Embracing Enablement: Impairment, Community and Disability Identity in Young Adult Fiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1405.11Keywords:
disability, positive identity formation, young adult literature, textual analysisAbstract
Many authors in recent years have worked to encourage the inclusion of disabled people and to show disability characters in a positive light. In order to accomplish this, they tend to produce counter-disability characters and scenarios to promote enablement. This textual analysis focuses on three young adult fictions that provide positive portrayals of protagonists with disability, including Out of My Mind (Draper, 2010), Five Flavors of Dumb (John, 2010) and Jerk, California (Friesen, 2008). Drawing on the social identity theory and the social model, this paper explores how the protagonists' disability identities are formed. Three themes emerged from the textual analysis: impairment and identity, which looked at the complex interactions between impairment and identity; community transformation, which analyzed factors causing both socially constructed disability and positive interaction; and positive disability identity, which examined how protagonists navigate challenges and form positive identity. This study may offer recommendations for educators, parents, and researchers who might utilize this study to advance and build an inclusive society.
References
Abrams, D., & Hogg, M. A. (1988). Comments on the motivational status of self‐esteem in social identity and intergroup discrimination. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18(4), 317-334. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420180403
Altschuler, S. (2014). “Ain't One Limb Enough?” Historicizing Disability in the American Novel. American Literature, 86(2), 245-274. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2646991
Bakouri, M., & Staerklé, C. (2015). Individual and collective empowerment through ingroup connectedness. LIVES Working Papers, 40, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.12682/lives.2296-1658.2015.40
Barnes, C., & Mercer, G. (2010). Exploring disability (2nd ed.). Polity Press.
Barnes, C., & Mercer, G. (2011). Exploring disability (2nd ed.). Polity Press.
Beart, S., Hardy, G., & Buchan, L. (2005). How People with Intellectual Disabilities View Their Social Identity: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 18(1), 47-56. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-3148.2004.00218.x
Bogart, K. R. (2023). Disability is a social identity. It's time for therapy to affirm it. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 65(3), 300-301. https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.15412
Brown, J., & Addington-Hall, J. (2008). How people with motor neurone disease talk about living with their illness: a narrative study. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 62(2), 200-208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04588.x
Charmaz, K. (1999). Stories of Suffering: Subjective Tales and Research Narratives. Qualitative Health Research, 9(3), 362-382. https://doi.org/10.1177/104973239900900306
Dirth, T. (2018). A social identity analysis of people with disabilities perceiving discrimination as illegitimate [Doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas].
Dirth, T. P., & Branscombe, N. R. (2018). The social identity approach to disability: Bridging disability studies and psychological science. Psychological Bulletin, 144(12), 1300. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000156
Draper, S. M. (2010). Out of my mind. Athenum Books for Young Readers.
Duane, A. M. (2013). Introduction. In The children's table: Childhood studies and the humanities (pp. 7-8). The University of Georgia Press.
Dyches, T. T., & Prater, M. A. (2000). Developmental Disability in Children's Literature: Issues and Annotated Bibliography. Council for Exceptional Children.
Dyches, T. T., Prater, M. A., & Leininger, M. (2009). Juvenile literature and the portrayal of developmental disabilities. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 44(3), 304-317.
Edwards, C., & Imrie, R. (2003). Disability and Bodies as Bearers of Value. Sociology, 37(2), 239-256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038503037002002
Finlay, W. M. L., & Lyons, E. (2000). Social categorizations, social comparisons and stigma: Presentations of self in people with learning difficulties. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39(1), 129-146. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466600164372
Friesen, J. (2008). Jerk, California. Penguin.
Galvin, R. D. (2005). Researching the disabled identity: contextualising the identity transformations which accompany the onset of impairment. Sociology of Health & Illness, 27(3), 393-413. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2005.00448.x
Goering, S. (2002). Beyond the medical model? Disability, formal justice, and the exception for the" profoundly impaired". Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 12(4), 373-388. https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2002.0025
Hahn, H. (1997). An agenda for citizens with disabilities: pursuing identity and empowerment. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 9, 31-37. https://doi.org/10.3233/JVR-1997-9105
Harris, K., Gringart, E., & Drake, D. (2014). Understanding the role of social groups in radicalisation. 7th Australian Security and Intelligence Conference, Perth, Western Australia.
Hogg, M. A., Terry, D. J., & White, K. M. (1995). A tale of two theories: A critical comparison of identity theory with social identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 58(4), 255-269. https://doi.org/10.2307/2787127
Hornsey, M. J. (2008). Social Identity Theory and Self-categorization Theory: A Historical Review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(1), 204-222. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00066.x
Hutchinson, K., Roberts, C., & Daly, M. (2018). Identity, impairment and disablement: exploring the social processes impacting identity change in adults living with acquired neurological impairments. Disability & Society, 33(2), 175-196. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1392931
Jenkins, K., & Webster, A. K. (2021). Disability, impairment, and marginalised functioning. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 99(4), 730-747. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2020.1799048
John, A. (2010). Five flavors of dumb. Penguin.
Little, G. D. (1986). Handicapped Characters in Children's Literature: Yesterday and Today. Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 10(4), 181-184. https://doi.org/10.1353/chq.0.0496
Loja, E., Costa, M. E., Hughes, B., & Menezes, I. (2013). Disability, embodiment and ableism: stories of resistance. Disability & Society, 28(2), 190-203. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.705057
Lundberg, N. R., Taniguchi, S., McCormick, B. P., & Tibbs, C. (2011). Identity Negotiating: Redefining Stigmatized Identities through Adaptive Sports and Recreation Participation among Individuals with a Disability. Journal of Leisure Research, 43(2), 205-225. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2011.11950233
Meerts-Brandsma, L., Melton, T., & Sibthorp, J. (2023). Experiential Education Programs: Fertile Environments for Identity Formation. Journal of Experiential Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/10538259221146724
Mitchell, D. T., & Snyder, S. L. (2014). Narrative prosthesis: Disability and the dependencies of discourse. University of Michigan Press.
Oliver, M. (2009). Understanding disability: From theory to practice (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
Oliver, M. (2013). The social model of disability: thirty years on. Disability & Society, 28(7), 1024-1026. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2013.818773
Preston, D. L. (2010). Finding Difference: Nemo and Friends Opening the Door to Disability Theory. The English Journal, 100(2), 56-60.
Reeve, D. (2004). Psycho-emotional dimensions of disability and the social model. In C. Barnes & G. Mercer (Eds.), Implementing the social model of disability: Theory and research (pp. 83-100). The Disability Press.
Rhodes, P. J., Nocon, A., & Wright, J. (2008). Disability and identity: the challenge of epilepsy. Disability and Society, 23(4), 385-395. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687590802038910
Stuckey, A. (2019). " Exercises of their own invention": Reading Age and Disability in Nineteenth-Century Children's Fiction. Studies in American Fiction, 46(2), 195-216. https://doi.org/10.1353/saf.2019.0009
Swain, J., & French, S. (2000). Towards an Affirmation Model of Disability. Disability & Society, 15(4), 569-582. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687590050058189
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (pp. 33-47). Brooks/Cole.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In Political psychology (pp. 7-24). Nelson-Hall.
Thomas, C., & Milligan, C. (2015). How can and should UK society adjust to dementia? Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Retrieved June 20 from http://www.makingitrealindudley.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/How-can-and-should-UK-society-adjust-to-dementia.pdf
Turnbull, A. P. (1995). Exceptional lives: Special education in today's schools. Merrill/Prentice Hall.
