There is much published literature that relates to children and childhoods in general but there is little that concentrates specifically on the intersectionality of childhood and disability. The literature that is available tends to concentrate on care-giving, parenting, or supporting and teaching children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The aim of this book therefore is to offer the reader an engaging but accessible insight into childhoods that are impacted by disability and/or impairment. The discussions cut across traditional disciplinary divides and offer critical insights into the key issues that relate to disabled children and young peopleâs lives, encouraging the exploration of both disability and childhoods in their broadest terms.
This book is intended to appeal to a wide range of readers including undergraduate and postgraduate students, practitioners, academics, researchers, disabled people, activists and family members. We hope that the key issues raised within each chapter will challenge and provoke you not only to think about the way in which disability and childhoods are constructed but also to add wider dimensions to your thinking as you engage with the text, examining your own assumptions and cultural perspectives.
A Note on Terminology
The nature of disability is complicated. It is a social, cultural, political and relational entity that cuts across class, gender, age, socio-economic status, national and international borders. Whilst acknowledging that the disabled population is not a homogeneous one, writing about a social category necessitates a definition of the population about whose lives are being discussed. Clearly, the contentiousness of terminology regarding disability has been the cause for much discussion. It means different things to different people. However, as I have explained elsewhere (see Richards et al. 2016), Oliver observes that âit has been suggested that the term âpeople with disabilitiesâ should be used in preference to âdisabled peopleâ because this prioritizes people rather than disabilityâ (1983:261). He emphasises that âdisabled peopleâ is the preferred terminology of those within the disabled movement because it makes a political statement: they are not people âwithâ disabilities, but people who are disabled or disadvantaged by societyâs response to their differences (Oliver 1990). Whilst the impact of language and terms used to describe disability should not be underestimated, the intention of this book is not to add to the ongoing debate in terms of reference. The authors will use the terms âdisabled childrenâ and âchildren with disabilitiesâ interchangeably and intentionally, placing âdisabilityâ purposefully either before or after âchildrenâ to emphasise social barriers and/or individual impairment. In addition, authors will use the terms âchildrenâ and âyoung peopleâ to encapsulate those aged 25 and under.
As academics, practitioners, parents and activists, the authors of this book share a fascination of the diversity of childhoods and of disability. However, we also acknowledge that children and disabled people are rarely treated or seen as equals within academia, political organisations and social contexts. It is our collective hope that the discussions within this volume will encourage you not only to engage critically and reflectively on the common definitions and concept of childhood and disability, but also to be mindful of the ways in which both have been, and continue to be, socially co-constructed. We believe that disability studies and childhood studies are established enough to withstand critical reflection and interrogation and so we adopt an approach that rejects dominant emphasis on individual vulnerability, impairment and inequality and embraces a rights-based approach whereby all persons are recognised as active agents.
It is important to note the language used to define both disability and childhood because the words used to describe them can be value-laden. However, at this point, we should be mindful that it is not just regulated systems of words and ideas that shape our understanding of disability and childhood, it is also the interplay of signs, symbols and other cultural and visual images that infiltrate our knowledge systems and regulate our behaviour and practice. It is fair to suggest then, that discourses of both disability and childhood are embedded into our lives in a myriad of ways: visual, written and spoken. Dominant discourses that categorise binary opposites such as ability/disability, normal/abnormal, typical/atypical are embedded deeply in socio-historical and political practices and whilst the ways in which they relate to one another clearly needs further examination, we acknowledge that challenging and exploring their co-construction will disturb the equilibrium. This is our aim. In exposing, examining and investigating disability, we follow Goodleyâs (2014) example of the spilt term dis/ability where he uses the slash â/â to emphasise the ways that disability and ablism are produced and reproduced in relation to each other (see also Boys 2014; Connor et al. 2016; Goodley and Runswick-Cole 2016). Therefore, we will use the term âdis/abled childhoodsâ provocatively to enable us to trouble normative ideas and understandings of both disability and childhood that have been taken for granted for so long. Drawing on Goodley and Runswick-Coleâs theoretical concepts of becoming dis/human (2016), we encourage you to join us in seeking to develop an understanding of the human through an examination of dis/abled childhoods.
Understanding Disability and Childhoods
It is acknowledged that the fusion of ideas from disability and childhood studies are in the early stages of development (for further discussion relating to the emergence of disabled childrenâs childhood studies, see Curran and Runswick-Cole 2013). However, there are many commonalities within both which we will draw on. Linking the disciplines together to expand the parameters of our knowledge will offer a critical insight into how childhood and disability are culturally constructed and socially produced. We will also illustrate the ways in which disabled childhoods are complex, inter-relational and intergenerational phenomenon of social structures, belief, policies and everyday actions of adults and children. For example, we will argue that persons in both fields have been denied civil rights, attributions of agency and competency and both have been subjected to social regulation and control.
Cultural Representations of Childhood
As authors, our understanding of the entity of childhood is not straightforward. This is not uncommon for as Morrow (2007) suggests, it is a concept that has been grappled with for decades by an array of academics. Indeed, you will see from our individual biographies that we are an eclectic collective; we come from different disciplines, professions and cultural backgrounds. The diversity amongst us adds to the richness of discussion and debate and we hope that the contrasting and contradictory images of children portrayed within this book reveal a deep-rooted ambivalence about the nature of childhood and, by implication, of children themselves (James and James 2004). Whilst childhood is a common phase of the human lifespan, we believe that it is clearly fragmented by the diversity of lived experiences.
Childhood is often regarded as a developmental stage of the life course. During this phase, children are expected to pass through stages of set milestones and follow regulated pathways towards adulthood. They are perceived to be vulnerable, immature and irrational and therefore adults protect them, make decisions on their behalf, and measure and monitor their patterns of growth, learning, intelligence and behaviour. Those who fail to meet developmental stages are considered to be âatypicalâ, and whilst the concepts of ânormsâ can be presented as unproblematic in some disciplines, the impact on the ways in which disabled children are perceived is particularly relevant here. For example, disabled children and young people have been subjected to various forms of surveillance, denied attributions of agency, competence and civil rights (Richards et al. 2016). Priestley (1998) goes as far as to suggest that the cultural representation of the vulnerability and dependency attributed to children and within childhood is similar to that in which disabled people are represented throughout their life course. A consequence of constructing disabled children and young people as âlessâ than adults, and childhood as a âphaseâ of socialisation where children are seen as incompetent and incomplete is that they have been less visible in academic literature and within the research process (Brannen and OâBrien 1995; James et al. 1998). However, it is acknowledged that whilst traditionally childrenâs roles in research have been relatively passive (Waksler 1991), the confirmation of their rights has furthered the recognition of them being active constructors in their own social lives. As a consequence, more research relating to children and childhood is beginning to filter into what has traditionally been a predominately adult-centred domain and our understandings of childhoods has steadily increased. It is our intention here to contribute to the ongoing debates and discussions.
Social Movement Within Childhood Studies
The biological processes involved in growing up are real enough, but we argue that the changes that occur during that phase are mediated predominantly by the society and culture in which the child lives. In agreement with Holloway and Valentine (2000), we believe that these changes are worthy of further academic attention and draw on Prout and Jamesâ suggestion that:
Children are and must be seen as active in the construction of their own social lives, the lives of those around them and of societies in which they live. Children are not just the passive subjects of social structures and processes. (1997:8)
The elevation of childrenâs position within human and social sciences signifies that there is now more recognition of their social agency and active participation. The messages underpinning changes in policy and practice clearly reflect James and Jamesâ (2004:157) suggestion that the relationships between childhoodâs structure and childrenâs agency emphasise the possibility that children, as social agents, might themselves contribute to processes of childhood change. However, despite the recent emphasis on childrenâs rights prioritising their active participation in research, evidence suggests that whilst some children are increasingly being encouraged to participate, growth in this area has been slower with respect to disabled children (Council for Disabled Children 2003; Sinclair and Franklin 2000). Concurring with Davis and Watson (2002), we suggest that disabled children continue to be marginalised in that they are largely absent from academic research and literature. Where they are included, they are still presented as passive, vulnerable and dependent.
Influential Factors on the Conceptions of Dis/abled Childhoods
Classic child development theory has heavily influenced the understanding of childhood, cultivating the notion that children develop towards adulthood competencies through a sequence of predictable stages. As suggested earlier, this dominant structure emphasises a sequence of measurable stages that provides a definitional framework representing what it means to be a ânormalâ child. Despite the legitimacy of these principles being questioned (Donaldson 1978; James and Prout 1995), this stance has had an enduring influence on conceptions of childhood. In addition, and with particular relevance to disabled children, the boundaries marked out by influential psychologists such as Piaget and Erikson âprovide the administrative basis for treating children with impairments not only as different but also âsub-normalâ or âdevelopmentally delayedââ (Priestly 1998:65). Indeed, Bloch (2000) believes that disabled childrenâs lives continue to be directly influenced by debates around ânormal...