People with Disabilities: Sidelined or Mainstreamed? by Lisa Schur, Douglas Kruse and Peter Blanck. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2013, 300 pp., ISBN: 978 110 7000 476, $99.00, hardback.
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12070 |
People with Disabilities: Sidelined or Mainstreamed? by Lisa Schur, Douglas Kruse
and Peter Blanck. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2013, 300 pp., ISBN:
978 110 7000 476, $99.00, hardback.
Schur, Kruse and Blanck provide, in this volume, an excellent overview of the many
ways in which people with disabilities have historically been excluded from full
participation in community and economic life, as well as ways in which this can be
effectively addressed going forward. The authors articulate the broad purpose of the
book, as ‘to provide an overview of the economic, political, and social conditions of
people with disabilities around the world and to discuss the barriers to and opportu-
nities for greater inclusion that they face.’ Drawing from literature across the social
sciences, including economics, political science, psychology, disability studies, law
and sociology, the book will be of interest to scholars and students from many
disciplines, and can readily serve as a text for courses in disability studies, employment
and disability policy, human rights, and others. In addition, it can be a useful refer-
ence for policy makers and disability advocates, as well as having relevance for people
with disabilities themselves and their family members. The text might be of lesser
relevance to vocational rehabilitation and other disability direct service practitioner
audiences.
The authors’ main focus is on how people with disabilities have been marginalized
in many ways throughout history, and the book traces how perceptions about people
with disabilities have evolved over time. Different models used to characterize people
with disabilities are described, including the medical perspective (with its focus on
functional impairments and health conditions), the social perspective (which views
disability as caused by society) and the universalist view (sees impairment as a con-
tinuum, and does not separate the population into people with and without disabili-
ties). In the reviewer’s opinion, the latter is a more progressive approach, and offers
a valuable distinction that needs the increased visibility afforded here. Inherent in this
conceptualization of disability is the challenge of definitions. The authors present a
sound analysis of the issues encountered in measuring disability, and they aptly
describe the importance of, but also the issues involved in, providing valid estimates
of the numbers of people with disabilities from data collection on a country-by-
country basis throughout the world.
One significant area where exclusion for people with disabilities occurs is in
employment, and the authors devote two chapters to this topic. Income and poverty
levels, as well as employment participation rates for people with disabilities, are
reported across 29 countries from OECD data, further confirming continuing eco-
nomic disparities. These data are often cited, and what is distinct and most useful
in these chapters is that the authors include information exploring why the employ-
ment rates are lower and what the prospects are for higher employment levels. The
commentary regarding the projected growth of jobs, as well as the impact of the
increasing sophistication of technology and employers’ enhanced appreciation of
workplace diversity, is encouraging and a welcome addition to what is often a most
pessimistic outlook on employment for this population. The second chapter focused
on employment offers a more ‘in the workplace’ perspective, which offers a nuanced
understanding of the possibilities that alternative work arrangements may afford
people with disabilities for increased employment participation, but also explores
how workplace culture can present barriers to full inclusion. The importance of
accommodations is also discussed, and the authors address an often neglected topic
by effectively documenting the cost of accommodations from a number of sources.
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© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
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