Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 Competing perspectives on lifelong learning and their implications for people with learning difficulties
- 2 Policy discourses and lifelong learning
- 3 Social justice and post-school education and training for people with learning difficulties
- 4 Lifelong learning for people with learning difficulties
- 5 Access to the open labour market by people with learning difficulties
- 6 Participation in supported employment
- 7 Community care, employment and benefits
- 8 Social capital, lifelong learning and people with learning difficulties
- 9 Regulated lives
- 10 Conclusion: Implications of different versions of the Learning Society for people with learning difficulties
- References
- Appendix 1 Researching the lives of people with learning difficulties: lessons from the research process
- Appendix 2 The statutory framework
- Index
Appendix 1 - Researching the lives of people with learning difficulties: lessons from the research process
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 Competing perspectives on lifelong learning and their implications for people with learning difficulties
- 2 Policy discourses and lifelong learning
- 3 Social justice and post-school education and training for people with learning difficulties
- 4 Lifelong learning for people with learning difficulties
- 5 Access to the open labour market by people with learning difficulties
- 6 Participation in supported employment
- 7 Community care, employment and benefits
- 8 Social capital, lifelong learning and people with learning difficulties
- 9 Regulated lives
- 10 Conclusion: Implications of different versions of the Learning Society for people with learning difficulties
- References
- Appendix 1 Researching the lives of people with learning difficulties: lessons from the research process
- Appendix 2 The statutory framework
- Index
Summary
Disabled people, identities and the research process
Research is clearly not a neutral activity, but may be used to support or subvert dominant social discourses. In Oliver's view, research in the area of disability has hitherto been a conservative rather than a radical force. He comments:
Disabled people have come to see research as a violation of their experience, as irrelevant to their needs and as failing to improve their material circumstances and quality of life. (Oliver, 1992, p 105)
In developing a more democratic disability research paradigm, two strands have emerged, participatory and emancipatory research. The distinction between these is not altogether clear; sometimes the terms are used interchangeably and at other times participatory research is seen as a stepping-stone towards emancipatory research. French and Swain (1997), for example, argue that the key difference lies in their contrasting relationship with the social model of disability:
Emancipatory research espouses a social model of disability where the foci for research are the physical and social barriers within society that prevent disabled people leading full and active lives. Although participatory research may give support to the social model of disability, it is not inherently associated with it. In emancipatory research the research processes themselves and the outcomes of research are part of the liberation of disabled people – that is part of the process of changing society to ensure their full participation and citizenship. This is not just a process of empowerment as in participatory research, where research participants may be given opportunities to tell their own stories and analyse their own situation, but in terms of disabled people taking control of the research processes which shape their lives. The processes and products of emancipatory research are used by disabled people as tools towards the achievement of their liberation. Emancipatory research is thus a form of educational and political action. (1997, p 28)
Stalker (1998) summarises the main beliefs of emancipatory and participatory research thus:
First, that conventional relationships, whereby the researcher is the ‘expert’ and the researched merely the object of investigation, are inequitable; secondly, that people have the right to be consulted about and involved in research which is involved in issues affecting their lives and, thirdly, that the quality and relevance of research is improved when disabled people are closely involved in the process. (1998, p 6)
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Learning Society and People with Learning Difficulties , pp. 223 - 238Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2001