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This study sought to increase understanding on barriers to securing academic employment met by people with disabilities. Lindsay and Fuentes [2022. "It is Time to Address Ableism in Academia: A Systematic Review of the Experiences and Impact of Ableism among Faculty and Staff." Disabilities 2 (2): 178–203] pointed out the paucity of research on disability in academia. We surveyed over 5,000 authors of scholarly articles with 'disab' in the title and with UK or USA academic email addresses. People with disabilities were asked to describe barriers they met, and people without disabilities to describe barriers they believed that people with disabilities faced. The responses were classified according to the category of barrier. We found examples of 11 categories of barrier, indicating that a wide range of factors contribute to barriers to academic employment. The most common categories of barrier in responses by people with disabilities were attitudinal barriers, inadequate provision of reasonable adjustment, and excessive workload. Moreover, the frequencies of categories of barrier vary greatly with impairment. We consider the possible ramifications of our study for addressing the barriers to academic employment, the understanding of the nature of disability and methodology. Our study is the first investigation of the relative frequencies of barriers to academic employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly uneven impacts on sectors of society. People with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to it and so it is important to understand both the disability perspective and the role of social media. This information may help to reduce the risk from the disease. In response, this article uses thematic analysis to investigate 59 disability-related tweets from March 10 to April 4, 2020 that were retweeted at least 500 times, with a quarter of a million retweets altogether. This approach generates quick insights into widely resonating disability-related issues. The results suggest the value of Twitter for disseminating information about the risk, offers or requests for support, the ability of many people with disabilities to adjust to the changes well, and information about individuals with the disease. In addition, there was outrage at suggestions that the disease was less serious because young people without disabilities were relatively low risk, and that people with disabilities might be denied equal access to medical treatment. As one tweet pointed out, people in less vulnerable categories should not be told on Twitter or elsewhere that the disease is less relevant to them because their actions can impact others through social spreading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disabled people, writers on disability and disability activists stress the importance of disabled people being included in all aspects of society. I argue that a major omission from this inclusiveness is that no current model of disability focuses on the impact of the actions of disabled people on disability. Disabled people are not passive bystanders, powerless to reduce the restrictions of disability. On the contrary, we are central to actively limiting its constraints. I develop a model of disability, called ‘active’, which focuses on the effects on disability of the individual and collective actions of disabled people. I describe published findings which indicate that engaging in self-help, using support groups and deploying assistive technology can all reduce the limitations of disability. Recent increases in the number of disability support groups and developments in assistive technology have substantially augmented the potential for disabled people to combat the effects of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his 2013 article inDisability & Society, Oliver recommended that the social model should either be replaced or re-invigorated. I argue here that the social model’s current emphasis reflects the social conditions in which it was introduced, and that the model’s impact on disabled people’s lives would increase if its emphasis was to more accurately reflect the current social conditions in the geographical regions in which it is applied. In order to help foster its re-invigoration, I ask five questions for discussion on the way forward for the social model. I identified my questions through examining published writing on the scope of the social model and on the model’s relationship with other models of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]