ANNOUNCEMENT OF DOCTORAL THESES
We have agreed to provide within the journal a list of completed theses in the field of Disability Studies. This will be an important resource for readers to follow through as well as provide the names of colleagues who are new entrants to the discipline.
This is an open invitation for theses completed from 2010 which fit with the Aims and Scope of Disability & Society.
Please provide the following information:
Name of the author
Thesis Title
The University awarding the degree (please state degree awarded and year)
A 100 word synopsis of the thesis
Email address
Please forward this information to Helen Oliver, School of Education, University of Sheffield, 388 Glossop Road, Sheffield S10 2JA.
Email: [email protected]
We will include this call for Doctoral Announcements in forthcoming issues of the journal.
Executive Editors
Name of the author: Hannah Tweed
Thesis title: Aesthetics of Autism? Contemporary Representations of Autism in Literature and Film
University awarding degree: University of Glasgow, UK
Degree awarded and year: PhD 2015
My thesis analyses representations of autism in twentieth and twenty-first century Anglo-American literature and film. It posits that, while many cultural portrayals of autism are more concerned with perpetuating the stereotypes surrounding the condition than with representing autistic experience, there is evidence of a small but significant counter-current that is responding to and challenging more reductive representational modes. Focusing particularly on crime fiction, melodrama, and life-writing, I propose that a crucial minority of texts subvert stereotypes of autistic representations, by both autistic and neurotypical authors, and outline new, twenty-first century representational patterns.
Email: [email protected]
Name of the author: Debby Watson
Thesis title: ‘Go-Getters’ and ‘Clever Little Cookies’: A multi-method study of playfulness in children with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD)
University awarding degree: University of Bristol, UK
Degree awarded and year: PhD 2015
Playfulness offers the potential to change perceptions of children with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) from passive children who are ‘done to’ to children who are inherently playful, have personalities, strengths and preferences. This multi-method study shows that children with PMLD are highly playful and that encouraging playfulness may have many benefits for the children and for those around them. Playfulness enables a close connection to others, in what is termed here as ‘mindful interdependency’. It was established that active playfulness stimulated and excited the children and may be linked to an increase in their strengths.
Email: [email protected]
Name of the author: Ben Whitburn
Thesis title: Critical Engagement with Insider Accounts of Inclusive Schooling
University awarding degree: Deakin University, Australia
Degree awarded and year: PhD 2015
Engaging critically with the perspectives of young people with disabilities in inclusive secondary schools in Australia and Spain, this thesis contributes a methodological orientation to disability studies in education that is simultaneously political, theoretical and personal. A series of published papers comprises this work that were prepared during candidature. The methodology is put to work to reveal how ‘included’ subjects are developed—revealing that while inclusive schooling can be effective for students, policy imperatives and teacher underservicing adversely impact the inclusion project. The thesis concludes that education might be recast anew via the redeployment of resources away from special education traditions.
Email: [email protected]