RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES – 2011/2012
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Professor Dan Goodley 
(Manchester Metropolitan University)

Professor Dan Goodley is Professor of Psychology and Disability at the Social Change Research Centre in the Psychology Department at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research brings together three key areas – (1) Disability, diversity and social change associated with disability studies, particularly with the lives of people with the label of 'learning difficulties' (formerly 'mental handicap') in aiming to understand and challenge the exclusion of people with impairments from mainstream society. (2) Innovations in qualitative research, adopting a qualitative methodology, in which a number of potential innovative and empowering approaches have been critically encountered, including ethnography, performing arts, narrative, life story and discourse analysis. (3) Deconstructing professional and institutional practices, trying to promote dialogues with a whole host of professions and professional practices in various educational, health and social welfare positions. The web page has more information about Professor Goodley’s research interests and achievements.

Seminar Title:  Developments in Critical Disability Studies: Implications for Inclusive Education

Abstract

I have been trying recently to articulate what could be meant by a critical disability studies approach. My recent book (Disability Studies: an interdisciplinary introduction, Sage 2011) and a forthcoming paper (with Helen Meekosha, Critical disability studies: A review essay, for Critical Sociology), account for this emerging trans-disciplinary space through reference to a number of emerging insights including theorizing through materialism; bodies that matter; inter/transectionality; Global disability studies and self and other. Many of these insights are developed further; by authors in a book I have edited with Bill Hughes and Lenny Davis (Disability and Social Theory, Palgrave McMillan, due late 2011). In this paper I briefly dis/entangle some themes of critical disability studies and their implications for inclusive education. While we may well start with disability I will suggest that we should never end with it as we learn from other transformative arenas including feminist, critical race and queer theories.