The author, also on sociological insights brought conventional thinking and practise regarding disability. He argued that disability was referred to as Physical, impairment, disabled, deaf or blind rather than the English speaking words which have lost its meanings like Crippled, Spastic or Mongol. Of which for now, I as an individual will try to use not words which are offensive towards disabled people because being disabled can happen at any age, through, age, accidents and the environment that keeps changing everyday.
The book also revealed studies by medical sociologists, who argued disability as an illness or sickness which needs doctors and patients’ role (Parsons Functionalist, approach) His approach seemed to advance the interpretation of socio-medical research which were guided by the theoretical debates in sociology rather than the practical medical and health service concern.
In the book, there was the BCODP, which was formed in 1981of which had let the British Disabled movement unchanged. This formation of different policies and organisations helped disabled people in so many accessible ways for them in terms of transport, housing and education.
In Chapter One of the book, the author highlighted the sociological imaginations which investigate the everyday life for people with physical impairment. He has fully explained how people are socially excluded from the non- disabled. In the Second chapter, he based hid reviews on key issues that formed the basis for sociological view of disability. The third chapter was based on medical sociology literature, like Chronic Diseases and disability itself under the view of doctors and health service organi0sations.Fourth chapter revealed the disability theories ion acco0unt with social model of disability. It also brings out the affections of people with a disability including their Ethnicity, Gender Race and Sexuality. Finally, on what I have researched, I found out that the author argued on empirical studies based on the exclusion of disabled people from the society. Chapter SIX went on with the explanation of social model and the author added some different theories regarding the social exclusion of disabled people.
This book has been primarily written for students of Sociology and associated disciplines, including university students doing Social Policy, Political Science and Cultural studies. It also focused on the text for academics and researchers, working and specialising in disability studies, including medicine.
I really enjoyed reading this academic book because the author fully illustrated the meaning of disability and the effects of the exclusion of people with physical impairment. He managed to bring about the Social, Medical, and Economic models of disability in self explanatory notes and the English used in the book was very readable. This book also revealed my own personal experience as I grew up in a family of eight and one of my brothers has a physical impairment of which it’s making him to isolate himself from family gatherings and the society as a whole. He normally feels as if he does not fit in as the family member and he feels socially and economically excluded .He was born very intelligent but certain barriers which the author mentioned in chapter 5 could not make him get the proper job which he wanted to do.
The author used qualitative data collection which he gathered from working with disabled people and he found out that a certain percent of unemployed disabled people was due to them not having educational qualifications. He also collected the data from the Department of (EmploymentGazette, 1995) of which 83%of disabled people where low paid.
EVALUATION
This book is related to Social change and is of interest tome because I am actually working on an assignment written by Tom Shakespeare, which has an empirical research and I also know about the topic because it involves my personal skills. It was edited by three authors and the books used some jargons which some of them had to look up in the other book written by Tom Shakespeare, to find out what they stand for. The book is very useful to read for students of social change, as it covers different models of disability based on sociology, social policy and cultural context.