Fragile Rights: Disability, Public Policy, and Social Change

Front Cover
Series information
Fragile Rights: Disability, Public Policy, and Social Change
Copyright information
Table of contents
Series Editor’s Preface
List of Figures, Tables, and Boxes
List of abbreviations
About the Author
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
	Disability policy, rights, and social change
		The international origins of the rights framing
		Older social rights
		Rights realization and social change
	From policies to individuals
		Studying policy reception
		The role of public policy in rights realization
	A study based on biographical interviews
	Overview of the book
2 The Right to Education: A Battle Still to Be Won
	Which school is best for disabled children?
		From special education to school inclusion
		Education in the 1975 and 2005 Acts
	Putting desegregation into perspective
		From a far-from-universal schooling in specialized institutions …
		… Towards a struggle for inclusion
	Adapting mainstream schools
		School integration before and after ‘school integration’
		Negotiating the right to an education with teachers
		Complex relationships with nondisabled peers
	Higher education: a new frontier
		From the ‘fixed path’ to broadening horizons
		Access to training
		Student experiences
		The material conditions of student life
	Conclusion: Individual battles for the right to education
3 Rights at Work
	The central but ambivalent role of work in disability policies
		From unfitness for work to the quota scheme
		Anti-discrimination and the promotion of diversity
	Employment: between aspirations and discrimination
		An almost unanimous but discouraged aspiration
		Overcoming barriers to employment: self-employment, sheltered or specialized work
		The quota scheme, between constraint and resource
			An obligation … for whom?
			Effects on professional integration
	Conclusion: The power of fragile rights
4 Autonomy under Supervision
	Between non-take-up and critical take-up
		Benefits that make a difference
		Refusing to ‘ask for help’
		‘Sure, we have rights, but we also get to be policed’
	Assessing needs: users versus public institutions
		An inhospitable ‘house’
		‘I don’t need anybody to think for me’
		Diverse appropriations of a fixed-rate benefit
	A situation of uncertainty
		Chronically unpredictable processing times
		Uncertainty about the long-term stability of payments
		Geographical uncertainty and awareness of territorial disparities
	Conclusion: Rights consciousness and the administrative relationship
5 Freedom of Movement: A ‘Sweet Dream’?
	Accessibility: an unrealized political imperative
		Two steps forward, one step back
		Progress … but also persistent obstacles
		From inaccessibility to its contestation
			Policy feedback and the production of discontent
			Collective and individual action for accessibility
	From accessibility to mobility
		Accessibility and individual compensation devices
		Understanding the fears of disabled people in public spaces
		Negotiating priority right with an invisible disability
	Conclusion: The multiple supports of the right to mobility
6
Conclusion
	Fragile rights
		The limits of rights in the texts
		Major shortcomings in effectiveness
	Co-producing one’s rights, becoming a subject of rights: the politics of everyday life
		Co-producing one’s rights: an active reception
		Becoming a subject of rights: the centrality of a statutory claim
		A modality of social change
	What political representation?
		A distanced relationship with associations
		A demand for descriptive representation
Appendix 1: Methodology
Appendix 2: List of Participants
Appendix 3: Main Disability-related Social Statuses and Benefits Mentioned in the Interviews
Notes
References
Index