Session Information
04 SES 13 B, Stigmatization
Paper Session
Contribution
The General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol on 13 December 2006. Since then 147 countries have signed and 97 have ratified it and the Convention entered into force on 3 May 2008. The adoption of the Convention was hailed as a historical landmark and gained ample media attention. A core message of the Convention is a paradigm shift promoting a rights discourse in terms of attitudes towards people with a disability. Article 24 of the Convention ensures that persons with disabilities are not excluded from the general education system on the basis of disability and can access an inclusive educational system at all levels of education.
Research on how disability is represented in media has explored how powerful and persistent stereotypical and victimizing representations are. Much of this research, and in particular on print media, explores disability issues in general with emphasis on representation and language used (Gold & Auslander, 1999; Haller, Dorries, & Rahn, 2006; Soffer, Rimmerman, Blanck, & Hill, 2010), with education being a secondary theme (Jones, & Harwood, 2009; Yoshida, Wasilewski, & Freidman, 1990). There is limited research on print media representations on inclusive education (see for example Connor, & Ferri, 2007; Dorries, & Haller, 2001).
This paper has two main aims. The first aim is to explore how the pivotal event of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was presented in media reports in Australia and Greece and whether the initial momentum has had any lasting effects. The second aim is to research the extent that media references to the education of students with a disability discuss the Convention and if so, to what extent they adopt a rights-based approach. Further, these references are examined in terms of whether they have a special education or inclusive education orientation and what debates surrounds the concept of ‘rights’.
Elsewhere (Zoniou-Sideri, Deropoulou-Derou, Karagianni, & Spandagou, 2006) we have argued -based on an analysis of disability representations in Greek media- that a hybrid model of representation was evident. This presents disability as simultaneously a personal and social issue and thus creates a conflicting understanding of disability. However, the intrinsic conflict of such a representation is suppressed, since it is presented as unproblematic and therefore, as ‘commonsense’. In this paper, the comparative exploration of two contexts with different socio-economic, cultural and educational traditions and existing legislation informing education allows examining what is defined as inclusive education (Armstrong, Armstrong, Spandagou, 2010) and how these conceptions are justified or challenged by dominant representations of disability.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Armstrong, A.C., Armstrong, D., & Spandagou, I. (2010). Inclusive Education; International policy and practice. London: Sage. Connor, D., & Ferri, B. (2007). The conflict within; resistance to inclusion and other paradoxes in special education. Disability & Society, 22(1), 63-77. Dorries, B., & Haller, B. (2001). The news of inclusive education; A narrative analysis. Disability & Society, 16(6), 871-891. Gold, N. & Auslander, G. (1999). Newspaper coverage of people with disabilities in Canada and Israel: An international comparison, Disability & Society, 14(6), 709-731. Haller, B., Dorries, B., & Rahn, J. (2006). Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language. Disability & Society, 21(1), 61-75. Jones, S.C., & Harwood, V. (2009). Representations of autism in Australian print media, Disability & Society, 24(1), 5-18. Soffer, M., Rimmerman, A., Blanck, P., & Hill, E. (2010). Media and the Israeli disability rights legislation; progress or mixed and contradictory images?. Disability & Society, 25(6), 687-699. United Nations (2006). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol. New York: United Nations. Yoshida, R.K., Wasilewski, L., & Freidman, D.L. (1990). Recent newspaper coverage about persons with disabilities. Exceptional Children, 56(5), 418-423. Zoniou-Sideri, A., Deropoulou-Derou, E., Karagianni, P., & Spandagou, I. (2006). Inclusive discourse in Greece: strong voices, weak policies. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 10(2), 279-291.
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