Occupational Engagement of Older Adults with Age-Related Vision Loss (ARVL): Understanding the Influences of Social Networks

The present study sought to understand how older adults’ social networks facilitate and constrain their engagement in meaningful occupations after being diagnosed with age-related vision loss (ARVL). A constructivist paradigm and narrative inquiry methodology were used to elicit and make sense of the participants’ unique stories. The participants consisted of five older adults 60 years and older, living with ARVL, including one of the following conditions; macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy. Participants were recruited from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and Society for Learning and Retirement (SLR). Data was collected through three sessions of semi-structured, audio-recorded virtual interviews (via Zoom and telephone calls). Participants were inquired about their experiences of interacting with social networks and engaging in desired occupations while living with ARVL. Thematic and structural narrative analyses (Riesman, 2008) were performed on participants’ stories which identified the following five dominant themes: (1) Maintaining Engagement in Social Occupations to Foster a Sense of Belonging; (2) Diverse Social Networks Fulfill Different Occupational and Psychosocial Needs; (3) Retaining a Sense of Independence through Seeking Reciprocity in Social Relationships; (4) Community Mobility as Essential for Preserving Social Relationships; and (5) Technology as a Support to Social Connectedness: Connecting via Technology versus in Person. This research expands knowledge on ARVL-related barriers and facilitators to occupational engagement and highlights the benefits of social support in maintaining visually impaired older adults’ occupational goals. The future directions and implications of the study findings on future research and vision care services are also discussed

Higher education access and participation for persons with disability in Ghanaian public universities

Globally, there is a growing interest in widening access and supporting participation for persons with disability in higher education. This situation is stimulated in part by major international treaties and protocols. Ghana has demonstrated its commitment to this global trend to formulate and implement national legislation on inclusive education across the country’s educational system. However, in Ghana, access to and participation in the higher education system by persons with disability remains poor despite national legislation and policies to address this issue. It appears that national policies have not fully translated into institutional policies and provisions dedicated to supporting persons with disability. This study investigated how the Inclusive Education (IE) Policy (2015) in Ghana has been reflected in institutional policies and provisions that focus on students with disability in Ghanaian public universities. The aim of the study was to explore the extent to which institutional policies, arrangements, and practices in Ghanaian public universities aligned with the IE policy and addressed disability issues to increase access and participation for persons with disability. A qualitative approach and interpretivist paradigm were adopted using a multi-case study design. In-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 36 participants: seven policy architects from the National Steering Committee on Inclusive Education; three pro-vice chancellors; three deans of students; seven deans of school and heads of department; two heads and two staff from disability support units; as well as 12 students with disability. These participants represented architects of the IE policy and members of the three public universities in Ghana that were studied. Other data were collected from document analysis and observations and, together with data from the interviews, were used to establish how and to what extent institutional policies and provisions support access and full participation of persons with disability in Ghanaian public universities. Data from the interviews, observations, and documents were analysed thematically and presented in a narrative form. It was evident from the findings that awareness of the IE policy and the knowledge of its contents were limited in the case study universities. Although participants’ understanding of the objectives of the IE policy was consistent with the intentions of the policy, this knowledge was based on the participants’ experience rather than their knowledge of the policy content. Findings showed that the context of each case university reflected the extent of resourcing for policy implementation. This study also revealed that although the case study universities have provisions and a range of support services available for students with disability, these did not meet the students’ expectations. Further, it became evident from the data that attitudes towards students with disability were mainly negative, impacting university experiences of persons with disability. In addition, although the public universities in this research did admit some categories of students with disability, the universities tended to provide adjustments rather than inclusion due, in part, to financial constraints. This study has highlighted that knowledge of national legislation and policy on the inclusion of people with disability, resourcing, and attitudes at all levels of the university community have implications for widening access and supporting the participation of students with disability in public universities in Ghana. Finally, this study provides recommendations that may improve access and participation for persons with disability in Ghanaian public universities

Disability 2.0, student dis/connections: a study of student experiences of disability and social networks on campus in higher education

For many young people, social networks are an essential part of their student experience. Using a Foucauldian perspective, this qualitative study explores the networked experiences of disabled students to examine how dis/ability difference is ascribed and negotiated within social networks. Data comprises 34 internet-enabled interviews with 18 participants from three English universities. Accessible field methods recognise participant preferences and circumstances. Data is analysed using discourse analysis, with an attention to context framed by activity theory. Disabled students’ networked experiences are found to be complex and diverse. For a proportion, the network shifts the boundaries of disability, creating non-disabled subjectivities. For these students, the network represents the opportunity to mobilise new ways of being, building social capital and mitigating impairment. Other participants experience the network as punitive and disabling. Disability is socio-technically ascribed by the social networking site and the networked public. Each inducts norms that constitute disability as a visible, deviant and deficit identity. In the highly normative conditions of the network, where every action is open to scrutiny, impairment is subjected to an unequal gaze that produces disabled subjectivities. For some students with unseen impairments, a social experience of disability is inducted for the first time. As a result, students deploy diverse strategies to retain control and resist deviant status. Self-surveillance, self-discipline and self-advocacy are evoked, each involving numerous social, cognitive and technological tactics for self-determination, including disconnection. I conclude that networks function both as Technologies of the Self and as Technologies of Power. For some disabled students, the network supports ‘normal’ status. For others, it must be resisted as a form of social domination. Importantly, in each instance, the network propels students towards disciplinary techniques that mask diversity, rendering disability and the possibility of disability invisible. Consequently, disability is both produced and suppressed by the network

Disability 2.0, student dis/connections: a study of student experiences of disability and social networks on campus in higher education

For many young people, social networks are an essential part of their student experience. Using a Foucauldian perspective, this qualitative study explores the networked experiences of disabled students to examine how dis/ability difference is ascribed and negotiated within social networks. Data comprises 34 internet-enabled interviews with 18 participants from three English universities. Accessible field methods recognise participant preferences and circumstances. Data is analysed using discourse analysis, with an attention to context framed by activity theory. Disabled students’ networked experiences are found to be complex and diverse. For a proportion, the network shifts the boundaries of disability, creating non-disabled subjectivities. For these students, the network represents the opportunity to mobilise new ways of being, building social capital and mitigating impairment. Other participants experience the network as punitive and disabling. Disability is socio-technically ascribed by the social networking site and the networked public. Each inducts norms that constitute disability as a visible, deviant and deficit identity. In the highly normative conditions of the network, where every action is open to scrutiny, impairment is subjected to an unequal gaze that produces disabled subjectivities. For some students with unseen impairments, a social experience of disability is inducted for the first time. As a result, students deploy diverse strategies to retain control and resist deviant status. Self-surveillance, self-discipline and self-advocacy are evoked, each involving numerous social, cognitive and technological tactics for self-determination, including disconnection. I conclude that networks function both as Technologies of the Self and as Technologies of Power. For some disabled students, the network supports ‘normal’ status. For others, it must be resisted as a form of social domination. Importantly, in each instance, the network propels students towards disciplinary techniques that mask diversity, rendering disability and the possibility of disability invisible. Consequently, disability is both produced and suppressed by the network

Disability 2.0, student dis/connections: a study of student experiences of disability and social networks on campus in higher education

For many young people, social networks are an essential part of their student experience. Using a Foucauldian perspective, this qualitative study explores the networked experiences of disabled students to examine how dis/ability difference is ascribed and negotiated within social networks. Data comprises 34 internet-enabled interviews with 18 participants from three English universities. Accessible field methods recognise participant preferences and circumstances. Data is analysed using discourse analysis, with an attention to context framed by activity theory. Disabled students’ networked experiences are found to be complex and diverse. For a proportion, the network shifts the boundaries of disability, creating non-disabled subjectivities. For these students, the network represents the opportunity to mobilise new ways of being, building social capital and mitigating impairment. Other participants experience the network as punitive and disabling. Disability is socio-technically ascribed by the social networking site and the networked public. Each inducts norms that constitute disability as a visible, deviant and deficit identity. In the highly normative conditions of the network, where every action is open to scrutiny, impairment is subjected to an unequal gaze that produces disabled subjectivities. For some students with unseen impairments, a social experience of disability is inducted for the first time. As a result, students deploy diverse strategies to retain control and resist deviant status. Self-surveillance, self-discipline and self-advocacy are evoked, each involving numerous social, cognitive and technological tactics for self-determination, including disconnection. I conclude that networks function both as Technologies of the Self and as Technologies of Power. For some disabled students, the network supports ‘normal’ status. For others, it must be resisted as a form of social domination. Importantly, in each instance, the network propels students towards disciplinary techniques that mask diversity, rendering disability and the possibility of disability invisible. Consequently, disability is both produced and suppressed by the network

Disablism at Work. A Critical Discourse and Biographical Narrative Study of Blind and Partially Sighted People’s Professional Identities in the UK and Germany

The thesis presents an investigation of blind and partially sighted people’s professional identities by analysing biographical narrative accounts of 23 participants from the United Kingdom and Germany. A Critical Discourse Studies approach is combined with a disability studies perspective. The study offers a novel angle for CDS insofar as the language use of so-called less powerful social actors is concerned that are considered part of the counter-discourse about disability and impairment. First-person narratives as well as disability have not been explored to a great extent in CDS, and participant-focused studies have received little intention in disability studies. Similarly, the role of the body has not been in the purview of most narrative study analyses. The narrative interview data is analysed through the lens of evaluation to explore people’s emotions, the judgments of social actors and appreciations. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how the use of active and passive voice constructions contribute to a sense of agency and narrative ownership versus affectedness. Rhetorical strategies reveal what kind of discourse models the stories endorse, whether they comply with, rationalise or resist dominant reasoning. While these analytical categories draw on pre-existing frameworks, the actual lexico-grammatical and rhetorical strategies and discourse models were developed bottom-up and therefore represent a major contribution of the study. Hegemonic discourses and societal views of disability are discussed by drawing on findings from sociological studies, representations of disabled people in the mass media and a comparative corpus analysis of words related to blindness and visual impairment. The attention to linguistic detail provided here reveals note-worthy connections both between different linguistic means and rhetorical domains and between people’s personal, psycho-emotional experience and structural forms of disablism. The results indicate that mainstream employers are often seen as unable to provide a fully supportive work environment. Managers’ negative attitudes range from open hostility to ignorance. Although not all employers harbour manifest disablist attitudes, it is argued that lack of knowledge and disinterest are systemic consequences of disablist thinking. This exposes disablism as a harmful yet latent ideology in the workplace. I argue that language has the power to inspire negative feelings such as fear and destructive reasoning in the form of self-blame. Overall, emotions turned out to play a key role in both employers’ reasoning, as far as they are reflected in the stories, and in the argumentative positions taken up by participants. On a more positive note, this research can help us understand how an individual’s economic security can contribute to their personal wellbeing and provide a sense of accomplishment

Disability, Desire and Society: The Establishment of a New, Individualistic Definition of Disability and its Practical Uses in Everyday Life

Abstract In deriving a new definition of disability, it was first necessary to examine disability from an independent perspective which, while it took into account previous medical and social definitions, did not start from the basis of either. Thus, disability was considered first as a generally purposive term, and then examined in its application to humans. In this application, though social factors and the thinking of the medical profession were addressed, it was concluded that disability was an intrinsic state of the self, which could be distinguished as independent from social interactions. This state was characterized by its effect upon the disabled person’s ability to fulfil desires, both in terms of its direct preclusion of some desires, and its ability to make other desires require extra effort. The question of normality was then addressed, and it was concluded that disability could be defined organically as any involuntary state of a person’s biological or psychological self that resulted in detrimental effects upon desire fulfilment as compared to other individuals in a similar environment. The question of individuals with cognitive impairments and others unconscious of their disabled state was then addressed, and, though there has been comparatively little written about such individuals, their lives and ability to fulfil desires were examined in detail. It was concluded that people who are cognitively impaired should be considered as temporally impaired, and thus possessing the status of children when the definition was used to consider the fulfilment of their desires. The desire based definition was then used to address several issues common to the practical experience of disability including accessibility: the use of environmental adaptations and non-human aids for the fulfilment of desires, human or animal assistance, and the problems inherent in the power relations between disabled and non-disabled individuals. The question of when desires could legitimately be modified to make their fulfilment possible under the conditions of disability was then also considered, which led finally into a discussion of social attitudes to disabled people;since, though according to the desire based definition disability was not identical with such attitudes, it could be heavily affected by them. Some recommendations for the consideration and conduct of disabled and non-disabled individuals were suggested. These began with a discussion of a disabled individual’s need to develop competency in dealing with their disability, and a corresponding problem of society’s insistence upon perceiving disabled individuals as intrinsically different beings. It was suggested that the possible establishment of independent adjudication, in cases where the assessment of a disabled individual’s capabilities was subject to bias, would help to alleviate this damaging social perception. Finally, it was affirmed that disability, though a negative state, was not an uncommon one; it constituted a basic relationship between a person’s involuntary physical or psychological makeup, their desires and the world, and one which most people would at some time experience. Thus it was recommended that the concept of disability needs to be considered as no longer a specialist one, but one that should be part of our usual, everyday relations to our environment, our desires and their fulfilment.

Metadata for user-centred, inclusive access to digital resources: realising the theory of AccessForAll Accessibility

To be inclusive, the Web needs published resources to be matched to individual users’ needs and preferences for their perception and control. In a decade, this has not been achieved and many cannot make use of resources despite having appropriate facilities. This thesis argues that the necessary management of resources can be achieved with well-designed metadata. Demonstration and explanation of the accessibility problems, efforts to solve them and the current state of inaccessibility of Web resources, any resource that is available through the World Wide Web, is fundamental to the research. The author relies heavily on Dublin Core metadata as it is relatively easy to use; is probably the most populous metadata; can be managed with free software systems, and for commercial reasons. The research investigated what makes DC metadata, so apparently simple, powerful enough to be the most popular metadata because there is very little available that explains this. The thesis then documents the scientific view of metadata upon which effective use of metadata can be based in the context of accessibility. It argues, at a practical level, that metadata is essential and integral to any shift to an on-going process approach to accessibility. It contributes to the science of metadata in as much as it analyses, synthesizes, and articulates the characteristics of an essential infrastructure for a new approach to accessibility. The author argues in favour of an on-going process approach to accessibility of resources that supports continuous improvement of any given resource, not necessarily by the author of the resource, and not necessarily by design or with knowledge of the original author, by contributors who may be distributed globally. The thesis argues that the current dependence on production guidelines and post-production evaluation of resources as either universally accessible or otherwise, does not adequately provide for either the accessibility necessary for individuals or the continuous or evolutionary approach possible within the current Web environment. It argues that a distributed, social-networking view of the Web as interactive, combined with a social model of disability, given the management tools of machine-readable, interoperable AccessForAll metadata, as developed, can achieve the desired goals. It raises issues regarding its implementation in the distributed environment of the Web

Interactive Digital Technologies and the User Experience of Time and Place

This research examines the relationship between the development of a portfolio of interactive digital techniques and compositions, and its impact on user experiences of time and place. It is designed to answer two research questions: • What are some effective methods and techniques for evoking an enhanced awareness of past time and place using interactive digital technologies (IDTs)? • How can users play a role in improving the development and impact of interfaces made with IDTs? The principal creative and thematic element of the portfolio is the concept of the palimpsest, and its artistic potential to reveal visual and aural layers that lie behind the landscapes and soundscapes around us. This research thus contributes to an evolving cadre of creative interest in palimpsests, developing techniques and compositions in the context of testing, collating user experience feedback, and improving the ways in which IDTs enable an artistic exploration and realisation of hidden layers, both aural and visual, of the past of place. An iterative theory-composition-testing methodology is developed and applied to optimise techniques for enabling users to navigate multiple layers of content, as well as in finding methods that evoke an increased emotional connection with the past of place. This iterative realisation cycle comprises four stages – of content origination, pre-processing, mapping and user interaction. The user interaction stage of this cycle forms an integral element of the research methodology, involving the techniques being subjected to formalised user experience testing, both to assist with their further refinement and to assess their value in evoking an increased awareness of time and place. Online usability testing gathered 5,451 responses over three years of iterative cycles of composition development and refinement, with more detailed usability labs conducted involving eighteen participants. Usability lab response categories span efficiency, accuracy, recall and emotional response. The portfolio includes a variety of interactive techniques developed and improved during its testing and refinement. User experience feedback data plays an essential role in influencing the development and direction of the portfolio, helping refine techniques to evoke an enhanced awareness of the past of place by identifying those that worked most, and least, effectively for users. This includes an analysis of the role of synthetic and authentic content on user perception of various digital techniques and compositions. The contributions of this research include: • the composition portfolio and the associated IDT techniques originated, developed, tested and refined in its research and creation • the research methodology developed and applied, utilising iterative development of aspects of the portfolio informed by user feedback obtained both online and in usability labs • the findings from user experience testing, in particular the extent to which various visual and aural techniques help evoke a heightened sense of the past of place • an exploration of the extent to which the usability testing substantiates that user responses to the compositions have the potential to establish an evocative connection that communicates a sense close to that of Barthes’ punctum (something that pierces the viewer) rather than solely that of the studium • the role of synthetic and authentic content on user perception and appreciation of the techniques and compositions • the emergence of an analytical framework with the potential for wider application to the development, analysis and design of IDT composition

Genre, Database, and the Anatomy of the Digital Archive

The purpose of this study was to define shared characteristics of literary digital archives, specifically to explore how conceptual and structural qualities of such archives express generic qualities. In order to describe digital media such as database or digital archives, scholars resort to metaphors, and this study offers the metaphor of anatomy as a generic inscription with historical and methodological implications. The definition of the anatomy genre draws from Northrop Frye\u27s in Anatomy of Criticism, in which Frye describes how anatomies are characterized by proliferating lists, the mixing of prose and non-prose forms, and self-reflexivity--under the guise of knowledge accrual, investigation, and discovery. Criticism from digital humanities, new media, historiography, literature, and archival studies informed this research, in particular critical theory on genre and epistemology, and research on physical and digital archives. Because the definitions we apply to our digital technologies are under development, this dissertation participates in the overall emergence of terms in digital humanities theory. Several case studies analyzed the interface and underlying structures of four literary digital archives to consider how they represent the material past, and how design of visual elements and functionality manifest characteristics of the anatomy genre. The case studies suggest that literary websites. exhibits, and archives participate in the anatomy genre. but that some sites are more anatomical than others, and some sites do not align with the genre at all. The ability to designate a digital project as an anatomy depends more on encyclopedism, detailism, and its continual updating, than on any other factors. In addition, my own experience constructing a literary digital archive from historical manuscripts informs this investigation of genre, in particular my role as the researcher-archivist and how identity affects my approach to the archive. Historically, metacommentary has always been part of the anatomy genre, and this study positions methodological criticism as an expression of metacommentary. The study concludes by considering the implications of literary digital archives for scholarship and research, including effects of power, institutional impact, and the profession of English itself, especially in light of the anatomy genre\u27s tendency towards proliferation and unfinishability