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The book review discusses "The Disability Bioethics Reader," which challenges the medical model of disability and explores the intersections between bioethics and disability studies. It highlights the historical context of disability and medicalisation, as well as reframes key bioethical debates around quality of life, reproductive technologies, and end-of-life care. The volume also emphasizes the importance of engaging with the disability community in research and acknowledges the diverse perspectives within the disability community, including race, Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities, and Mad studies scholars. Overall, the book provides a nuanced and insightful perspective on disability bioethics that is relevant for practitioners, scholars, and those working in the medical field. [Extracted from the article]

This study explored teachers’ perspectives on utilising existing children’s books for students with intellectual and additional disabilities. 58 teachers from Israeli special education schools and kindergartens revealed widespread dissatisfaction with available materials. Strikingly, 70.7% were unsatisfied with existing children’s books, and 94.7% believed there were not enough accessible options. Qualitative analysis identified five major barriers: excessive text, inappropriate content for older age groups, challenges with the physical structure of books, mismatches between text and visuals, and specific challenges for teachers of children with multiple disabilities. These findings underscore the substantial need for more accessible literature tailored to the needs of children with disabilities. Despite legislation mandating societal inclusion of people with disabilities, teachers’ dissatisfaction highlights gaps in addressing their students’ literary requirements. The results shed light on these teachers’ vital roles in adapting books and indicate the need for greater collaboration between teachers, publishers, and policymakers. By highlighting the voices of frontline professionals, this study provides a crucial call to action to develop high-quality, customised educational resources for children and young people with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a methodological reflection on a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project that used the photovoice method to unravel the educational experiences of disabled college students in China's higher education institutions. Although CBPR endeavors to nurture equitable community engagement in research processes, there are practical challenges to address the full participation of people with divergent disabilities and access needs. Drawing upon the critical disability studies literature, and particularly upon the activist scholarship of disability justice that revolves around interdependency, collective access, and cross-disability solidarity, we provide an open discussion on the complexities, tensions, and challenges of envisioning and creating access for participants with different disabilities in a visuality-centered CBPR. Our findings suggest that access creation in CBPR should go beyond the checklist style of accommodation and instead be approached as relational, dynamic, and iterative processes that require ongoing reflection, (re)learning, and negotiation among researchers and participants. We implemented nonvisual photography to adapt to the visuality-centered bias in the photovoice method. Nonvisual photography empowered participants with visual disabilities to evoke multiple sensorialities in their photo-taking, displaying, and interpretation. Moreover, the participants without visual disabilities also learned and practiced collective access and interdependency through co-transforming the CBPR into an accessible space for all. The heterogeneity among participants with divergent disabilities and access needs challenged CBPR's envisioning of a unified community with recognized commonalities. The inclusion of participants across disability groups created an opportunity for all participants to draw meaning from the ableist social and political circumstances that forged them as a community and to develop a sense of belonging and bonding in and through CBPR. In that light, disability justice and access should be reimagined and incorporated into CBPR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the challenges faced by teachers when introducing reading disability literature to children, particularly when families express opposition. The author shares their personal experience of encountering resistance when sharing a list of books focused on disability culture and pride. The article emphasizes the importance of incorporating disability literature into classrooms to foster inclusive communities and schools. It provides practical strategies for teachers to collaborate with families and address their concerns, while also highlighting the need for explicit conversations about disabilities in inclusive classrooms. The article stresses the significance of including disability literature in early childhood and early elementary settings, and offers guidance on how teachers can create a welcoming and inclusive learning environment by engaging in proactive communication, being transparent in the book selection process, and practicing cultural reciprocity. It suggests the use of a lending library and discussion guides to support families in discussing disabilities with their children. Ultimately, the article encourages teachers and families to work together to address concerns and promote the inclusion of disability literature in the classroom. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: This study aims to identify the irritating aspects in the mall environment that impact shoppers with disability and explore the opportunities to design inclusive mall environments. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods design was used in which data collected using a survey (n = 1,434 shoppers with and without disability) were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and repeated-measures two-way ANOVA. In addition, qualitative data were obtained from critical incident technique (CIT) stories (n = 521) from shoppers with and without disability. Findings: Mall environmental irritants evoke feelings of irritation that mediate the impacts of "inconvenient ambient conditions," "the annoying socialscape" and "overwhelming design and atmospherics" on decreased mall-visit frequency. Compared with shoppers without disability, shoppers with disability suffer more from these irritating aspects of the mall environment, as evidenced by significantly greater high-activation unpleasant emotions. The "poor access and accessibility" category of irritants mainly affects the mall experiences of shoppers with disability. Practical implications: Based on the findings, this study offers spatial-, temporal-, social-, material- and virtual-oriented recommendations for the design of inclusive retail spaces. The authors suggest that people with disability have a unique "lived experience" perspective on retail environments and that solutions should be co-created based on ongoing consultations with shoppers and employees with disability. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study offers the first systematic, comprehensive comparison of the impact of environmental irritants on shoppers with and without disability and extends the literature on irritating aspects of retail environments from individual stores to malls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to highlight some recurring trends in disability representation in Italian contemporary children's literature. In particular, after a brief excursus of the major changes that occurred in editorial production at the end of the twentieth century, the article focuses on the similarities between the condition of disability and childhood, both bearers of otherness in the conventional adult world and in a liminality position within society. Contemporary children's authors seem to start from this assumption and repeatedly write stories on special encounters between characters with disabilities and children. In these delicate narratives, in a romantic projection, only the younger ones prove they are able to create deep relationships based on unconditional acceptance of diversity and the ability to bond beyond words—both elements that adults seem to lack. The topic of incommunicability returns, especially, in picture-books and is expressed through powerful iconographic and literary metaphors. Some of these are inspired by certain popular Italian expressions and recur very frequently, in different ways, within children's literature, such as allusive references to the aquatic world, intended as the silent realm par excellence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Touch The Future: A Manifesto in Essays" is a collection of essays by John Lee Clark, a DeafBlind poet, essayist, and historian. Clark, who was born Deaf and gradually became blind, explores the experiences of DeafBlind individuals and the Protactile movement. The book offers a unique perspective on disability inclusion and challenges prevailing ableist notions. While the book primarily focuses on the U.S. context, Clark's insights can be relatable to disabled individuals in other countries. The writing is engaging, imaginative, and educational, providing readers with a deeper understanding of the DeafBlind community and the power of Protactile. However, the book lacks an intersectional lens, as it primarily reflects Clark's personal experiences as a white heterosexual DeafBlind male. [Extracted from the article]

The book "Disability, Media, and Representations: Other Bodies" is an interdisciplinary exploration of disability studies and media. It challenges ableist culture and aims to broaden the understanding of disability by analyzing how media platforms can either challenge or reinforce negative stereotypes. The book examines the role of the media in further disabling individuals through a lack of inclusivity and adaptability. It also highlights the need for a broader scope of disability paradigms and suggests further engagement with psychoanalytic theory in the field. [Extracted from the article]

The goal of this paper is to read Indra Sinha's Animal's People through the lens of disability theories to expose the entanglement of disability, sexuality, and humanness. Only by taking into account these three interlocking spheres are we able to acknowledge fully Sinha's nuanced and fair representation of disability in the novel. The narrative makes the connection between disability and sexuality explicit exposing the reality of the protagonist with disability as a desiring subject who grapples with the question whether he can be an object of desire. The intersection of animality and disability is also addressed through the investigation of the negative impact of ableism on the perception of humanness and its consequences for the realization of human sexual needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an extensive reading of Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis) from the perspective of Literary Disability Studies. Furthermore, it sheds light on how the contemporary disability culture engages with Kafka's narrative. In doing so, it will compare and contrast Die Verwandlung with the literary work of contemporary Swiss author Christoph Keller. This juxtaposition reveals elements of both continuity and change in the artistic representation of disability in modern literature from the 20th to the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islas Marias penal colony was founded in 1905. However, the mediatic interest on the islands began with the confinement of Madre Conchita in 1929. Therefore, we propose an analysis of literary and journalistic texts about the Islas Marias federal penal colony. Particularly, an analysis of the subaltern character from the perspective of Disability Studies of the novels La Isla (1938), Los muros de agua (1941) e Islas Marías (1956) confronted to the reportages La tumba del pacífico (1931), María Madre del Archipiélago. Islas Marías en el Pacífico (1937) and Islas Marías (1941). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charlie, the main character in Sharon Dodua Otoo's Afrofuturist Christmas novella Synchronicity, is a Black single mother of Ghanaian heritage working as a graphic designer in Berlin who has spent her whole life feeling the constraints of her ancestral traditions. When one day she starts losing her ability to see colours, she cannot disclose that family‐specific dis/ability since it would have professional and material consequences. Charlie embarks on a journey of self‐reflection, in the course of which she will realise that something that at first seemed to be a loss could, in fact, be a blessing in disguise. My essay analyses the intersection of Blackness and dis/ability in Synchronicity through the lens of DisCrit: a theoretical approach associating Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory, and argues that Otoo's novella manages to effectively depict the intersections regarding the onset of an invisible dis/abilty as well as Blackness and diasporic experiences, while an Afrofuturist reading of the novella allows us to consider it as a story based on hope, self‐acceptance and the need for community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abbey Meyer's book, "From Wallflowers to Bulletproof Families: The Power of Disability in Young Adult Narratives," explores the intersection of young adult literature and disability narratives. Meyer argues that disability literature and young adult literature are often intertwined, and she examines specific texts to support her claim. The book delves into topics such as the representation of disability in adolescence, the use of metaphor in disability narratives, the portrayal of disabled characters as "freaks," and the exploration of disability identity in problem novels. Meyer also discusses digital portrayals of disability and the challenges of authenticity in disability narratives. While the book has some limitations, it offers valuable insights into the representation of disability in young adult literature and encourages a redefinition of normalcy. [Extracted from the article]

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"Blind in Early Modern Japan: Disability, Medicine, and Identity" by Wei Yu Wayne Tan is a comprehensive study on blindness in premodern Japan, specifically during the Tokugawa period. The book explores the meaning of blindness in Tokugawa society and its implications for disabled individuals. Tan supports his research with woodcuts, maps, and images of medical texts, making the book accessible and informative. The study examines Tokugawa medical practices, the role of the guild of blind men, and the relationship between traditional Japanese medicine and European medical ideas. It also delves into the complex dynamics of the guild and its impact on blind individuals' lives. Overall, the book provides valuable insights into disability history and offers a nuanced understanding of blindness in Tokugawa Japan. [Extracted from the article]

"Finding Blindness: International Constructions and Deconstructions" is a collection of sixteen essays edited by David Bolt that critically analyze the cultural interpretation of blindness from international perspectives. The essays are organized into three main themes: education, politics and religion, and performance and literary representation. The collection aims to challenge the dominant "ocularnormative epistemology" and reconstruct the understanding of blindness by resisting and counteracting ableist narratives. The book also explores the intersection of blindness with diverse cultural contexts and historical trajectories, providing insights into the lived experiences of blind individuals in different countries. Additionally, the collection incorporates various analytical methods and theoretical frameworks, including affective relations, power relations, and literary analysis, to deconstruct cultural oppressions and institutional ableism. Overall, this book offers a valuable resource for disability studies scholars interested in exploring the cultural constructions of blindness and alternative perspectives on blindness. [Extracted from the article]

The entrepreneurship proclivities of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community are under-researched or often grouped together into the broad disability literature. This study represents the first effort in developing a framework for deaf entrepreneurship. It departs from prior work by employing a mixed method study to examine the drivers, career motivations and prevalence of entrepreneurial activity of the deaf community in the United States. Building on the nascent entrepreneurship disability literature, this research develops and tests a deaf entrepreneurship framework. Results indicate that entrepreneurship in the deaf community is limited, primarily driven by push-oriented motivations–tightly linked to unique contextual factors. It also finds that the dynamics of entrepreneurship in the deaf community differ substantially from the existing disability entrepreneurship literature revealing the need for different policies. Implications for theory and policy along with directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of entrepreneurship among people with disabilities suggest that it is necessary to develop deeper insights into the contextual elements that enable or oppose such entrepreneurship. This study problematizes a core premise of the disability entrepreneurship literature that social support, institutional support or both enact disability entrepreneurship. This study modifies the premise by examining a case from the contextual scenario of a post-Soviet country where both societal and institutional attention to disability are largely inadequate and unfavourable. This case study concerns a blind female dancer in Kazakhstan who developed herself into a successful cultural entrepreneur. This inductive study proposes a process model which is labelled resilient tightroping, a model that enables a person with a disability to move towards empowerment and inclusion. The author is well aware that one cannot generalize from a single case. On the other hand, a single case can identify a deficiency in current thinking and point to additional directions where research is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the growing field of critical access studies, this article positions critical access as a research methodology that aligns with feminist praxis and disability politics. We begin by mapping our central concept in relation to literature on feminist disability studies, crip methodology, feminist methodology, and critical access. We then demonstrate critical access methodology in practice drawing on our collective research programs. Our first example comes from a workshop exploring citizen photojournalism as part of Stretching Our Stories and takes up non-linear and unverifiable journalistic accounts by disabled people. We follow this with an example from Practicing the Social, a three-day online artistic research and knowledge mobilisation event, which foregrounds the complexity of structuring pace and time. We conclude by suggesting that approaching critical access as methodology makes it possible to embrace moments of friction. Throughout this article, we argue that access, when taken up critically, becomes a transformative process that can contribute to the development of a feminist research methodology that supports research directed towards crip-feminist futurities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disrobing is a behaviour with serious implications for sexual safety. It is a challenge to manage in the inpatient environment and a barrier to discharge to the community. This paper presents an overview of the literature on disrobing – distinct from exhibitionistic disorder – and primarily described in the developmental disabilities' literature, and with respect to affective psychoses and epileptic post-ictal states. A case of disrobing in a forensic inpatient is outlined, which does not easily fit within the previously described explanatory or diagnostic paradigms for this behaviour. Behavioural and psychological analyses are reported, leading to a formulation of disrobing in this case as a complexly derived behaviour in a patient with chronic psychotic illness and a history of childhood sexual abuse. The importance of transdiagnostic thinking in patients with such complex histories is reviewed with attention to the intersection of deficits in distress tolerance from chronic psychotic illness and childhood sexual trauma. This case highlights the need for more research into trauma-informed interventions suitable for the serious mental illness (SMI) population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As funder, journal, and disciplinary norms and mandates have foregrounded obligations of data sharing and opportunities for data reuse, the need to plan for and curate data sets that can reach researchers and end-users with disabilities has become even more urgent. We begin by exploring the disability studies literature, describing the need for advocacy and representation of disabled scholars as data creators, subjects, and users. We then survey the landscape of data repositories, curation guidelines, and research-data-related standards, finding little consideration of accessibility for people with disabilities. We suggest three sets of minimal good practices for moving toward truly accessible research data: 1) ensuring Web accessibility for data repositories; 2) ensuring accessibility of common text formats, including those used in documentation; and 3) enhancement of visual and audiovisual materials. We point to some signs of progress in regard to truly accessible data by highlighting exemplary practices by repositories, standards, and data professionals. Accessibility needs to become a mainstream component of curation practice included in every training, manual, and primer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of an inclusive education system is regarded as a fundamental pillar for the full participation of persons with disabilities in society. To date, research on inclusive education has been mainly focused on students with disabilities, special education teachers and the role of legislation with less attention being paid to another important player in the implementation of a truly inclusive education system: teachers with disabilities. To address this knowledge gap, in this article we present a literature review, analysing the main findings and contributions from research that examines issues pertaining to teachers with disabilities. Drawing from 53 articles published in English in peer-review journals, the paper identifies four main research topics: (1) Teachers' life trajectories, educational practices, and challenges; (2) Teacher's training; (3) Perspectives about teachers with disabilities (among students and school principals), and (4) the under-representation of teachers with disabilities in the literature. We conclude arguing that the research agenda on inclusive education would benefit from including the perspective of teachers with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hate Speech Online (HSO) seems to be the result of the degeneration of the ’freedom of expression’ into the ‘freedom for discrimination’ that finds its major amplification on social media where some people use anonymity as a tool to exercise power and dominance over other people. Drawing on a digitally-mediated Social-Semiotic Critical Discourse Analysis, this study investigates a specific, under-researched form of HSO, namely Disability Hate Speech (DHS) by analysing a corpus of comments retrieved from a video of a famous amputee TikToker spreading awareness on disability. The results unveil and explain that people’s discriminatory practices and intolerant attitudes towards people with impairments are based on deep-rooted mental models and beliefs that contribute to increasing the stigmatisation against them, thus paving the way to intersectional hateful discourses that create disability through the process of ‘othering’ by naming what is normal/ abnormal according to the dichotomy able-bodiedness/disability. Accordingly, this paper aims to contribute to the emerging literature of studies on disability discourse with a specific perspective on DHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]