Confidence Culture

In Confidence Culture, Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue that imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe in yourself” imply that psychological blocks rather than entrenched social injustices hold women back. Interrogating the prominence of confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and international development, Orgad and Gill draw on Foucault’s notion of technologies of self to demonstrate how “confidence culture” demands of women near-constant introspection and vigilance in the service of self-improvement. They argue that while confidence messaging may feel good, it does not address structural and systemic oppression. Rather, confidence culture suggests that women—along with people of color, the disabled, and other marginalized groups—are responsible for their own conditions. Rejecting confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.

TOURISM OF FAMILIES WITH THE DISABLED CHILDREN OR WITH SPECIAL NEEDS IN POLAND OF RECENT DECADES

The last decades in Polish society have been seen not only an increase in empathy and outlining needs for families and children with disabilities or deficits, but also economic improvement of families, which enables tourist or rehabilitation trips at least once a year. The growing needs and good practices for disabled children and adults also contributed to the greater awareness of the people managing of tourist centers in Poland, who are increasingly trying to propose within their offer to such groups, not traveling so far. This brief study tries to provide in a condensed way to propose good practices and experiences to meet the problems of families traveling with disabled children or adults in Poland.

Investigating the Spatiotemporal Imbalance of Accessibility to Demand Responsive Transit (DRT) Service for People with Disabilities: Explanatory Case Study in South Korea

This study analyzed the operation-related historical data of the call taxi service for disabled people in Seoul, South Korea. The study investigated how unevenly distributed the accessibility of disabled people to transportation is in terms of time and space. In addition, the reasons that cause imbalanced accessibility were investigated in areas with good and poor accessibility. Accessibility was defined as how quickly call taxi services for the disabled are available at specific times and locations. For the analysis, the log data for tracking the status of taxis in time and space were processed to calculate their availability, an index that reflects the dwelling time and the number of taxis available at a specific time and in a specific area. This index was divided into time and space and used as a surrogate measure to assess accessibility. The results showed that there were spatial and temporal accessibility imbalances in demand responsive transit (DRT) service. The insufficient supply during the night resulting from the current DRT operating schedule has reduced the accessibility of call taxis for the disabled, and the concentration of drivers’ breaks also affected the accessibility of service during the daytime. This suggests the need for (1) an increase in supply and (2) evenly distributed breaks for the drivers. In terms of space, the outer areas of Seoul generally were found to be more accessible than the central areas. In addition, areas near depots that serve as hubs and resting places for taxi drivers, areas with excellent medical infrastructures for people with disabilities, and areas with good traffic environments tended to have good accessibility; this suggests the need to reallocate garages and improve the traffic environments to improve accessibility.

Difficulties Facing the Integration of Students with Disabilities from the Viewpoint of Workers in Integrated Schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The study aimed to identify the nature of the difficulties facing the inclusion of students with disabilities from the viewpoint of workers in integrated schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and identify the differences in those difficulties that are due to the variables (job title, gender, scientific qualification, specialization, years of teaching experience). It also aimed to identify the most challenging categories of disability to integrate into regular classes and identify the proposals of workers in integration schools to overcome the difficulties facing inclusion. The study population consisted of all workers in the integration schools that contain grades (1-10) and contain an educational counselor and students with disabilities, where a representative sample of (179) workers in these schools was selected. The researcher used a questionnaire to classify the difficulties within four dimensions: resources learning (equipment, means and methods, and curriculum). Next is evaluation and its contents of classroom evaluation strategies and activities, then qualification of educators, and finally awareness and trends; the tool contains (39) items. The study results showed no formal evaluation strategies in place for students with disabilities, and there is awareness and positive attitudes towards integrating students with disabilities, in addition to the presence of a resource room and a special education teacher to help support students with disabilities. Furthermore, there is a lack of educational evaluation tools for the disabled category, which the Ministry circulates in the field when evaluating them and setting achievement tests. Results also showed that teachers do not consider individual differences between students; besides insufficient training received by teachers to deal with students with disabilities, the inclusion of students with disabilities helps to form healthy social relationships with others.The researcher recommended some recommendations such as determining the criteria for inclusion of students with disabilities in integrated schools, increasing the number of resource rooms, conducting studies similar to this study to examine the difficulties facing the integration of the disabled in the integration schools from the point of view of the parents, the disabled, and the relevant institutions. Received: 2 September 2021 / Accepted: 10 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Why Study Sustainable Livelihood and Poverty Reduction?

This introductory chapter utilizes a framework of inquiry on why people are poor based on sustainable livelihood and poverty reduction. A livelihood is sustainable when it copes with and can recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation. This book examines the core issues, namely (1) the links between sustainable rural livelihoods and why people are poor; (2) the multilateral policy contexts of poverty; (3) poverty reduction within the context of globalizing world economy; (4) the economic and moral interdependence of humans and nature; and (5) the assessment of poverty among vulnerable groups, for instance, the elderly, the young, the ill, and the disabled. The themes of this volume orbit around characteristics and challenges of sustainable development, marginalization, social empowerment, social development theory, and poverty reduction strategies advocated by the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals worldwide.

A Restrictive Humanitarian Policy and the Wellbeing of the Disabled in Disasters in Kisumu County

This paper explores how PWD's well-being is realized in disaster situations in Kisumu County of Kenya. There is a significant population of 15,760 persons with disability across Kisumu County. Their well-being is protected by the international humanitarian policy. At the national level, the well-being of persons with disability is taken care of in the Disability Act 2003 and the National Disability Policy. Despite existence of a humanitarian policy framework, the well-being of the disabled is compromised in disaster situations within Kisumu County. The humanitarian policy framework limits humanitarian action to response, which compromises the well-being of PWD. The study employed semi-structured questionnaire instruments to gather information on humanitarian policies applicable to PWD in disaster context. From the key findings, the study concludes that the international humanitarian policies as well as national humanitarian policies are restrictive in nature. The policy lacks enforcement and implementation mechanisms to support the wellbeing of persons with disability in disasters.

Gendered Understanding of Disability and Aging

In its early conventional sense, disability was largely understood in bio-medical model which subsequently was supplemented with the psycho-social underpinnings of disability. In recent times, the social identities in terms of race, religion, class, caste, and gender add other dimensions to the social science discourse on disability studies. The chapter attempts to inform through the dimensions of age and aging in relation to the disability discourse, drawing from ethnographic cases over a period of research in North India. In the process, this chapter offers an analysis of disability and aging with focusing on the lack of access to social and familial resources for people with disability who are old and people who acquire any kind of disability in their old age. This chapter examines uncertainties experienced by the older disabled and the disabled older persons in relation to the extent of family ties and other social resources in both the rural and urban context.

Tourism Promotion and Disability

This study illustrates the preliminary results of a corpus-based analysis aimed at discovering the main linguistic features characterising the promotion of tourism for special-needs travellers. Even if accessible tourism represents an important sector in the market, not only for its social and moral importance but also for its strong economic potential, detailed research on the linguistic properties of tourism for disabled people is still rather limited and mainly tends to focus on the problems of physical access rather than considering the ways to improve its promotional strategies. Through a comparative corpus-based analysis, this paper will investigate the relevant linguistic features of a corpus of promotional materials advertising holidays and tourist services for the disabled, and relate them to the communicative strategies of two other corpora dedicated to the standard and translational language of tourism. The aim of this research is to show how mainstream tourism discourse still considers disability as a taboo topic, mostly ignoring or vaguely mentioning it in the general promotion of tourist destinations. The study will also attempt to suggest new linguistic and social attitudes aimed at stylistically improving and further including the accessible tourism sector within the overall tourism promotion.