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 2012 which fit with the Aims and Scope of Disability & Society.

Please provide the following information:

Name of the author

Thesis title

University awarding degree

Degree awarded and year:

A 100 word synopsis of the thesis

Email address

Please forward this information to Helen Oliver, Disability & Society Editorial Office

Email: [email protected]

We will include this call for Doctoral Announcements in forthcoming issues of the journal.

Executive Editors

Name of author:  Robert Daniel Rourke

Thesis title:   Habitual Favourites: A Sensory Sociology of Autism

University awarding degree: Goldsmiths, University of London, UK (PhD 2017)

The thesis contributes to sociological and disability studies literatures by developing an original theoretical framework to conduct empirical research into sensory experiences for people with autism. Reflexivity will be re-examined for those with autism by questioning the legitimacy of Theory of Mind perspectives. Here, an expanded sense of autistic sociality will be developed that incorporates sensory experiences and posthuman encounters with non-human objects. The thesis also considers how an author with Asperger Syndrome can write autoethnographies concerning a PhD. This will include examining the power structures of academia and how autistic academics challenge and reconfigure academic spaces.

Email: [email protected]

Name of author:  Yeo Siang Lee

Thesis title:   Autism in the classroom: A conversation-analytic study of lesson beginnings in special education

University awarding degree: Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia (PhD 2016)

This study explores how a group of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) engage in classroom interactions in a special education centre in Sydney. Video recordings of classroom interactions involving three Year 5/6 students with ASD and two of their teachers are analysed using Conversation Analysis (CA). The analyses document how children and teachers collaborate lesson beginnings, and describe a number of recurrent courses of action, including greetings, topic talk, and occasioning of task incipiency. The findings of the present study have implications for understanding teaching practices involving children with ASD, and the organisation of classroom talk.

Email: [email protected]