Providing a focus on meaningful involvement and participation in communities and activities of choice, that secure benefits for all, the chapter authors examine both innovative evidence-based practices that facilitate transition, and potential barriers, supplemented by informative case studies.
A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation brings together key thinkers and practitioners from diverse contexts across the globe to provide an authoritative overview of contemporary theory and practice around children’s participation. Promoting the participation of children and young people - in decision-making and policy development, and as active contributors to everyday family and community life - has become a central part of policy and programme initiatives in both majority and minority worlds. This book presents the most useful recent work in children’s participation as a resource for academics, students and practitioners in childhood studies, children’s rights and welfare, child and family social work, youth and community work, governance, aid and development programmes. The book introduces key concepts and debates, and presents a rich collection of accounts of the diverse ways in which children’s participation is understood and enacted around the world, interspersed with reflective commentaries from adults and young people. It concludes with a number of substantial theoretical contributions that aim to take forward our understanding of children’s participation. The emphasis throughout the text is on learning from the complexity of children’s participation in practice to improve our theoretical understanding, and on using those theoretical insights to challenge practice, with the aim of realising children’s rights and citizenship more fully.
In this ground-breaking book, Jenny Slater uses the lens of ’the reasonable’ to explore how normative understandings of youth, dis/ability and the intersecting identities of gender and sexuality impact upon the lives of young dis/abled people. Although youth and disability have separately been thought within socio-cultural frameworks, rarely have sociological studies of ’youth’ and ’disability’ been brought together. By taking an interdisciplinary, critical disability studies approach to explore the socio-cultural concepts of ’youth’ and ’disability’ alongside one-another, Slater convincingly demonstrates that ’youth’ and ’disability’ have been conceptualised within medical/psychological frameworks for too long. With chapters focusing on access and youth culture, independence, autonomy and disabled people’s movements, and the body, gender and sexuality, this volume’s intersectional and transdisciplinary engagement with social theory offers a significant contribution to existing theoretical and empirical literature and knowledges around disability and youth. Indeed, through highlighting the ableism of adulthood and the falsity of conceptualising youth as a time of becoming-independent-adult, the need to shift approaches to research around dis/abled youth is one of the main themes of the book. This book therefore is a provocation to rethink what is implicit about ’youth’ and ’disability’. Moreover, through such an endeavour, this book sits as a challenge to Mr Reasonable.
Digital technologies are spreading rapidly, but digital dividends--the broader benefits of faster growth, more jobs, and better services--are not. If more than 40 percent of adults in East Africa pay their utility bills using a mobile phone, why can’t others around the world do the same? If 8 million entrepreneurs in China--one third of them women--can use an e-commerce platform to export goods to 120 countries, why can’t entrepreneurs elsewhere achieve the same global reach? And if India can provide unique digital identification to 1 billion people in five years, and thereby reduce corruption by billions of dollars, why can’t other countries replicate its success? Indeed, what’s holding back countries from realizing the profound and transformational effects that digital technologies are supposed to deliver? Two main reasons. First, nearly 60 percent of the world’s population are still offline and can’t participate in the digital economy in any meaningful way. Second, and more important, the benefits of digital technologies can be offset by growing risks. Startups can disrupt incumbents, but not when vested interests and regulatory uncertainty obstruct competition and the entry of new firms. Employment opportunities may be greater, but not when the labor market is polarized. The internet can be a platform for universal empowerment, but not when it becomes a tool for state control and elite capture. The World Development Report 2016 shows that while the digital revolution has forged ahead, its 'analog complements'--the regulations that promote entry and competition, the skills that enable workers to access and then leverage the new economy, and the institutions that are accountable to citizens--have not kept pace. And when these analog complements to digital investments are absent, the development impact can be disappointing. What, then, should countries do? They should formulate digital development strategies that are much broader than current information and communication technology (ICT) strategies. They should create a policy and institutional environment for technology that fosters the greatest benefits. In short, they need to build a strong analog foundation to deliver digital dividends to everyone, everywhere.
The U.S. disability insurance system is an important part of the federal social safety net; it provides financial protection to working-age Americans who have illnesses, injuries, or conditions that render them unable to work as they did before becoming disabled or that prevent them from adjusting to other work. An examination of the workings of the system, however, raises deep concerns about its financial stability and effectiveness. Disability rolls are rising, household income for the disabled is stagnant, and employment rates among people with disabilities are at an all-time low. Mary Daly and Richard Burkhauser contend that these outcomes are not inevitable; rather, they are reflections of the incentives built into public policies targeted at those with disabilities, namely the SSDI, SSI-disabled adults, and SSI-disabled children benefit programs. The Declining Work and Welfare of People with Disabilities considers how policies could be changed to improve the well-being of people with disabilities and to control the unsustainable growth in program costs.
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has facilitated the understanding that disability is both a human rights and development issue. In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, the focus on disability inclusion has become increasingly important in the discourse of international and national efforts for "leaving no one behind", the motto of the SDGs. This book discusses pertinent and emerging themes such as disability rights, globalization, inequalities, international cooperation and representation. Evidence which has been obtained tends to show that persons with disabilities have been disproportionately left behind without proper representation, participation and inclusion. This book critically investigates the gaps at different levels, from top to bottom, and as importantly, within the global disability movement, for the realization of global disability rights, and theorizes the intersection of disability, globalization and human rights. Empirical case studies from different countries and contexts are introduced to deepen analysis on theories of critical disability studies from a global perspective. Co-edited by a disability researcher and the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Disability, this book will be of interest to all students, academics, policy makers and practitioners working to advance the cause of disability rights around the world.
Inclusive education is a critical issue at the forefront of educators’ minds. Transformative Inclusive Education tackles the subject by reimagining current practices in education and renovating teaching strategies. This collection demonstrates that inclusion is an educational reform movement that can only succeed if educational institutions and practitioners rethink the meaning, substance, and purpose of education and adopt the new missions, patterns of decision-making, understandings of teaching and learning, pedagogies, collaborative roles, and classroom practices that flow directly from the inclusive reform movement. Featuring contributions from a diverse array of scholars, practitioners, and people with disabilities, this text weaves together the historical, legal, theoretical, and pedagogical currents that underpin the implementation of inclusive education and speaks to current research in the field. From there, it moves forward with a practical trajectory and guide for enacting lasting, effective change in schools to create an inclusive environment for all students. The authors integrate concepts such as RTI, UDL, MTSS, and SEL, and address issues such as collaborative decision-making, positive approaches to behaviour, academic scaffolding, and inclusive technologies and teaching practices. They also look beyond schools, extending inclusive education to families and communities and integrating self-advocacy in practice. Including case studies, realistic examples, and activities for further learning and reflection, this volume is a vital resource for undergraduate and graduate students in education. FEATURES - Provides a framework to redesign teaching practice and enact positive, lasting change for truly inclusive schools - Connects theory to larger pedagogical constructs such as experiential learning, social construction of knowledge, student engagement, and authentic learning - Contains resources for further reading and activity boxes with essential takeaways for student review