Composing inclusive learning and teaching culture: a case-study

We have reacted to the voices of inequality by the ideals of the Equality Act (2010). The task is no smaller for us than designing curriculums that attempt to consider in the United Kingdom over 350 mental disorders (WHO 2010), 50 religions, 85 ethnic groups, 100 languages; and dozens of gender, marital, maternal, disability and sexuality identities across the life-span (ONS 2011). How can we avoid these issues being reduced to the question of the numbers? It remains a key consideration of such topics that the statistical differences embedded in our constantly changing constructed values and political interests will guide much of these decisions. Creating inclusive learning and teaching culture has become one of the top priorities to widen participation and foster diverse communities. Yet, the way to reach it remains complex that the case study of Maya, Jack and Phantas Magnolia aims to illustrate. The way forward could be moving away from the desires of single and universal solutions towards learning and teaching environments that are open, fluid and transparent to the inherent difficulties and conflicts in an attempt to compose inclusivity

The remarkable everyday lives of people with hidden dis/ability: a material-semiotic analysis

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.My research concentrates on conditions including autism, intellectual disability and mental health. I explore the ways they are used to establish the divisions required by diagnostic criteria in the separated health and social approaches to care. Defining conditions rather than performances has resulted in a neglect of the consideration of connectivity. My project employs Actor-Network-Theory, and Latour’s and Baudrillard’s philosophy, to reconsider the specific metaphysical and ontological issues of how, when and why we judge hidden dis/ability as a universal and essential thing, rather than one constantly formed and performed (perFormed), solved and dissolved (disSolved), produced and reproduced (reProduced) by diverse human and non-human actors in complex webs of connections. I composed the 6D material-semiotic network practice to offer a new ontological ‘seeing’ of how the associations and significations of hidden dis/ability are produced, represented and thus consumed. I found that exploring the everyday performances of hidden dis/ability with the 6D material-semiotic network practice might not verify the apparently universal, fragmented and permanent notions that the distinct categories imply. I conclude that hidden dis/ability can be considered as in a constant state of transformation which, when people are left to their own devices, composes capacities for shared cultural experiences and practices dismantling long-held ideas, and will be one of the benefits giving opportunities to rethink how we provide apposite care, services and inclusion for the conditions

Structuring your choices: the literature review road-map

The article is an example of a visual map of the literature review on a page. Such a road-map or concept map structures the literature and helps readers grasp the key threads and messages, including the theoretical positioning of your review. This review looked at the genealogy of hidden dis/ability based on Latour's and Baudrillard's work

Stories of Connectedness

My work focuses on how participation in mundane, ordinary and specific events create or not connections

Creating a research culture in nursing education - the Ref, the TEF and the KEF.

Higher Education Institutions are measured against the REF (Research England n.d.), the TEF (OfS 2018) and the emerging KEF (UK Research and Innovation n.d.). In other words, nursing lecturers are facing the task to developing a research-informed teaching, and their link with local communities in terms of quantities and outcomes (Rolfe 2016). Whilst a clear link exists between research, teaching and knowledge exchange (Johnson 2017; Jackson 2018), it is rather obscure how to achieve such balances in nursing. This desktop research has explored the challenges and opportunities in creating a research culture in nursing education

Rendering the invisible visible

Research to date has largely focused on individual conditions such as autism, intellectual disability, dementia, and mental disorders rather than the shared experiences of hidden disabilities. One major drawback is that these conditions remain separated in most area of both the medical and the social practices that adversely affects people living with the conditions. This thesis argues that the binary oppositions between nature/culture, the medical/social models of disability continue to reinforce the fragmentation of services, the proliferation of labels and the perception that hidden disabilities are independent and definite. The central argument of this thesis is that hidden disabilities have never been a stable, fixed and ordered reality but they are repeatedly perFormed, disSolved and reProduced in the complex interactions of multiple human and non-human actors within webs of connections. Networks temporarily stabilise, and labels help create the impression that hidden disabilities are definite and permanent states. Hidden disabilities have always been seen as a reflection of physical disabilities in the mirror. Therefore, it is significant to investigate hidden disabilities by the material-semiotic approach of Actor-Network-Theory to attempt to transform the concept of hidden disabilities and formulate a working model. The research will also show, through case studies of various conditions, that people living with hidden cognitive differences do not need reasonable adjustments because they are disabled. They need reasonable adjustments to prevent them from becoming disabled. This can lead to the development of novel approaches in working with complexities to raise awareness, strengthen self-advocacy and influence policies

Composing 6d material-semiotic-network practice to re-assemble hidden dis/ability and the everyday performance

The development of a novel material-semiotic analytic and theoretical way of seeing My research concentrates on conditions including autism, intellectual disability and mental health. Defining conditions by diagnostic criteria establish divisions (fragmentation and separation of professions, policies and services) and has resulted in a neglect of the considerations of connectivity and capacity. Therefore, I was left curiously wondering how we could reconsider hidden dis/ability as the enactment of all the actors that constantly perForm, disSolve and reProduce hidden dis/ability. I applied Actor-Network-Theory, Latour’s and Baudrillard’s philosophy to develop a new analytic and theoretical way of seeing the everyday performances as associations and significations of things and signs composing capacities. I established the 6D material-semiotic network practice (details, dimensions, dynamics, dispositions, dislocations, descriptions) for noticing, selecting and ordering the material, abstract and discursive actors, the actions and the connections that might signify hidden dis/ability. The 6D practice is a novel way to explore the many actors and their connections, the complex, the silenced and the beautiful hidden. The 6D lets us see the performances with all their makings being in a constant state of transformation which, when people are left to their own devices, composes capacities for shared cultural practices dismantling long-held ideas about hidden dis/ability. The 6D practice offers this type of curiosity as an alternative way of seeing, constantly re-evaluating where we are and what future we wish to negotiate

A solution focused consideration of cyberchondria

In this chapter, the authors consider the digital space and its technologically enabling effects on clients suffering from cyberchondria. Anonymised accounts are used to explore how, in the digital space of cyberchondria, rational people like Paul, Simon, and Tracy are broken down into assembly of compulsive behaviours and anxiety, always with an escalating nature. Using solution focused techniques like ‘the miracle question', ‘exception seeking', ‘problem free talk', and ‘detailing scales', the authors share their experiences of the murder and snake oil that is cyberchondria. They review how the literal and hypothetical ideals of solution focused practice offer new perspectives to the treatment of cyberchondria as clients require not logic but hope to retake control of their post-cyberchondria recovery

Best Hopes to Preferred Futures: Translating Burnout with Nursing Orientated Solution Focused Conversations

The authors are trained nurses who have worked with, researched and taught vulnerable groups in mental health and learning disabilities in a variety of settings, and like many health and social care professionals, also experienced the effects of burnout. In this article, they explore solution focused (SF) conversations and their use in the issue of burnout in nursing. First, the authors consider the current literature on nursing burnout to set a scene for appreciating how SF offers a different conversational approach for nurses. Second, particularly, concepts of ‘best hopes’, ‘preferred futures’ and other useful techniques of ‘difference’ aim to help nurses re-evaluate burnout. Once practitioners begin to translate some of the SF theory into conversational practice, they can build a different relationship with what it means to be burnt out. And third, the authors offer a few figures and infographics on how to translate SF conversations to nurses who, given the chance, are more than capable of ‘ferrying themselves’ and others through the murky waters of burnout.</p