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This paper presents and critically discusses a disability awareness program that was addressed to non-disabled children aged between 6-8 years old in Cyprus. The main aims were to explore how disability studies and anti-oppressive pedagogies could inform decisions on structured activities and materials to support children understand disability as condition of life, and recognize disabling practices. Artefacts from children's work and narratives are presented throughout the paper to inform decisions and choices in relation to the program. The discussion draws on international literature and critically examines: a. how disability feminists' focus on experiences of disability can have a central place in awareness raising programs, and can be further strengthened by a social model understanding of disability, b. the local context and the use of language as raised by postmodernists/poststructuralists, and c. the use of cartoons as a form of art that can help recognize and challenge dominant disability stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a case study of a severely physically disabled man, Ralph, in terms of his interaction with his carers. He communicates using various systems of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC, such as symbol boards and high-tech devices), the vocabulary for which has mostly been selected for him by others. The starting point of the paper is the assumption that disabled people have traditionally held a disempowered position in society (relative to non-disabled people), and the question asked is to what extent is Ralph further disempowered by the limited vocabulary available to him in his AAC systems, and in the way others interact with him. The paper draws on the work of Bourdieu, according to whom ‘Language is not only an instrument of communication or even of knowledge, but also an instrument of power’ (1977, 648). I consider the tensions between the drive towards the empowerment of disabled individuals, as exemplified by the provision of AAC, and opposition to allowing access to certain types of vocabulary (especially expletives such as ‘the F word’), unless it is expressed in ‘the nicest possible way’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Persons with disabilities have endured discrimination and live under social apartheid. While enlightened people recognise the role that society has in disabling people with impairments, there remains a struggle to remove the negative stigma associated with this form of social diversity. There is no silver bullet that will enable persons with disabilities to exercise their human rights as full citizens. One strategy to assist in this struggle is the use of language. This paper focuses on how language can be utilised in the struggle against oppression. This paper reconsiders how disability discrimination is conceived and labelled. There is no uniformly accepted label to describe the discrimination and oppression that is explained by the social model or the non-radical social model. This paper explores how the labels of disableism and ableism have emerged to explain this concept. This paper analyses these terms and argues for the adoption of ableist nomenclature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines disability terminology to explore how the news media frame cultural representations of the disability community. More specifically, the paper examines the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act on journalist's language choices about disability topics. A content analysis of news stories using disability terms in The Washington Post and The New York Times during the past decade was conducted. The paper illustrates that disability community identity continues to be formed, transformed and maintained through news media presentations of disability terminology. The paper argues that the US Disability Rights Movement had some success during the 1990s in putting forth language that advances its aims, though the study also suggests that some journalists continue to use terms that perpetuate limiting, narrow stereotypes about people with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language is one of the primary media through which capitalism and the mobilisation of resistance against capitalism are perpetrated. However, although capitalism is becoming an increasingly global phenomenon, language continues to delineate nationstates and identities—no language is fully translatable. Drawing upon a large body of literature and research concerning minority-majority language relationships and language planning, this paper will, first, interrogate the relationship between bilingualism and proposed policies of inclusive education in the context of current struggles for linguistic minority ‘rights’ by sign language users. The ‘minority rights’ agenda is contrasted with disabled people’s struggles for the legitimation of ‘new’ disability discourses within a framework of citizenship, as contextualised by issues of social exclusion. It is argued that language use, language development and their relationship to disability, cannot be adequately addressed within localised interpretations of ‘special needs’ policy. The paper concludes with the view that in the face of New Labour’s rhetoric of ‘modernisation’, disabled people must address the hegemony implicit to language planning, by acknowledging the centrality of language rights and practices to social policy, political expression, citizenship and the mobilisation for social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction of valued identities and evidence-based cultural histories is not easy for deaf or disabled people across Africa. This paper locates some deaf people, gesture and formal Sign Language in African histories, to illustrate possible sources and encourage local, national and pan-African compilation of materials. Documentary evidence of deaf individuals or groups is indicated from 25 nations, sourced in travellers' accounts, legal and genealogical records, government reports, institutional and missionary archives, linguistic studies, folklore, novels, religious narrative, mime and dance. Interpretations and uses of the materials remain for deaf people in Africa to decide according to their own various interests and objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]