The application of the social model of disability and Wilson’s model of information behaviour towards effective service delivery for students with disabilities within an academic library context

This paper explores the applicability of the social model of disability and Wilson’s model of information seeking behaviour for effective service delivery to students with disabilities in the context of academic libraries.The paper is based on a literature review based on Oliver’’s social model of disability and Wilson’s model of information seeking behaviour in relation to service provision to students with disabilities in academic libraries. The literature review provided a background to the two models and their criticisms and implications to academic libraries.This paper shows that despite their respective weaknesses, using the social model of disability and Wilson’s model of information seeking behaviour in the academic library context offers an opportunity for academic libraries to re-look at their systems and services in order to address the different barriers faced by students with disabilities in their day to day information seeking. As libraries acquire and organise their resources, the needs of students with disabilities should always be prioritised. Academic libraries as a key information source in any academic setting have a responsibility to provide information in various formats using various facilities for easy accessibility and use by their diverse users.Access to any form of information is a fundamental human right. Academic libraries must identify and remove barriers that may inhibit information seeking for students with disabilities. Additionally, academic libraries should use multiple facilities to provide information. This will ensure that information needs for users with disabilities are catered for.Keywords: Social model of disability, Wilson’s model of information seeking behaviour, students with disabilities, academic librarie

Disability inequality and the recruitment process: responding to legal and technological developments

This thesis investigates how recruitment and selection practices impose social barriers for disabled people in the UK labour market. Despite the growing use of online recruitment methods adopted by employers, current literature has neglected the reactions of job applicants to web-based recruitment and selection practices from an equality perspective, in particular the voices and experiences of disabled jobseekers and their unequal access to the Internet. The research foregrounds the concepts of inequality regimes and the ideal worker to show that social barriers and disability discrimination occur within recruitment and selection practices and can result in disability inequality, as well as gender, race or class inequality. This thesis demonstrates that the notion of the ideal worker––in general a masculine notion–– is embedded within society and the labour market, and is formed around ableist norms of ‘ideal qualities and behaviour’ that a worker should have, and which views disabled people as less productive compared to non-disabled people. These implicit ideas about the ideal worker can have a significant, although often unintended, effect on recruitment and selection practices and produce inequalities in organisations. Through 22 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with disabled jobseekers and employment advisors from two disabled people’s organisations that worked with these individuals, and 12 interviews with employers over a one-year period, accounts of disability inequality embedded within traditional and online recruitment and selection practices are studied. This research has been designed around emancipatory principles of disability research and emphasises the importance of the social model of disability for disabled people and the disabled people’s movement in the UK. Likewise, it contributes to theoretical literature on the extended social model of disability to highlight that disability occurs because of social oppression associated with relationships, at both the macro and micro scales, between impaired and non-impaired people. The aim of this study has been to represent as genuinely as possible the needs and voices of disabled people and their organisations in order to challenge social arrangements that lead to disability inequality, in recruitment and selection practices via the Internet

Accessibility and disability in the built environment : negotiating the public realm in Thailand

PhD ThesisThis study aims to explore accessibility for disabled people through the concept of social construction of disability. Impaired bodies are mainly disabled by disabling social and physical impediments. The built environment reflects how society understands disability and accessibility. How can disabled people individually and collectively resist, transcend, and change those disabling barriers? This research is qualitative in approach and based on mixed methods. The discussions are divided into two main themes: 1) meaning, and its product of understanding disability, and 2) the process of negotiating inaccessibility. Firstly, understanding of 'pi-gam' or disability is examined through culture representations such as language, literature, and media. Information from secondary data is used together with primary data in the form of in-depth interviews complimented by a postal survey. Through a focus on public facilities the thesis investigates how understandings of disability produce the built environments and what are spatial constraints and needs of disabled people. Secondly, the research investigates processes through which disabled people individually and collectively overcome access barriers. A process of disabled people as a collective in overturning existing socio-political structure to press for their access requirements through a case of footpath renovation project is explored in depth as is a lived experience of a disabled individual in Bangkok. The analyses indicate that disabled people resist an idea of disability linked with individual tragedy and illness by changing language use and reproducing the self through daily life. Performing daily activities in public places can be a way to demonstrate to society as a whole that the common notion of disability equalling dependency is mistaken. By actively participating in the movement, disabled people are overturning this dominant ideology. Fusing access issues with mainstream agendas such as quality of life and contributing to the prestige of an icon in Thai society provides opportunities for disabled people as a collective voice to achieve their access requirements. In sum, by individually and collectively acting as agents for change in challenging popular perceptions, disabled people are drawing attention to the social construction of their disability. It is disabling physical environments that must be excluded not their impaired bodies. This research proposes ways in which the environmental experiences of impaired bodies as well as the role of disabled people as partners in creating accessible facilities can be included in consideration of access policies and their implementation in Thailand

Exploring the psychological and emotional impact of ableism in education and motherhood: a tale of two parts.

Ableism is everywhere. Its practices often operate under the guise of rationality, but they are toxic and pervasive. This programme of research addresses the psychological and emotional consequences of ableism in society, focusing particularly on two fundamental areas of social life: education and motherhood. The thesis will thus be divided into two separate but interrelated projects. Drawing on a range of theoretical orientations - Studies in Ableism (SiA); critical social psychoanalysis; and postconventionalist theories – I consider how the twines of ableism permeate into the concepts of being a ‘good’ student and a ‘good’ mother. Project One interrogates neoliberal ableism within the lives of disabled university students. It is conducted using a research design that reflexively reconsiders normative assumptions concerning the naturalisation of speech and the written word. The findings indicate that disabled students are positioned in the ableist imaginary as unruly and demanding, in stark contrast to the vision of the ‘ideal’ student who is autonomous, self-regulatory, and compliant. This vision can be reabsorbed into the minds of disabled students, leading them to disavow and reject their disability, or endeavour to ‘pass’ as non-disabled. Both these reactions can cause a significant amount of psychological and emotional distress. Project Two seeks to unmask the values that nourish the ideology of motherhood (ableism’s production) and analyse how we as a society reinforce these values (ableism’s performance). It frames the ways in which disabled mothers potentially resist and challenge these normative notions. I use my position as an insider- researcher to strengthen my critical positionality, using my particular vantage point to unravel the complexity of threads that make up the entrenched social perceptions of what it means to be a mother, revealing the rotten core of neoliberal capitalist values at its root. Through this, we can begin to challenge and refuse such limiting concepts. Using postconventionalist theories I position disability as a productive force that refutes neoliberal ableist normativity, and enables new knowledges to be created that incorporate embodied vulnerability and the necessity of living interdependently with others

Internet Human Rights

The rate at which Internet connectivity is spreading is matched only by the increasing amount of time people spend online. Today over 5 billion humans access the Internet; the overwhelming majority of them engage in social media, and almost all of them live out key aspects of their daily lives digitally. Human rights are universal in the sense that they apply to everyone, everywhere. And while there are indicators that they apply in cyberspace, how they apply is a different story. Now, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) turns 75, we wonder how many of those rights accompany us into our digital lives. This article develops a matrix mapping how human rights, which were developed for the physical world, might apply in the digital world. Using the 30 articles (rights) enumerated in the UDHR as a foil, the broad outline of a clearer picture emerges. Some governments or courts mandate certain rights to fully manifest in digital space, others are making progress, and still others remain static. Moreover, these rights can be enforced via either state regulation or corporate terms of service. Designed as the first tool of its kind for attorneys, judges, policymakers, and advocates to chart which rights are accompanying us onto and into the Internet, this guide will be a foundational starting point for a much broader discussion to come

Gambling against Rawls

In A Theory of Justice (1971) John Rawls attempted to solve the problem of distributive justice by combining self-interest, ignorance and risk-aversion. He argued that if self-interested persons in a situation of uncertainty imposed by a veil of ignorance were choosing principles for the basic structure of society, then they would be risk-adverse and choose two principles – The Principle of Equal Liberty and the Difference Principle. Critics have argued against this risk-adverse element of Rawls’ theory but those critics as well as Rawls made certain presuppositions about risk-aversion, risk-taking and gambling. This thesis also examines the risk-aversion in Rawls’ theory but addresses the previous shortfall by exploring the issue of risk and gambling in two interrelated ways. It applies a Foucauldian approach to the history of risk and gambling in order to contextualise the current views and then investigates the contemporary meaning by drawing on research leading up to the UK Gambling Act 2005. Drawing on these findings it argues that not only might risk-taking occur in the original position but that different types of participants could show different degrees of risk-taking behaviour. By exploring the theoretical debates between essentialism and anti-essentialism, it further argues that it is unlikely that the veil of ignorance would be able to screen out those differences. It then employs theories of identity and difference in the work of Heidegger, Deleuze and Lyotard in an attempt to overcome that weakness in Rawls’ theory but finds that this may not be possible. After highlighting a connection between impartiality and gambling, it concludes, in contrast to Rawls, that risk-taking rather than risk-aversion lies at the heart of social justice. The implication of this reversal is that it may have an impact on policy-decisions in other areas of the justice system

Racist disinformation on the Web: the role of anti-racist sites in providing balance

This thesis examines the problem of racist disinformation on the World Wide Web and the role played by anti-racist sites in providing balance. The disinformation capacity of the Web is an important issue for those who provide access to the Web, for content providers, and for Web users. An understanding of the issues involved, including the characteristics of racist disinformation, is vital if these groups are to make informed decisions about how to deal with such Web content. However, in Australia especially, there has been limited research into racism in general and racism on the Web in particular. To address this deficiency, the integration of perspectives from the fields of race relations and information science is facilitated utilising a critical realist methodology to provide new insights. Through an extensive examination of the literature, including Australian media reports, terms are delineated and the problem situated within an historical, cultural and political environment. Alternatives for tackling racist disinformation are evaluated and the issues involved in the provision and utilisation of balancing information are discussed. The literature analysis underpins an assessment of anti-racist sites using three data collection methods to gain multiple perspectives on the balancing qualities of these sites. These methods are an assessment of anti-racist website longevity, an assessment of website reliability, and a questionnaire of content providers of anti-racist websites. This thesis provides a synthesis of the academic literature and media coverage related to Australian racism and racist disinformation on the Web, leading to new insights about the range and depth of issues concerned. An analysis of the data collected concludes that while anti-racist websites take on diverse roles in tackling racism, few provide content directly to balance Web racist disinformation. Approaches that seek to control or censure the Web are ineffective and problematic, but balancing disinformation is not in itself an adequate solution