In response to Alison's posting about agency, two things:
First, I personally don't find Giddens' ideas about the reflexive project
of the self and structuration theory helpful. Reflexivity is not evenly
distributed even in the adult population and I don't think it is always
easy to describe this distribution in terms of 'impairment effects' or
'disability effects' to use Carol Thomas' terminology. It's useful to look
at the detailed criticisms of this work - criticisms that are remarkably
consistent in the general equalities context (with the exception of
disability).
Re: learning from the 'new' sociology of childhood. Most of these accounts
suggest that the agency-structure issue has not been resolved, though
recent literature has been explicit in articulating two different
influences - namely interactionist accounts that view children as agents
and social constructionist accounts that emphasise the social, cultural and
historical variability of childhood. These influences are suggestive of a
retention of the agency/structure dualism but highlight different kinds of
analysis.
When we add disability theory to the equation and disabled people's
experience (inside and outside the movement), however, we have two added
issues that effect how the 'new' sociology of childhood can be related to
sociological accounts of disability:
1. social creationism (see Priestley, 1998) - the emphasis of th social
model on the social creation of disability 'on top of' impairment (Barnes
et.al., 1999) and the Marxist emphasis on work as autonomy. Paul Abberley
(1997) describes children as 'potential workers', which seems to me to be a
little like describing children as potential adults i.e. a developmental
model, but his subsequent argument about some impaired lives is helpful.
2. the uneasy relationship between social creationist accounts and both
interactionist and social constructionist accounts. Barnes et.al. (1999:
32-3) write:
"there is an assumption that human beings are reflective and have a
capacity for choice or agency. They can view their actions as both subjects
and objects. That is human beings are viewed as creative social actors.
Nevertheless individuals are also constrained in what they think and do.
This has led to considerable debate about the relative importance of agency
and structure. Those approaches which emphasise structural factors
highlight the ways in which social behaviour is shaped and constrained.
>From this perspective, individual behaviour and attitudes have their bases
in the social circumstances and the social groups to which people belong.
In contrast, other approaches represent social action as far less certain
and social interaction as more open to 'negotitation."
My questions, arising from this (and it is difficult to identify specific
reference to agency outside of reference to disabled activists) would be:
*Is there a difference between having a choice and making a choice in terms
of the 'how' of agency?
*Would it be appropriate to consider different ways of thinking as being
more appropriate for analysis at particular levels of the social structure
without using analytical biases to diminish other approaches?
*What happens when children (and adults) are excluded from belonging to
social groups or restricted in the social groups they can belong to?
*Where does the individual end and the collective begin in the context of
social practice and process?
When I talk about 'muddying the waters' what I mean is don't be afraid to
consider the possibility that the social model doesn't work (and doesn't
claim to work) at all levels of disabled people's experience and of the
social structure. There is room for the kind of intersectional accounts you
suggest are needed. The most important voices in developing theory and
practice around disabled childhoods are those of disabled children, not
adults (disabled or not).
Best wishes
Mairian
Mairian Corker
Senior Research Fellow
Department of Education and Social Studies
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
Address for correspondence:
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