Community Rehabilitation & Disability Studies

The LGBTQ+ community is diverse. While L, G, B, T, and Q are usually tied together as a single homogeneous entity, each letter represents a wide range of people of different races, ethnicities, ages, socioeconomic statuses and identities (National LGBT Health Education Centre, 2019). Unfortunately, experiences of stigma and discrimination are a common theme that transcends across the entire LGBTQ+ community. While discrimination exists across the community, the manifestations of oppression and discrimination are not a singular occurrence or experience. One area in which there is a long history of discrimination and lack of awareness is within the health care sector.

Includes: Cases, glossary, and interactive exercises

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Disability Studies

Diversity and Difference in Communication (LibreTexts)

Interpersonal communication in health and social care services is by its nature diverse. As a consequence, achieving good or effective communication whether between service providers and service users, or among those working in a service means taking account of diversity, rather than assuming that every interaction will be the same. This text available through LibreTexts explores the ways in which difference and diversity impact on the nature of communication in health and social care services.

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Just Vibrations: The Purpose of Sounding Good

With recourse to experimental rhetoric, interdisciplinary discretion, and the playful wisdoms of childhood, Cheng contends that reparative attitudes toward music and musicology can serve as barometers of better worlds (Description from resource).

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Note: This is an open access text which restricts remixing and adapting).

Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN)

OAPEN includes many disability studies-related open access books in their database which, though they are not strictly textbooks, can be incorporated into your course readings.  Some of them have CC-BY-4.0 or CC-BY-SA-4.0 copyright licenses that you can adopt, remix, transform, and build upon the original.  Search the keyword “disability” and browse.  Check the copyright status assigned to selected titles.  Refer to the four different copyrights.

The following four titles are examples from the OAPEN collection, with portions of descriptions taken from their abstracts.

1. Ableism in Academic

This edited volume attempts to theorize experiences of Ableism in academia from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Licence: CC BY 4.0

2. Disability, Health, and Human Development

In low-income countries, there has been very little research on disability and its link to deprivations. Much of the research is recent, and research using traditional poverty indicators (e.g., consumption expenditures) paints an unclear picture on the association between disability and deprivations. This is important as the prevalence of health conditions and impairments is expected to rise with an increasing life expectancy and as more policies try to address deprivations in relation to disability. This book asks the following: How should disability be defined to analyze and inform policies related to wellbeing? What is the prevalence of functional difficulties? What inequalities are associated with functional difficulties? What are the economic consequences of functional difficulties? The empirical work is focused on Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Licence: CC BY 4.0

3. Disability Studies and Spanish Culture

Disability Studies and Spanish Culture is the first book to apply the tenets of Disability Studies to the Spanish context. While researchers and students of cinema will be particularly interested in the book’s detailed analyses of the formal aspects of the films, comics, and novels discussed, readers from backgrounds in history, political science and sociology will all be able to appreciate discussions of contemporary legislation, advocacy groups, cultural perceptions, models of social integration and more. The book is directed, also, toward those readers more familiar with the growing field of Disability Studies itself—making the argument that the specific case of Spanish culture and society speaks to shifts in the social attitudes and theoretical understandings of disability more broadly considered.

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Note: This is an open access text which restricts remixing and adapting).

4. Physical Disability and Sexuality: Stories from South Africa

This edited volume explores physical disability and sexuality in South Africa, drawing on past studies, new research conducted by the editors, and first-person narratives from people with physical disabilities in the country.

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Please refer to the Libraries and Cultural Resources (LCR) Staff Directory to connect with a librarian supporting this subject area.