Examines how civil rights legislation impacts the lives of ordinary Americans, drawing on the experiences of sixty interviewees that have been victims of discrimination to discuss how civil rights impacted their lives.
Should a court order medical treatment for a severely disabled newborn in the face of the parents' refusal to authorize it? How does the law apply to a neighborhood that objects to a group home for developmentally disabled people? Does equality mean treating everyone the same, even if such treatment affects some people adversely? Does a state requirement of employee maternity leave serve or violate the commitment to gender equality?Martha Minow takes a hard look at the way our legal system functions in dealing with people on the basis of race, gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability. Minow confronts a variety of dilemmas of difference resulting from contradictory legal strategies—strategies that attempt to correct inequalities by sometimes recognizing and sometimes ignoring differences. Exploring the historical sources of ideas about difference, she offers challenging alternative ways of conceiving of traits that legal and social institutions have come to regard as "different." She argues, in effect, for a constructed jurisprudence based on the ability to recognize and work with perceptible forms of difference.Minow is passionately interested in the people—"different" people—whose lives are regularly (mis)shaped and (mis)directed by the legal system's ways of handling them. Drawing on literary and feminist theories and the insights of anthropology and social history, she identifies the unstated assumptions that tend to regenerate discrimination through the very reforms that are supposed to eliminate it. Education for handicapped children, conflicts between job and family responsibilities, bilingual education, Native American land claims—these are among the concrete problems she discusses from a fresh angle of vision.Minow firmly rejects the prevailing conception of the self that she believes underlies legal doctrine—a self seen as either separate and autonomous, or else disabled and incompetent in some way. In contrast, she regards the self as being realized through connection, capable of shaping an identity only in relationship to other people. She shifts the focus for problem solving from the "different" person to the relationships that construct that difference, and she proposes an analysis that can turn "difference" from a basis of stigma and a rationale for unequal treatment into a point of human connection. "The meanings of many differences can change when people locate and revise their relationships to difference," she asserts. "The student in a wheelchair becomes less different when the building designed without him in mind is altered to permit his access." Her book evaluates contemporary legal theories and reformulates legal rights for women, children, persons with disabilities, and others historically identified as different.Here is a powerful voice for change, speaking to issues that permeate our daily lives and form a central part of the work of law. By illuminating the many ways in which people differ from one another, this book shows how lawyers, political theorist, teachers, parents, students—every one of us—can make all the difference,
With Inclusion, Steven Epstein argues that strategies to achieve diversity in medical research mask deeper problems, ones that might require a different approach and different solutions. Formal concern with this issue, Epstein shows, is a fairly recent phenomenon. Until the mid-1980s, scientists often studied groups of white, middle-aged men - and assumed that conclusions drawn from studying them would apply to the rest of the population. But struggles involving advocacy groups, experts, and Congress led to reforms that forced researchers to diversify the population from which they drew for clinical research. While the prominence of these inclusive practices has offered hope to traditionally underserved groups, Epstein argues that it has drawn attention away from the tremendous inequalities in health that are rooted not in biology but in society. This edition is in two volumes. The second volume ISBN is 9781458732194.
The book provides multiple perspectives and insights on the area of Inclusion, Equity and Access for people with disabilities and brings together various inclusive effective practices from 21 countries across the world most comprehensively in one book. The book documents perspectives from educational researchers and teacher educators through first-hand experience using cutting-edge research and conceptual understandings, thought processes, and reflections. The book brings together various methodologies to expose scientific truths in the area of disability and inclusion. Chapter authors utilize a self-reflective stance, representing state of the art theory and practice for exploring notions of disability. Authors examine cultural relational practices, common values and beliefs, and shared experiences for the purpose of helping cultural members and cultural strangers better understand interdependent factors. Each chapter is an attempt to unravel a thought provoking, comprehensive, and thorough understanding of the challenges and abilities of individuals with disabilities shaped by their own culture, society and country, re-engaging the promise of scientific research as a generative form of inquiry. The book is designed to be of use to a wide range of professionals; researchers, practitioners, advocates, special educators and parents providing information and or discussions on educational needs, health care provisions, and social services irrespective of country and culture.
Social inclusion is often used interchangeably with the terms social cohesion, social integration, and social participation, positioning social exclusion as the opposite. This book provides a thorough conceptual review and search for domestic and international perspectives of social inclusion and disability. It highlights and responds to core questions related to social inclusion of people with disabilities nationally and internationally.
Intended for parents, general and special education teachers, Inclusion: The Dream and the Reality in Special Education is a book about laws and practices that impact the inclusion of students with disabilities in public schools. Each chapter illustrates a child who presents a challenging problem. The book presents inclusion issues through compelling stories. People rarely change their attitude based on facts. Stories can change the way we think and feel about issues. Written by a college professor, teacher candidates find these experiences hilarious or tragic, but always illuminating. As new teachers they must be prepared to confront the important challenge in our schools- reaching every single student, black, white, indifferent or frightened. This is the secret strength and wonder of the American educational system.
This book examines several aspects of the equality and non-discrimination norms in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In the first instance, the book provides an interpretation and critical analysis of the legal meaning of the principles of equality and non-discrimination in the context of the CRPD. It analyses the extent to which the concepts of equality and non-discrimination contained in the Convention fit within the various theoretical models of disability and conceptions of equality that have been elaborated to date by scholars. It also compares the theoreotical framework of equality in the CRPD to that contained in other international human rights treaties which preceded the Convention. In addition, States' obligations under the Convention are teased out. A particular focus throughout this book is on the manner in which the equality and non-discrimination norms in the CRPD can increase participation and inclusion in society of persons with disabilities. This book also examines in detail an integral component of the equality norm, namely the duty to reasonably accommodate persons with disabilities and, in particular, its outer limits. In that regard, the book analyses whether the balancing and sharing of burdens inherent in the accommodation duty can teach us lessons about the overall balancing of burdens and interests implicit in many Convention rights subject to progressive realisation. Following on from that, this book devises a framework for review of measures adopted by States in the overall context of the progressive realisation of disability rights, with a particular emphasis on how the CRPD's equality norm might strengthen the realisation of socio-economic rights for disabled people. That framework of review criteria is then applied to the right to education and the accessibility obligation incumbent on States under the CRPD. Finally, this book investigates how the equality and non-discrimination norms in the Convention have already influenced, and can potentially influence, the crucial shape of disability equality case law and policy. In that connection, a case study is carried out on the Council of Europe mechanisms, in order to assess whether the CRPD is having an influence on disability law and policy at the regional level. This book demonstrates the fact that the CRPD holds enormous promise for the future application of the equality and non-discrimination norms in relation to the rights of persons with disabilities. Notwithstanding this, significant challenges lie ahead in the realisation of de facto equality for persons with disabilities. (Series: School of Human Rights Research, Volume 74) Subject: Human Rights Law]
Young people are told that college is a place where they will “find themselves” by engaging with diversity and making friendships that will last a lifetime. This vision of an inclusive, diverse social experience is a fundamental part of the image colleges sell potential students. But what really happens when students arrive on campus and enter this new social world? The Cost of Inclusion delves into this rich moment to explore the ways students seek out a sense of belonging and the sacrifices they make to fit in. Blake R. Silver spent a year immersed in student life at a large public university. He trained with the Cardio Club, hung out with the Learning Community, and hosted service events with the Volunteer Collective. Through these day-to-day interactions, he witnessed how students sought belonging and built their social worlds on campus. Over time, Silver realized that these students only achieved inclusion at significant cost. To fit in among new peers, they clung to or were pushed into raced and gendered cultural assumptions about behavior, becoming “the cool guy,” “the nice girl,” “the funny one,” “the leader,” “the intellectual,” or “the mom of the group.” Instead of developing dynamic identities, they crafted and adhered to a cookie-cutter self, one that was rigid and two-dimensional. Silver found that these students were ill-prepared for the challenges of a diverse college campus, and that they had little guidance from their university on how to navigate the trials of social engagement or the pressures to conform. While colleges are focused on increasing the diversity of their enrolled student body, Silver’s findings show that they need to take a hard look at how they are failing to support inclusion once students arrive on campus.
Society is obsessed with categorising and treating individuals and groups according to their physical and non-physical differences, such as sex, gender, disability and race. This treatment can lead to the inclusion or exclusion of an individual from the tangible and intangible benefits of society. Where this practice becomes discriminatory, legal frameworks can protect human rights and ensure that people are treated with due respect for their similarities and differences. In a sporting context, the inclusion and exclusion of athletes based upon their differences is often a necessary part of the essence of competitive sporting activity, arranged around rules and categories that can have an unequal exclusionary impact on certain classes of individual. Dominant sporting cultures can also have exclusionary effects. This important and innovative book seeks to investigate the socio-legal and regulatory balance between inclusion and exclusion in competitive sport. It critically analyses a range of legal and non-legal cases concerning sport-specific inclusion and exclusion in the areas of sex, gender, disability and race, including those cases involving Oscar Pistorius, Caster Semenya and Luis Suarez, to identify the extent to which the law and sport adopt a justifiable and legitimate inclusive or exclusive approach to participation. The book explores national and international regulatory frameworks, identifying deficiencies and good practice, and concludes with recommendations for regulatory reform. Inclusion and Exclusion in Competitive Sport is important reading for anybody with an interest in the relationship between sport and wider society, sports development, sport management, sports law, or socio-legal studies.