Digital inclusion of people with disabilities: a qualitative study of intra-disability diversity in the digital realm

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an in-depth study of intra-disability diversity in the digital realm and the related role of individuality and selectiveness in the digital choices and experiences of people with disabilities (PwD). The study adopts the interactionist model of disability and problematises conceptual uniformity in research that focuses on the medical and socially-constructed features of disability as those determining digital constraints and affordances for PwD. Through primary qualitative evidence, it argues that individuality and selectiveness shape a complex terrain of intra-disability diversity, which forms the nuances and experiences of digital inclusion for PwD. Thus, it invites researchers to move beyond disability-fixed categorisations and offers a 3-tier recommendation for future research to explain the range of PwD’ perceptions and experiences in the digital realm.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital inclusion
• disability
• focus groups
• individuality
• intra-disability diversity
• selectiveness
• social inclusion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The term ‘disabled people’ is often used in both scholarly and non-scholarly discussions. While scholars such as Dan Goodley make use of the term ‘disabled people’, the term PwD is often used by the advocacy movement that aims to put the person before the disability. In this paper, the preference is for PwD, as this term approaches a certain aspect of those people’s bio-medical status, without characterising them as ‘disabled’ and thus without defining their identity by their disability.

2 See at http://www.asterics.eu/index.php?id=3.

3 See at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/access-for-people-with-disabilities//.

4 See at http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding/guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics/our-core-principles/.

5 The prevalent discourses on social exclusion (top bullet point) and participants’ focus on a couple of digital services and technologies (second top bullet point) did not involve specific or informative discussions on intra-disability and thus, they were of limited pertinence to the focus of this paper. For this reason, they are not presented further in the paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities at the University of Leicester [Grant Number S15RE106].