This collection provides a comprehensive insight into disabled children and youth in Nordic countries. It seeks to understand the experiences of children from their own perspectives and takes a multidisciplinary approach grounded in the new social studies of childhood and the Nordic relational approach to disability.

This collection provides a comprehensive insight into disabled children and youth in Nordic countries. It seeks to understand the experiences of children from their own perspectives and takes a multidisciplinary approach grounded in the new social studies of childhood and the Nordic relational approach to disability.

This book focuses on developing the use of ethnographic research for rehabilitation practitioners by recognizing its value methodologically and empirically in the field of rehabilitation. The very nature of ethnographic research offers an array of opportunities for researchers to understand the social world around them. The book identifies the multifaceted use of ethnographic methods in the rehabilitation setting. It touches on how acute and chronic conditions can affect the nature of ethnographic work in attempts to offer originality in a range of rehabilitation settings. Readers will find this collection of examples useful for informing their own research, and it aims to enlighten new discussion and arguments regarding both methodological and empirical use of ethnographic work internationally.

There is much evidence to show that digital technologies greatly impact children's lives through the use of computers, laptops and mobile devices. Children's uses of digital technologies are, therefore, currently of huge concern to academics, teachers and parents. Disabled Children and Digital Technologies investigates disabled children's learning with digital technologies within the context of inclusive education. Sue Cranmer explores the potential benefits of using digital technologies to support disabled children's learning whilst recognising that these technologies also have the potential to act as a barrier to inclusion. Cranmer provides a critical overview of how digital technologies are being used in contemporary classrooms for learning. The book includes detailed analysis of a recent study carried out with disabled children with visual impairments aged between 13 – 17 years old in mainstream secondary schools. The chapters consider the use of digital technologies in relation to access, engagement, attitudes, and skills, including safety and risk. These perspectives are complemented by interviews with teachers to explore how digital technologies can support disabled children's learning and inclusion in mainstream settings more effectively.

This book investigates and uncover paradoxes and ambivalences that are actualised when seeking to make the right choices in the best interests of the child. The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child established a milestone for the 20th century. Many of these ideas still stand, but time calls for new reflections, empirical descriptions and knowledge as provided in this book. Special attention is directed to the conceptualisation of children and childhood cultures, the missing voices of infants and fragile children, as well as transformations during times of globalisation and change. All chapters contribute to understand and discuss aspects of societal demands and cultural conditions for modern-day children age 0–18, accompanied by pointers to their future. Contributors are: Eli Kristin Aadland, Wenche Bjorbækmo, Jorunn Spord Borgen, Gunn Helene Engelsrud, Kristin Vindhol Evensen, Eldbjørg Fossgard, Liv Torunn Grindheim, Asle Holthe, Liisa Karlsson, Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager, Jonatan Leer, Ida Marie Lyså, Elin Eriksen Ødegaard, Czarecah Tuppil Oropilla, Susanne Højlund Pedersen, Anja Maria Pesch, Karen Klitgaard Povlsen, Gro Rugseth, Pauline von Bonsdorff, Hege Wergedahl and Susanne C. Ylönen.

Disabled children’s lives have often been discussed through medical concepts of disability rather than concepts of childhood. Western understandings of childhood have defined disabled children against child development ‘norms’ and have provided the rationale for segregated or ‘special’ welfare and education provision. In contrast, disabled children’s childhood studies begins with the view that studies of children’s impairment are not studies of their childhoods. Disabled children’s childhood studies demands ethical research practices that position disabled children and young people at the centre of the inquiry outside of the shadow of perceived ‘norms’. The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, as well as practitioners in health, education, social work and youth work.

This handbook provides authoritative and cutting-edge analyses of various aspects of the rights and lives of disabled children around the world. Taking the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) as conceptual frameworks, this work appraises the current state of affairs concerning the rights of disabled children across different stages of childhood, different life domains, and different socio-cultural contexts. The book is divided into four sections: Legislation and Policy Children’s Voice The Life Course in Childhood Life Domains in Childhood Comprised of 37 newly commissioned chapters featuring analyses of UN documents and case studies from Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vanuatu, its multidisciplinary approach reflects the complexities of the lives of disabled children and the multifarious nature of the strategies needed to ensure their rights are upheld. It will be of interest to researchers and students working in disability studies, education, allied health, law, philosophy, play studies, social policy, and the sociology of childhood. It will also be a valuable resource for professionals/practitioners, allowing them to consider future directions for ensuring that disabled children’s rights are realised and their well-being and dignity are assured.

The book presents a comparative study of children’s constitutional rights in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The authors discuss the value of enshrining children’s rights in national constitutions in addition to implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Central issues are whether enshrining children’s rights in the Constitution improves implementation and enforcement of those rights by providing advocacy tools and by mandating courts, legislators, policy-makers and practitioners to take children’s rights seriously. The study assesses whether the Nordic constitutions are in line with the child rights approach of the CRC both on a general level and in detail in three domains; the best interests of the child, participation rights, and the right to respect for family life.

Social services for people with disabilities have undergone substantial changes over time, in particular in the past two decades. Whilst lack of affordable and appropriate housing is a barrier to community living for many people with disabilities, it is only one part of the jigsaw. This book traces some of these changes, in particular related to living situation and support available, in a range of different countries and considers the factors that have influenced these changes. This book considers other aspects of what is needed to bring about real change in the lives of all people with disabilities.

A crucial contemporary dynamic around children and young people in the Global North is the multiple ways that have emerged to monitor their development, behaviour and character. In particular disabled children or children with unusual developmental patterns can find themselves surrounded by multiple practices through which they are examined. This rich book draws on a wide range of qualitative research to look at how disabled children have been cared for, treated and categorised. Narrative and longitudinal interviews with children and their families, along with stories and images they have produced and notes from observations of different spaces in their lives – medical consultation rooms, cafes and leisure centres, homes, classrooms and playgrounds amongst others – all make a contribution. Bringing this wealth of empirical data together with conceptual ideas from disability studies, sociology of the body, childhood studies, symbolic interactionism and feminist critical theory, the authors explore the multiple ways in which monitoring occurs within childhood disability and its social effects. Their discussion includes examining the dynamics of differentiation via medicine, social interaction, and embodiment and the multiple actors – including children and young people themselves – involved. The book also investigates the practices that differentiate children into different categories and what this means for notions of normality, integration, belonging and citizenship. Scrutinising the multiple forms of monitoring around disabled children and the consequences they generate for how we think about childhood and what is ‘normal’, this volume sits at the intersection of disability studies and childhood studies.