heavy dependence on external partners as well as the lack of ‘organisational spirit’. Finally, the thesis examines disabled people’s perceptions of development and the emphasis on economic independence as an essential element in a disabled person’s life to challenge the predominant perception of disabled people as a burden. It highlights the significance of opening up spaces in which disabled people’s voices can be heard, using techniques such as participatory video, and the significance of having these voices heard by development practitioners. The findings indicate that there is a need to theorise disability from Global South perspectives, as well as to facilitate development through an engagement with the voices and agency of disabled people.
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Sonali, Laxmi Shah Sonali Laxmi. "Career success of disabled high-flyers." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2002. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/6878.
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The aim of this qualitative study is to identify what factors a group of professional disabled people perceived had influenced their career success, and how they define career success. The study is based on subjective accounts of thirty-one disabled highflyers: men and women from different social and ethnic backgrounds, with congenital or acquired physical impairments, and hold occupational positions in Social Class I or H of the Registrar General's classification of occupations. This work looks at the extent to which the disabled high-flyers perceived career choice and progression, childhood, education, disability, and personality to be significant to their career development and success, and how they define success. Using the data collected from semi-structured interviews, this research provides an indepth insight of the journey travelled, by each of the thirty-one disabled people, from childhood to achieving career success in adulthood. The study shows that oldstyle careers, operating in stable and supportive organisations are sometimes more beneficial to disabled people than some forms of new careers known as `boundaryless' and which require more flexibility and moving from place to place. It indicates the existence of the `glass ceiling' in many sectors of the economic market, showing it to cause disabled people to redirect their original career choice. The study also shows that individuals with congenital disabilities were often likely to follow more of a boundaryless approach of career progression in order to meet their initial career aspirations. It also found that, disability was not only sometimes a causal attribute of re-directed career progression, but also, at times, a precursor of career choice and success. However being disabled was not always the cause of career change and re-direction. Several of the disabled people perceived their career to have developed much the same as that of their non-disabled colleagues. This thesis recognises the role of education in the career and life success of the disabled high-flyers. The advantages and disadvantages of mainstream and segregated education are highlighted. Although segregated education does indeed restrict the educational and therefore, occupational choices of young disabled people, it is nonetheless considered to be essential to the social, physical and psychological development of disabled children. This work offers the idea of link schools and partial integration to facilitate disabled students to achieve life goals at the rate of their nondisabled peers. The career orientation of the female disabled high-flyers, particularly those with childhood disability, was unlikely to be influenced by their gender. It seems that disability was the master status, overriding all other attributes, including gender. However this was not a negative thing. It was found that disabled women are not only capable of achieving a status equal to non-disabled women in the home, but also have the potential to compete with non-disabled men in the workplace and succeed in gender atypical careers.
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Perry, Jill, and University of Lethbridge School of Health Sciences. "Designed for life : disabled/enabled at home." Thesis, Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, School of Health Sciences, 2008, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10133/734.
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Using a phenomenological hermeneutic methodology, this thesis describes the lived experience of people with mobility impairments in the context of their home environment. Nine individuals with mobility impairments were interviewed at length regarding their experiences in their homes. From the resulting narratives, the data were arranged under three thematic statements: Doing my thing, Being myself, and Evolving with my environment. The study highlights the interdependent nature of the person-environment-occupation relationship and reveals the potential for an enabling home design to affect all areas of human occupation (self-care, productivity and leisure). The efficient performance of self-care activities in the home emerged as being somewhat predictive of the extent to which participants were involved in the areas of productivity and leisure. This thesis offers support for the social model of disability and illuminates the need for incorporating universal design in all homes.x, 98 leaves ; 29 cm. --
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Vellani, Fayyaz. "Law's contexts and scales : inclusive environments for disabled people." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.427676.
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Hickey, Marianne. "Communication enhancement in an aid for severely disabled people." Thesis, Coventry University, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.296025.
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Boggis, Alison. "Deafening silences : researching with disabled children and young people." Thesis, University of Essex, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.573734.
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This thesis is first and foremost about voices - voices that are young and voices that are disabled. Specifically it is about the ways in which voices are simultaneously facilitated and inhibited. It is not about impairment or medical issues. Based on in-depth, qualitative research with children and young people who have little or no voice and who use voice prosthetics in the form of high tech Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems (AACS), this thesis is built upon the moral perspective of respect for the role and status of children. It promotes their entitlement to being considered as persons of value and with rights. The study offered disabled children and young people an opportunity to participate in research and gave them a platform from which to project their voices. The data highlighted the ways in which disabled children and young people negotiated external structures of control to change their social positions. Specific issues that arose during the research process with regards to gaining access to disabled children, seeking their informed consent and the challenges that relate to interviewing inarticulate participants are outlined within the thesis 5 and considered particularly relevant to researchers who seek to include disabled children in qualitative research. Whilst perceived notions of dependency and incompetence emerged as major issues that inhibited disabled children and young people's voices, this thesis challenges the concept of the 'disabled' child by highlighting the ways in which meanings and values were contested by the young participants themselves. The findings demonstrate that it is increasingly important to recognize the diversity of voices within childhood.
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Wheeler, Peter. "Disabled people and employment : recovering histories and contemporary practices." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2004. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3937/.
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This thesis argues that the claim that disability is capable of reduction to two polar opposite models of disability cannot be sustained. Drawing on historical data, it is shown that for over the past century organised groups of disabled people were proactive in affecting social change without recourse to medical intervention, fighting for economic emancipation. Hence claims that the social model of disability represents a new understanding are incorrect. It is shown that the dominant traditional intellectual understandings of disability were not reducible to simplistic oppositional medical/social models, but rather a more complex combination which acknowledged both components in the construction of disability. To test this understanding, a comparison was made between two contemporary organisations who have the mission of engaging disabled people in work, and might be expected to operate to the oppositional social/medical models. Through an ethnographic study in an organisation run and controlled by disabled people and participatory observation in a government employment initiative for disabled people, it is shown through the organic understandings held by stakeholders in both organisations that mutually exclusive models could not be seen in everyday operations, and despite one organisation working explicitly to a social model of disability, they could not escape the reality of impairment when claiming that disability was singularly the result of disabling attitudes and social structures. Hence the social model organisation could not provide any better employment opportunities than one operating to traditional intellectual understandings. Through considering my own impairment and the traditional prescriptive methodological texts which assume a non disabled researcher, a methodological contribution is made by challenging understandings held in both positivist and interpretive approaches. It is also argued, that emancipatory disability research by disregarding any consequences of impairment, fails to make the challenges necessary to provide a more inclusive model.
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Edwards, Claire Elizabeth. "Integrating disabled people into the regeneration of British cities." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.288851.
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Kent, Ruth Margaret. "Health needs of disabled people in a rural community." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.363892.
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Roulstone, Alan. "New technology, disabled people and employment : a barriers approach." Thesis, Open University, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.318101.
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Tran, Gia H. (Hoang). "ICT and disabled and elderly people in different cultures." Master's thesis, University of Oulu, 2014. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201401141006.
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The current study discovers how disabled people and elderly people use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in different cultures and how they thought about it. Earlier literature lists several studies about ICT, disabled and elderly people, and little information about two countries Vietnam and Finland. The ICT usage of disabled and elderly people in these two countries may be different. Therefore, the current study offers significant findings how elderly people use ICT.
The research approach was qualitative method. Twenty elderly respondents (ten Finnish and ten Vietnamese) were interviewed, and after that, the empirical material was analyzed. The findings also revealed that the earlier knowledge from previous studies were still valid. For example, the older people used less ICT than their younger counterparts, and they also had more problems while using it. In addition, the findings also presented the benefits of ICT to elderly people. The interviews highlighted what elderly people thought about ICT and what they wanted to have in the future. The reason might be that they wanted to have a better life in the future.
The cultural differences between two countries were also given in the findings. The Vietnamese respondents were afraid of recording during the interviews while some Finnish people did allow recording. The technological gaps are quite large. In Vietnam, the elderly people had less access to ICT, so their usage was limited in comparison with the Finnish respondents. However, the Finnish elderly were more dependent on technology, because they used ICT quite often as additional aids in their everyday life.
Moreover, from the findings, the designers and manufacturers of ICT can create suitable devices and services for elderly.
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Lippold, Tessa. "The significance of social support and close relationships for people with learning disabilities." Thesis, n.p, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/.
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Oftedahl, Linda. "Hopelessness and hours of services received by elderly and disabled clients." Online version, 2001. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2001/2001oftedahll.pdf.
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Holmes, William Paul. "Voice input for the disabled /." Title page, contents and summary only, 1987. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09ENS/09ensh749.pdf.
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Thesis (M. Eng. Sc.)--University of Adelaide, 1987.Typescript. Includes a copy of a paper presented at TADSEM '85 --Australian Seminar on Devices for Expressive Communication and Environmental Control, co-authored by the author. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [115-121]).
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Galvin, Rose. "Liberating the disabled identity : a coalition of subjugated knowledges /." Galvin, Rose (2004) Liberating the disabled identity: a coalition of subjugated knowledges. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2004. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/38/.
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My thesis explores the notion, originally developed by sociologists such as Goffman and Charmaz, that a person's identity undergoes a difficult and painful metamorphosis in response to the effects of serious long-term impairment or chronic illness. I argue that existing methods of researching what I have come to call 'the disabled identity' generally avoid a deeper exploration of the social context in which this kind of marginalisation occurs. To address this absence, I develop a research methodology which combines an intensive exploration of the personal experience of disability with a critical analysis of the social and historical context in which the disabling of identity occurs. I approach the former through grounded theory and the latter through a Foucaultian analytics of genealogy and governmentality. These are informed by the theoretical insights surrounding the 'social model' of disability which claims that 'disability' is not a physical problem based on personal tragedy but is a social imposition based on exclusion and stigmatisation.
In accordance with this, the thesis proceeds in three successive stages. First, I apply a genealogical analysis to disability in general, then more specifically to the disabled identity, to provide the background for my qualitative research. The purpose of genealogy is to reveal that the concept under investigation is not a self-evident 'given' but a social construction which has developed to serve varying interests over time. Through this process it becomes evident that disability has evolved as a concept which performs as a counterpoint to the norm and, as such, provides a measure of 'what not to be' in terms of contemporary neoliberal citizenship.
Next, I engage in a grounded theory study which draws on the stories of disabled people to explore how their self-perceptions and the attitudes of those around them have been affected by disability. These stories stem from a variety of data sources, including my dialogues with participants, written stories from participants, and published autobiographies. Their analysis results in the emergence of the following themes: independence, occupational identity, and sexuality/appearance. Each theme is discussed in a separate chapter which attempts to let the stories speak for themselves by way of lengthy excerpts from the participants and texts, and combines them, where relevant, with my own insights and experiences as a disabled person.
In the final stage, I use a governmentality analysis to explore these themes and to place them in their current social and historical context. Here I suggest that independence, work and sexuality are key factors which are used to divide the affiliated from the marginalised in contemporary neoliberal societies. I argue that the two 'technologies' which currently have the most impact on how independence, work and sexuality are governed in relation to disability are welfare reform and sexual rehabilitation. Here I explore the available primary sources - particularly the last five years of Australian government policy on welfare reform and a selection of sexual rehabilitation texts - to reveal how governance seeks to operate as a liberatory force while remaining oppressive due to its paternalism and reinforcement of normative prescriptions.
The final chapter further problematises disability in relation to the governmental concepts of 'self-esteem' and 'empowerment' in an attempt to unpick what can be claimed to be emancipatory from what remains embedded in the dominant discourse. By 'deconstructing necessity' and exploring the root causes of oppression through what Foucault refers to as 'the disinterment of subjugated knowledges', the thesis outlines an alternative discourse in relation to 'disability' and opens up new possibilities for the creation of more positive identities.
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Romero, Gallardo José Abel, and Sánchez Manuel J. Fernández. "Roominess Adaption System - Development of kitchen units for disabled people." Thesis, University of Skövde, School of Technology and Society, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-3387.
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This report covers a Bachelor degree project, where a new concept of kitchen for disabled people has been developed. In addition, this report describes the design process employed in the project as well as the details of the design work.
In order to develop a successful product, technical data like requirement specifications, materials currently used by the company and the manufacture of such products were considered throughout the progress of the project. In addition, we carried out a market research and visited the fair “Leva & Fungera” in order to analyse the current situation of this market field and what disabled people would think about kitchen modules that completely adapts to their requirements. This research gave us an understanding of the user´s needs and provided us with valuable help for an ergonomics evaluation study. Different creative methods were used to come further with new ideas, as well as different and more economic solutions than the existing ones. Finally, CAD models were made with Pro Engineer Wildfire 4 and evaluated with Jack 5.1 in order to visualise and evaluate the final concepts. The ultimate result is presented in detail in a video made in 3D Studio Max.
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Burns, Nicola. "Access points and barriers to ownwer occupation for disabled people." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.249987.
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Woodin, Sarah Lesley. "Social relationships and disabled people : the impact of direct payments." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.432399.
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Wood, Matthew Edward John. "Syntactic pre-processing in single-word prediction for disabled people." Thesis, University of Bristol, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.388105.
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SOUZA, LUCIANA DALL ORTO LUCENA DE. "THE DISABLED PEOPLE IN POPE FRANCIS PONTIFICATE: A MERCIFUL LOOK." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2016. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=29345@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIROCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
As pessoas com deficiência são pessoas fantásticas porque elas são doadoras e não sugadoras. Elas podem nos ensinar a viver uma vida de felicidade e alegria apesar do sofrimento. Papa Francisco é consciente de que o sofrimento está relacionado com a cultura do descarte. É por isso que ele sempre lembra a todos que ouçam as vozes de nossos irmãos e irmãs que são pobres, doentes, marginalizados. Ele deseja promover a cultura do encontro porque a cultura do encontro é o oposto da cultura do descarte cujas vítimas são precisamente as pessoas mais frágeis e vulneráveis. Olhar o mundo pelas lentes do encontro é perceber a presença de Deus que é misericordioso e que nos precede no amor. Papa Francisco nos encoraja no sentido de que sejamos para as pessoas com deficiência como Bons Samaritanos, e tenhamos para com essas pessoas solidariedade, caridade e misericórdia. Ele diz que nós não devemos ter medo de abrir as portas e sair para o encontro servindo com amor e ternura especialmente às pessoas com deficiência porque elas são recursos de humanidade.
The disabled people are great persons because they are givers and not takers. They can teach us to live a life with joy and laughter in spite of the pain. Pope Francis is conscious that the cause of the pain has to do with a throw-away culture. That is why he always reminds everybody to hear the voices of our brothers and sisters who are poor, sick, marginalized. He wants to promote the culture of encounter because the culture of encounter is the opposite of the throw-away culture whose victims are precisely the weakest and most fragile human beings. To see the world through the lens of encounter is to realize a presence of a merciful God who first encounters us in love. Pope Francis encourages us to take the disabled person on as Good Samaritans, with solidarity, charity and mercy. He says that we don t have to fear of opening the doors and going out to encounter, serving with love and tenderness especially the disabled people because they are true resources of humanity.
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Freire, André Pimenta. "Disabled people and the Web : user-based measurement of accessibility." Thesis, University of York, 2012. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3873/.
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Being able to use websites is an important aspect of every-day life to most people, including disabled people. However, despite the existence of technical guidelines for accessibility for more than a decade, disabled users still find problems using websites. However, our knowledge of what problems people with disabilities are encountering is quite low. The aim of the work presented in this thesis was to conduct a study that characterises the problems that print-disabled users (blind, partially sighted, dyslexic users) are encountering on the web. This characterisation includes the categorisation of user problems based on how they impact the user. Further, frequency and severity of the main types of problems were analysed to determine what were the most critical problems that are effecting users with print-disabilities. A secondary goal was to investigate the relationship between user-based measures of accessibility and measures related to technical guidelines, especially the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 and 2.0 from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This was done to both identify gaps in the current guidelines, as well understanding where technical guidelines are currently not sufficient for addressing user problems. The study involved task-based user evaluations of 16 websites by a panel of 64 users, being 32 blind, 19 partially sighted and 13 dyslexics and manual audits of the conformance of websites to WCAG 1.0 and 2.0. The evaluations with print-disabled users yielded 3,012 instances of user problems. The analysis of these problems yielded the following key results. Navigation problems caused by poor information architecture were critical to all user groups. All print-disabled users struggled with the navigation bars and overall site structure. Blind users mentioned problems with keyboard accessibility, lack of audio description of videos and problems with form labelling often. However, beyond these seemingly low-level perception and execution problems, there were more complex interaction problems such as users not being informed when error feedback was added dynamically to a page in a location distant from the screen reader. For partially sighted users, problems with the presentation of text, images and controls were very critical, especially those related to colour contrast and size. For dyslexic users, problems with language and lack of search features and spelling aids were among the most critical problems. Comparisons between user problems and WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 did not show any significant relationship between user-based measures of accessibility and most measures based on technical guidelines. The comparisons of user problems to technical guidelines showed that many user problems were not covered by the guidelines, and that some guidelines were not effective to avoid user problems. The conclusions reinforced the importance of involving disabled users in the design and evaluation of websites as a key activity to improve web accessibility, and moving away from the technical conformance approach of web accessibility. Many of the problems are too complex to address from the point of view of a simple checklist. Moreover, when proposals are made for new techniques to address known user problems on websites, they must be tested in advance with a set of users to ensure that the problem is actually being addressed. The current status quo of proposing implementations based on expert opinion, or limited user studies, has not yielded solutions to many of the current problems print-disabled users encounter on the web.
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Sheldon, Alison. "Disabled people and communication systems in the twenty first century." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2001. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/449/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is first and foremost about oppression - the oppression experienced in our society by those with particular impairments. It is also about technology - the new information and communication systems which have increasing primacy in today's world. Specifically it is about the ways in which the communication systems of a disablist society hold both opportunities and threats for disabled people and their organisations in the twenty first century, perhaps changing the boundaries of the disabled category. In drawing on literature from both the sociology of technology and disability studies, it contributes to two bodies of academic work. It is intended as a welcome palliative to the growing tendency towards speculative futurology that characterises both disciplines, since it places an empirical study at centre stage. It is unusual in that its main emphasis is on domestic usage of communication systems, not on their use in employment. The research participants were largely unwaged people, many of them in older age groups. The study gave participants the opportunity to describe their experiences and opinions of technological developments in the last throes of the twentieth century. Access to communications systems emerged as a major issue, with disabled people facing a variety of barriers to their beneficial use of technology. Concerns were voiced however about the provision of such systems constituting little more than a 'technical fix', cutting welfare costs,enforcing further segregation and distracting attention from the real source of disabled people's oppression. These findings highlight the increasing importance of more radical social transformation. The opportunities and threats presented by the utilisation of communication systems are examined through an analysis of their usevalue - how they allow or disallow the satisfaction of basic unmet needs. In conclusion, various recommendations are proposed which will go some way towards making technology more accessible and appropriate for disabled people. It is however acknowledged that this will merely treat a symptom of their oppression, not eradicate the cause.
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Lam, Yuen-han. "Housing the physically disabled in public rental estates in Hong Kong /." View the Table of Contents & Abstract, 2006. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B35808147.
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Duckett, Paul Simon. "Disabled at interview : a community psychologist in and amid action." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/21895.
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I used a Community Psychology approach, involving Participatory Action Research with Qualitative methods, to both explore the employment interview experiences of disabled people and to effect positive change for disabled participants discriminated against in the labour market. In the opening chapters I set the action research enterprise within the socio-economic and political climate of the time. I follow this by describing the ethical, ideological, epistemological and methodological concerns that have driven my particular process of inquiry. 1 pay particular attention to the research process and reflect upon personal, social, organisational and political implications of the project. I review literature on disability, disability legislation and employment interviews and place my own work in the context of this. As well as reporting my findings on the difficulties disabled people face when seeking to enter the labour market, I describe the multiple research interventions I engaged with. These ranged from giving research participants welfare benefit advice through to consulting on the Government's Disability Discrimination Act. The main focus for the project became one of developing and marketing a Code of Practice on the recruitment and retention of disabled employees. I worked collaboratively with disabled research participants in developing and marketing this Code with four major employer organisations in order to affect change in employer staffing policies.
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Ross, Garret Alexander. "Attitudes towards the disabled in destination marketing organizations." Diss., Virginia Tech, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/40123.
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Waller, Annalu. "Providing narratives in an augmentative communication system." Thesis, University of Dundee, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.267098.
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Akhdar, Fathi. "Childhood disability : parents' perceptions and experiences in Saudi Arabia." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.265903.
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Lee, Shwu-Ling. "Technology for people with physical disability at work." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.390997.
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Lech, Patricia Griffith. "The Increase in Disabled Workers and Healthcare Provider Incentives." Fogler Library, University of Maine, 2009. http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/LechPG2009.pdf.
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Scott, Heather J. "The role of housing in community care for mentally disabled people." Thesis, Durham University, 1992. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5732/.
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It is argued that housing is a fundamental element in successful community care programmes for people who have a long-term mental illness, but that the significance of the immediate living environment on the individual's psych- social well-being has been underestimated in the formulation and implementation of policy. Using a grounded theory approach. Part One reports an exploratory study of the catchment area of one psychiatric hospital, which included parts of three health districts and three local authority areas. The study examined in detail, with a focus on housing, the operation of services for mentally disabled people , the plans for creating locally-based facilities, and the implementation of those plans in the mid-1980's, by means of a combination of documentary evidence and key informant interviews. All three parts of the study area were found to have encountered major but differing problems. Wide variations between and within local areas in policy and resources were found, but most stiking was the emergence of two distinct key informant perspectives: those of policy makers/managers, and workers in face-to-face contact with mentally disabled people, indicative of separate discourses of rights and needs. Part Two sets up a model of three functions of housing based on psychological needs, and argues for a compensatory role for housing in community care, which is contrasted with the reality of increasing difficulty in meeting even basic survival needs. It is suggested that the emphasis on negative rights of much mental health reform was inadequate to ensure that needs were met when the welfare net began to contract, and renewed emphasis on citizenship and social rights is proposed as a means to represent more adequately the housing needs of mentally disabled people at the levels of policy and service planning.
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Alm, Norman Arthur. "Towards a conversation aid for severely physically disabled non-speaking people." Thesis, University of Dundee, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.314549.
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Fillingham, Joy. "Changing needs and challenging perceptions of disabled people with acquired impairments." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2013. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/4298/.
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The point at which individuals acquire impairments can be a challenging one, for instance people may encounter shifts in financial circumstances, a need to find information, support and services while negotiating with physical changes and for some the ‘stigma’ of disability. The study adopts an individualised diary method combined with semi-structured interviews to collate in depth qualitative data, organised and presented using participants’ voices to chart the experiences and challenges encountered in relation to finding appropriate help at this time. A critical realist perspective is applied to identify what factors affect the participants’ successes and limitations in getting needs met in relation to recently acquired impairments. The data collection method ensures that this material presents the people involved holistically and looks beyond simple representations of disability and identity. It explores how perceptions of identity shift and how participants negotiate these changes over time. The model of the ‘Process of Disillusionment’ is developed as a key finding and consideration given as to how individuals can break free of such a process. Recommendations are then made as to ways in which this cycle of frustration may be resolved both on a collective and individual basis.