This article examines the status and place of deaf sportsmen and sportswomen both within the deaf community and in the wider sporting world. The "silent" sports movement has a long history, dating back to the late 19th century, and has been revitalized with the reorganization of deaf sport since the beginning of the 21st century. The theoretical framework is structured around the concept of identity and its manifestations in the context of deafness and sport. The field survey was conducted via a questionnaire on sports distributed to deaf people. The research question was whether they considered themselves to be Deaf people pursuing a sport (Deaf athletes) or athletes who happen to be deaf (deaf sportspeople). The initial results on the intersection between identity, deafness and sport highlight three dimensions, present to varying degrees: the social aspect of sport as a vehicle for sociability, the political side to sport as a form of activism, and the sporting component where performance is the central issue.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease with a wide variety of impacts on individuals. Research on living conditions for persons with MS has mainly focused on medical, or medical-related, aspects of the disease. The aim of this study was to explore and analyze experiences of disability among persons with MS in Sweden. The study sample consisted of 23 persons with MS who participated in individual interviews and were free to define disability (Swedish: funktionshinder) based on their own experiences. Participants shared accounts that involved both their disease symptoms, interaction with non-disabled people, and various structural aspects. A critical realist understanding of disability encompasses these aspects and was therefore chosen as the framework for the analysis. The concepts of impairment effects, psycho-emotional disablism, and disablism were used to supplement the analysis and provide a deeper understanding of participants' experiences. Reference groups were included in the initial part of the analysis process and confirmed that the analysis that had been initiated was understandable and reasonable. The study demonstrates that disability is not a static condition but a fluid one, which in many instances can be counteracted by social measures. Several implications for practice are suggested based on the results.
The article presents a sociological analysis of the experiences of deaf children and their parents, focusing on the normalization processes at work in their everyday lives. Drawing on qualitative research data, it examines how normality emerges and is produced through the normalization work carried out by different actors. The analysis highlights the collective yet unevenly shared nature of this work, as well as its diverse modalities: from the negotiation to the collective redefinition of daily practices, grounded in audiocentric frameworks, and including the normification enacted by the children themselves. This study thus contributes to a broader reflection on the everyday production of normality, emphasizing the importance of considering the lived experiences of deaf children and their families as a whole and across various life settings.
Death, dying, and grieving are integral dimensions of everyday life in the powerchair hockey (PCH) community. PCH is a team sport for people with physical disabilities whose average life expectancy is lower than 30 years. Drawing on an ethnography of PCH in Switzerland and informed by symbolic interactionism, this study aims to understand the collective work done throughout the death trajectory of players within the PCH community and the meanings that emerge through these practices. Players frame the trajectories of death that occur within the PCH community in opposition to the way outsiders perceive their deaths. As their health worsens and new disabilities emerge, players adapt their role and adjust their participation in PCH, striving to remain useful to the group. When a player dies, those involved in PCH celebrate their lives and memories, and these rituals allow players to prepare for their deaths. Grieving deceased players and honoring their legacy gives value to their lives, in contrast to broader narratives outside the PCH, that may deem their lives of little value or even not worth living. Additionally, this social organization of death is also performative of the value of players’ lives. Thus, the players become grievable, thereby contributing to a reversal of stigma.
Cet article vise à expliquer l’histoire des Cordées – type d’échanges épistolaires entre personnes en grande dépendance pour les actes de la vie quotidienne – impulsées et structurées au sein de l’APF France Handicap à partir de 1932 et ayant encore cours aujourd’hui. Le matériau analysé est composé de lettres et d’interviews de cordistes, d’articles issus de la revue Faire Face et de la newsletter l’Edelweiss. Ces données ont permis de remonter aux origines des Cordées et de proposer une présentation en quatre étapes de leur évolution: le recours aux cahiers circulants, la structuration des cordées en parallèle d’une croissance puis d’une décroissance du nombre de cordistes, la transformation de la composition sociale des cordées avec l’ouverture aux personnes valides et proches aidants, et, enfin les cordées d’aujourd’hui avec le passage au numérique, une diversification thématique et une décroissance importante du nombre de cordistes.
Stereotypes of women and people with disabilities can be a source of discrimination. Recent models of social judgments distinguish between two main dimensions of stereotypes – warmth (i.e., sociability, morality) and competence (i.e., motivation, ability to achieve objectives). In the present study, we used Louvet and Rohmer’s (2010) paradigm to test the effect of the intersection of gender and disability on social judgments of a person’s warmth, competence, and a third dimension of stereotypes – courage. Participants judged men, women, or people (target of unspecified gender) who had or who did not have a physical disability. The results showed that both men with disabilities and women (with and without disabilities) were considered less competent but warmer than men without disabilities. Additionally, courage was a core dimension of judgments of the targets with disabilities: All the targets with disabilities were judged as more courageous than the targets without disabilities. We discuss these results in the light of previous studies of stereotypes and of the social status of discriminated groups. Perceiving women and people with disabilities as courageous but not competent is a way of justifying social discrimination, including workplace discrimination.
Investigating the institutionalization of inclusive higher education, the study focuses on how such policies and programs have evolved in Germany and Luxembourg. Embedded in transnational discourses on academic excellence, democracy, and inclusion, the latter bolstered by global ratification of human rights charters (UN-CRPD), the analysis draws on neo-institutionalist theory and the sociology of values to examine the on-going tension between universities’ commitments to academic excellence and their obligations to recognize diversity and to promote equity, justice, and inclusion. While diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs refer to human rights, they often serve as part of strategies to bolster university reputations in competitive markets. Increasingly worldwide, contemporary political backlash has challenged the legitimacy and scope of DEI agendas. Raising questions about (de)institutionalization dynamics, we compare three research universities – Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, and the Université du Luxembourg – through document analysis of DEI strategies and programs. These publicly funded organizations represent varying models of university governance. While these research universities have adopted DEI frameworks, the extent and orientation differ, shaped by organizational type and age, national and local context, and strategic priorities. The findings contribute to our understanding of persistent competing logics and values of excellence and inclusion in higher education.
The primary form of communication for people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) is embodied communication, tailored to individual forms of expression. Adults with PIMD often live in group homes and while it is their home, it is the workplace of their support workers. This tension is recognised in research related to group homes and this article aims to contribute to this literature by highlighting the tension between bureaucratic structures and responding to individual needs. Using an ethnographic approach and Swedish LSS and German BTHG as examples of European welfare policy, we show the impact of bureaucracy on the communication of people with PIMD in group homes and daily activity centres. With Tronto’s theory of feminist ethics of care and Merleau-Ponty’s notion of intercorporality, we highlight the suppression of mutuality in interactions between carers and people with PIMD through institutionalised contexts. Despite the differences in institutional and policy infrastructures, the barriers encountered by people with PIMD in terms of communication are remarkably similar in both countries. A bureaucracy that values individual bodily forms of expression as much as verbal communication is necessary to enable access to participation for people with PIMD.
This article focuses on the dynamics of inclusive education in the German school system by examining official statistics on pupils with formal individual education plans (IEPs) in special and general schools since 2007. An IEP manifests that a pupil with a formally identified disability receives specialised schooling, instruction, extra support, or related services. German IEPs, although they are assumed to have educational consequences, draw heavily on medical categorisations based on DSM and WHO definitions of disabilities and disorders. For this reason, IEPs show the peculiar relationship between medical and (special) education logic in inclusive and special education. From our longitudinal perspective, several intriguing phenomena illustrate frictions and regulative failures when inclusive education is implemented in country-specific school systems. We show that in the German case, the number of pupils with IEPs enrolled in general secondary schools has increased significantly. At the same time, the number of pupils in special schools remains stable. Moreover, only certain school forms are drivers of inclusive education in a tracked system such as the German system. Finally, we show the dynamic nature of special education categories employed for the pupil population with IEPs enrolled in general schools over time. Certain IEP categories grow in number while others decrease or stay stable. By applying a system-theoretical approach, we explain such dynamics as being due to opposing logics in health and education systems, which must be balanced in the practice of inclusive education.
All children have the right to a preschool and school where they feel safe, where they receive the support they need and are given good conditions for acquiring the knowledge and the skills they need to live good lives. However, multiple studies and reports indicate that many children and pupils with disabilities are not given the sense of security, the support or the good conditions to which they are entitled. Our knowledge is fragmented and has significant gaps, which makes it difficult to monitor how the conditions for children and pupils with disabilities develop over time. It also makes it difficult to assess how well interventions targeting this group are working. This means that education and disability policies, public authorities, school authorities and other actors do not have an adequate knowledge base to implement the right of all children and pupils to a good education and to counter the consequences of having a disability. This article summarises and discusses the results of a national enquiry in Sweden, which sought to create a national system for sustainable knowledge collection about the learning outcomes, support for and social situation of pupils with disabilities. This system would allow these conditions to be described, analysed and monitored over time. The enquiry focused in particular on the ethical aspects of increased knowledge collection based on disability.More and better knowledge is crucial if we are to realise the ambitions of a well-functioning inclusive school and a fully inclusive future life for people with disabilities.
Investigating the institutionalization of inclusive higher education, the study focuses on how such policies and programs have evolved in Germany and Luxembourg. Embedded in transnational discourses on academic excellence, democracy, and inclusion, the latter bolstered by global ratification of human rights charters (UN-CRPD), the analysis draws on neo-institutionalist theory and the sociology of values to examine the on-going tension between universities' commitments to academic excellence and their obligations to recognize diversity and to promote equity, justice, and inclusion. While diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs refer to human rights, they often serve as part of strategies to bolster university reputations in competitive markets. Increasingly worldwide, contemporary political backlash has challenged the legitimacy and scope of DEI agendas. Raising questions about (de)institutionalization dynamics, we compare three research universities - Goethe Universitat Frankfurt, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, and the Universite du Luxembourg - through document analysis of DEI strategies and programs. These publicly funded organizations represent varying models of university governance. While these research universities have adopted DEI frameworks, the extent and orientation differ, shaped by organizational type and age, national and local context, and strategic priorities. The findings contribute to our understanding of persistent competing logics and values of excellence and inclusion in higher education.
Investigating the institutionalization of inclusive higher education, the study focuses on how such policies and programs have evolved in Germany and Luxembourg. Embedded in transnational discourses on academic excellence, democracy, and inclusion, the latter bolstered by global ratification of human rights charters (UN-CRPD), the analysis draws on neo-institutionalist theory and the sociology of values to examine the on-going tension between universities' commitments to academic excellence and their obligations to recognize diversity and to promote equity, justice, and inclusion. While diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs refer to human rights, they often serve as part of strategies to bolster university reputations in competitive markets. Increasingly worldwide, contemporary political backlash has challenged the legitimacy and scope of DEI agendas. Raising questions about (de)institutionalization dynamics, we compare three research universities-Goethe Universit & auml;t Frankfurt, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit & auml;t Erlangen-N & uuml;rnberg, and the Universit & eacute; du Luxembourg-through document analysis of DEI strategies and programs. These publicly funded organizations represent varying models of university governance. While these research universities have adopted DEI frameworks, the extent and orientation differ, shaped by organizational type and age, national and local context, and strategic priorities. The findings contribute to our understanding of persistent competing logics and values of excellence and inclusion in higher education.
This article focuses on the dynamics of inclusive education in the German school system by examining official statistics on pupils with formal individual education plans (IEPs) in special and general schools since 2007. An IEP manifests that a pupil with a formally identified disability receives specialised schooling, instruction, extra support, or related services. German IEPs, although they are assumed to have educational consequences, draw heavily on medical categorisations based on DSM and WHO definitions of disabilities and disorders. For this reason, IEPs show the peculiar relationship between medical and (special) education logic in inclusive and special education. From our longitudinal perspective, several intriguing phenomena illustrate frictions and regulative failures when inclusive education is implemented in country-specific school systems. We show that in the German case, the number of pupils with IEPs enrolled in general secondary schools has increased significantly. At the same time, the number of pupils in special schools remains stable. Moreover, only certain school forms are drivers of inclusive education in a tracked system such as the German system. Finally, we show the dynamic nature of special education categories employed for the pupil population with IEPs enrolled in general schools over time. Certain IEP categories grow in number while others decrease or stay stable. By applying a system-theoretical approach, we explain such dynamics as being due to opposing logics in health and education systems, which must be balanced in the practice of inclusive education.
All children have the right to a preschool and school where they feel safe, where they receive the support they need and are given good conditions for acquiring the knowledge and the skills they need to live good lives. However, multiple studies and reports indicate that many children and pupils with disabilities are not given the sense of security, the support or the good conditions to which they are entitled. Our knowledge is fragmented and has significant gaps, which makes it difficult to monitor how the conditions for children and pupils with disabilities develop over time. It also makes it difficult to assess how well interventions targeting this group are working. This means that education and disability policies, public authorities, school authorities and other actors do not have an adequate knowledge base to implement the right of all children and pupils to a good education and to counter the consequences of having a disability. This article summarises and discusses the results of a national enquiry in Sweden, which sought to create a national system for sustainable knowledge collection about the learning outcomes, support for and social situation of pupils with disabilities. This system would allow these conditions to be described, analysed and monitored over time. The enquiry focused in particular on the ethical aspects of increased knowledge collection based on disability. More and better knowledge is crucial if we are to realise the ambitions of a well-functioning inclusive school and a fully inclusive future life for people with disabilities.
The study aims at identifying and critically interrogating the structure and performativity of policy discourses conditioning the referral process preceding enrollment of students with migration background in accommodated compulsory schools for children with intellectual disability (ACS) in Sweden. 620 policy texts have been reviewed after an initial search, with four texts included. Two main identified discourses are difference and homogenization of experiences, and deficiency. The underlying discursive practice generating and reflecting discourses is the "culturalization" of the referral process, enabled by: the gap between policy as text and policy as practice; location of the root of the gap and concomitant tensions in the value-laden social constructions of parents and children as a culturally different and homogenous group; a call for social (policy) action urging professionals to devise their strategies based on those very value-laden constructions of "culturalized" difference. One major conclusion is that the construction of "culturalized" difference in discourses significantly conditions the referral process, diverting attention away from understanding the nature of learning disability to understanding migration background. I argue that overrepresentation of children with migration background in ACS is created in and through this unreflexive maneuver, ascertained by unequal power relations between policy actors.
This article examines gatekeeping processes in the identification of special educational needs (SEN) students in complex administrative structures in Germany. Although the categorisation of children as "in need of special educational support" is regulated differently across nations, Germany is a telling case among welfare states. Despite the increasing standardisation of procedures in the identification of SEN, the rates of special educational support in the German federal states vary greatly. The experts responsible for identifying SEN students in schools seem to play a key role in allocating resources. We discuss how educational administrators are involved as gatekeepers in identifying SEN and shaping children's educational pathways. An analysis of legal requirements for determining SEN and interviews (N = 11) with educational administrators in five federal German states form the database for this article. The results show that the German assessment process focuses on children's alleged deficits to determine their status and generate resources, but is rarely challenged by the gatekeepers of this process, even though the process is highly complex and has unclear, far-reaching consequences.
The primary form of communication for people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) is embodied communication, tailored to individual forms of expression. Adults with PIMD often live in group homes and while it is their home, it is the workplace of their support workers. This tension is recognised in research related to group homes and this article aims to contribute to this literature by highlighting the tension between bureaucratic structures and responding to individual needs. Using an ethnographic welfare policy, we show the impact of bureaucracy on the communication of people with PIMD in group homes and daily activity centres. With Tronto's theory of feminist ethics of care and Merleau-Ponty's notion of intercorporality, we highlight the suppression of mutuality in interactions between carers and people with PIMD through institutionalised contexts. Despite the differences in institutional and policy infrastructures, the barriers encountered by people with PIMD in terms of communication are remarkably similar in both countries. A bureaucracy that values individual bodily forms of expression as much as verbal communication is necessary to enable access to participation for people with PIMD.
This article explains the history of the Cord & eacute;es. This form of correspondence between people with disabilities was initiated and organized by the French association APF France Handicap as early as 1932 and continues to this day. The material that was analyzed includes letters and interviews with participants, as well as articles from Faire Face magazine and the Edelweiss newsletter. A four-stage presentation of the origins and evolution of the Epistolary Rope Teams is presented: 1) the passed-around notebooks, 2) the Cord & eacute;es structuration, with an increase and then decrease in participants, 3) the Cord & eacute;es' social composition transformation, with the inclusion of ablebodied people and family caregivers, and 4) today's Cord & eacute;es, with the switch to digital technology, thematic diversification, and a significant decrease in participants.
This article explains the history of the Cord & eacute;es. This form of correspondence between people with disabilities was initiated and organized by the French association APF France Handicap as early as 1932 and continues to this day. The material that was analyzed includes letters and interviews with participants, as well as articles from Faire Face magazine and the Edelweiss newsletter. A four-stage presentation of the origins and evolution of the Epistolary Rope Teams is presented: 1) the passed-around notebooks, 2) the Cord & eacute;es structuration, with an increase and then decrease in participants, 3) the Cord & eacute;es' social composition transformation, with the inclusion of able-bodied people and family caregivers, and 4) today's Cord & eacute;es, with the switch to digital technology, thematic diversification, and a significant decrease in participants.
