Tag: Inclusion

In Society and Lifestyle, in todays input through the lecture, seminar and independent tutorial I have gathered and developed my thoughts and questions about people with disabilities and their experiences in society on inclusion and equality. Disability is number two of the nine characteristics protected against discrimination by the Equality Act 2010. I find this topic extremely interesting to read about and how being disabled can cause unfairness, I feel that it is crucial for society to treat everyone the same and give everyone equal opportunities. From looking back at ancient times, the treatment of people with disabilities was horrifying by many people being persecuted or killed just because they had a disability. In todays 21st century it is becoming an increasing matter that we as society must learn to create a new reality and ways of being.

Many people argue the matter that impairments themselves cause the disability by preventing them doing usual day to day activities, however, personally I believe that it is in fact the physical environment that surrounds us that causes magnificent ways of living and problems with those that live with a disability they find restrictions almost everywhere around them. I agree with Mel Ainscow belief that assumptions of people with disabilities are not intellectually developed and that those living with a disability should be moved into the mainstream environment to allow everyone to have fair and equal opportunities in the world.

In addition to this, I find the ‘universal design’ a very crucial and interesting concept that hopefully in years to come will be put in place in several buildings to create an equal and fair environment of use for everyone. This will allow people to treat everyone the same as they don’t have barriers separating the disabled and the privileged.

‘The opportunity of adversity’ a TED TALK video that was filmed in October 2009 by Aimee Mullens who truly believes there is no such thing as ‘normality’. Everyone has their different opinions and attitudes, beliefs, likes and attitudes. Nothing is considered as ‘normal’ as everyone is different. Society must learn to appreciate and value everyone instead of shaming and looking down on people who maybe look different or speak different to everyone else.

I feel that this is a strong topic that I still need to look into further. I feel that as a student and hopefully as an educator in the future I will gather these thoughts and be able to treat all my pupils equally. John Ravis belief is to be able to suit everyone in society we must look at the least advantaged first and consider what and how we would provide for them first. I will do just this in my classroom for an equal class environment for my pupils to earn in.

 

This week in the lecture we discussed inclusion and equality from a disabled point of discussion. I found it very interesting and useful to be able to learn about Allport’s scale of Prejudice and Discrimination and also learn a bit about the theorists which are relative to this field such as Nancy Fraser. I also found that religion and inclusion are linked closely together as people can be subject to discrimination, violence or verbal attacks because of their religion/race.

We also learned about the history of disability and inclusion and how disabled people were subject to mistreatment and humiliation such as being placed in asylums, harmed or being toured around in circuses but we also discussed how attitudes towards disability has changed drastically  over the years and decades. In our seminar later on, we were discussing situations where children with disabilities may be discriminated against and how we could deal with these situations. It was useful to be able to use Allport’s scale to classify these examples and also think if our own examples that we have experienced ourselves.

I now feel that I have a better understanding of this topic and I feel that I would now be able to handle a situation like the ones in the seminar more effectively if they happened in my own classroom. However, I do intend to read further into this topic to further my knowledge.

Our recent input of Inclusion and Equality focused on disability, one of the nine characteristics to be protected specified by the Equality Act 2010. We studied  what forms of discrimination disabled humans have faced in history and still face this day. The use of Allport’s scale of prejudice and discrimination were useful when identifying clear examples of oppression of disabled people including: drawing from my own experiences of witnessing antilocution, discrimination, physical attack (persecution and assault) and extermination. Attitudes towards disability have unarguably progressed over the last hundred years, however only a short 70 years ago Nazi Germany persecuted disabled Germans as they were seen as ‘unfit’ for their national community. I experienced feelings of shock and discomfort when learning the truth of how these people were extremely oppressed in past centuries.

Furthermore in our seminar we looked at discriminative situations against disabled people to order understand in what ways the situation could be improved and for the oppressed individual to feel included and equal amongst a majority. I found this incredibly useful and eye-opening. Discrimination may sometimes not come from prejudicial thoughts and it can initiate over wanting to protect that individual from harm, however excluded that person from having the same experiences and chances as the majority prevents them from making a worthy contribution and progressing as a person.

There were many aspects to this input that I understood thoroughly, however I intend to keep on reading and researching information on the focus of disability and other characteristics of oppressed groups in order to fully grasp the concept of inclusion and equality.