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Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies pp 121–135Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies: Alternative Relations and Forms of Authority?

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Abstract

This chapter asks how disabled children’s childhood studies constitute alternative forms of authority to the dominant discourses of disability and childhood. Studies concerned with impairment and child development discuss disabled children in problematic terms and, it is suggested, these are not studies of their childhood. The dominant discourses of childhood and disability that emerged in the global North continue to have worldwide authority and impact in presenting disabled children in deficit and negative terms (Oliver & Barnes, 2012). The authority of these discourses is based on the positivist methodologies used. In England, they continue to be endorsed by policy, patterns of service provision and professional practices, but the links between concepts, policy and practice, and how we can be as people, are complex, and Foucault’s work is used to analyze these links.

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Authors
  1. Tillie Curran
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of the West of England, UK

    Tillie Curran

  2. Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

    Katherine Runswick-Cole

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© 2013 Tillie Curran

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Curran, T. (2013). Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies: Alternative Relations and Forms of Authority?. In: Curran, T., Runswick-Cole, K. (eds) Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137008220_10

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