Dear All,

I’d like to share the call for papers for an exciting new volume of Research in Social Science and Disability:

Call for Papers

Statements of Interest Due May 15, 2014

Sociology and Disability:  What Did we Know and When Did We Know It?

Research in Social Science and Disability, Volume 9

Edited by Sara Green and Sharon Barnartt

            Current research in Sociology of Disability and in Disability Studies [as in many other fields] has a tendency to assume that there was very little written in this area until the last 20 or so years.  However, it occurs quite often that someone [usually, but not always, older] will say of work done by someone [usually, but not always, younger], “That is not new.  So-and-so wrote about that a long time ago.”  In part the lack of awareness of older writing occurs because of the ease of computerized searching for recent references or a sense that newer is better.  It also reflects the assumption that Sociology as a field has ignored either disability as a social phenomenon or treated it solely as a medical phenomenon as well as the fact that these writings tend to be widely scattered and not found just in sociology journals or books.

While it is true that theorists and introductory textbooks tended [and still tend] to ignore disability as a non-medical phenomenon and especially as a structured source of inequality, that does not mean that no attention was paid to disability in the earlier years of sociological thinking.  Rather, interest in disability from a sociological point of view exists in the literature as early as the late 1800s, and some very profound articles were written in the mid- 20^th century.

The purpose of this volume is to explore that literature, with an eye towards encouraging current scholars not to ask “the same old” questions but to be able to use the older writings as a basis for revolutionary as well as evolutionary thinking.  What do the older writings tell us about what questions we should be asking, and what research we should be doing, today?

This call for papers is seeking articles which review and evaluate literature in sociology which explicitly viewed disability through a non-medical, sociological lens.  There are several ways in which an author might frame the questions we are asking here, although these are not mutually exclusive and very well might overlap:

1)       A paper might focus on how specific sociological questions or concepts were applied to the general area of disability.  These concepts could include identity, interaction patterns, social structures, cultural issues, roles, status attainment, minority group, and social movement.  A paper would review and evaluate that literature.

2)       A paper might focus on sociological aspects of specific impairments.  It would explore how topics such as those listed above, or similar topics, are affected by, or affect, specific impairments.  Examples could be blindness and interaction patterns, deafness and culture, social movement mobilizations among parents of children with developmental disabilities, status attainment patterns of blind workers, or the social structure of the deaf community.

3)      A paper might be based upon the work of a specific person, such as Harriet Martineau, Saad Nagi, Constantina Safilios-Rothschild,  Irving Zola, Gary Albrecht, Mary Jo Deegan, Paul Higgins, Jeff Nash, etc.  This type of paper would summarize and evaluate that person’s work and their contribution to later sociological issues.

4)      A paper might look at the sociological writing which appeared during a specific time period, such as after WWII.  Such a paper might analyze the relationship of the time period to what was being written about disability in sociology.

We are seeking expressions of interest and commitments to write a paper on an appropriate topic.  The due date for us to receive such statements is May 15, 2014.  The completed paper will be due in January, 2015.  The completed manuscripts, revised after peer review, will be due at the beginning of June, 2015.  This volume will be published at the end of 2015.

Please send all communications to Sara Green [[log in to unmask]] and Sharon Barnartt [[log in to unmask]].