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Jun. 8th, 2006 06:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI have now read all the pages in my sociology textbook (which is 2 inches thick, more or less) that are about disability.
Surely it should take more than half an hour?
There was the bit about defining disability and the role of disabled people. There was the bit about stigma. And there was the bit about media representation.
There was also an interesting bit on representations of mental illness in the media, but its hiding in the Health chapter, not up with the media chapter like the rest.
I haven't read everything about mental illness. There seems to be lots more of that.
There was also a chunk in the chapter on... I think employment? A chart of how many disabled people were employed, unemployed, or "economically inactive", which I had to look up. Means "either not looking for, or not available for, work", with three main categories, students, disabled, and people looking after houses or families. About a third of disabled people were in work in 1998, and there were more than 5 million of them. That's a lot more than I imagined, which makes me feel vaguely stupid. I mean I am disabled, and I know a lot of disabled people, so how did I not notice that there are in fact a whole ton of disabled people?
Probably goes back to that 0.7%
0.7% of speaking roles to represent, in this country, more than 5 million people.
Bloody ridiculous.
For employment category purposes disabled has a specific meaning - something about 'limiting the kind or amount' of work I think, I left the book in the other room.
Definitions outside of official statistics I suspect are rather fuzzier.
I found in the bibliography that the Cumberbatch thing with Disability in the title seems to be a book. So I can go find it in a library, I guess.
This seems to be it.
"38 disabled people had major roles in these dramas compared with 2469 major roles coded."
So, not all Jim Byrnes then.
Now I definitely want to poke the book, because the phrasing "disabled people had major roles" says its about disabled *actors*, but I'll bet you its counting characters and some of them are played by people pretending.
BFI Disabling Imagery? resources on teaching disability and moving image media
Ofcom content analysis portrayal of people with disabilities, pdf, 2005
This one is fascinating. 1/4 of appearances are repeat characters. Most of the representations in politics are down to Blunkett. 19% of population represented by less than 1% of roles. Disability central or relevant to most representations.
And that's just the summary. Lots of lovely data to poke.
Like categories in more detail - apparently mental health is one of them.
This is actually the topic for my next essay. I'm doing homework. In advance even. Woah.
Of course *today's* lesson is about age, not disability. But I already know a chunk about youth cultures and representations thereof, and I read the pages we're supposed to. The one I wanted to chase was the disability bit.
Surely it should take more than half an hour?
There was the bit about defining disability and the role of disabled people. There was the bit about stigma. And there was the bit about media representation.
There was also an interesting bit on representations of mental illness in the media, but its hiding in the Health chapter, not up with the media chapter like the rest.
I haven't read everything about mental illness. There seems to be lots more of that.
There was also a chunk in the chapter on... I think employment? A chart of how many disabled people were employed, unemployed, or "economically inactive", which I had to look up. Means "either not looking for, or not available for, work", with three main categories, students, disabled, and people looking after houses or families. About a third of disabled people were in work in 1998, and there were more than 5 million of them. That's a lot more than I imagined, which makes me feel vaguely stupid. I mean I am disabled, and I know a lot of disabled people, so how did I not notice that there are in fact a whole ton of disabled people?
Probably goes back to that 0.7%
0.7% of speaking roles to represent, in this country, more than 5 million people.
Bloody ridiculous.
For employment category purposes disabled has a specific meaning - something about 'limiting the kind or amount' of work I think, I left the book in the other room.
Definitions outside of official statistics I suspect are rather fuzzier.
I found in the bibliography that the Cumberbatch thing with Disability in the title seems to be a book. So I can go find it in a library, I guess.
This seems to be it.
"38 disabled people had major roles in these dramas compared with 2469 major roles coded."
So, not all Jim Byrnes then.
Now I definitely want to poke the book, because the phrasing "disabled people had major roles" says its about disabled *actors*, but I'll bet you its counting characters and some of them are played by people pretending.
BFI Disabling Imagery? resources on teaching disability and moving image media
Ofcom content analysis portrayal of people with disabilities, pdf, 2005
This one is fascinating. 1/4 of appearances are repeat characters. Most of the representations in politics are down to Blunkett. 19% of population represented by less than 1% of roles. Disability central or relevant to most representations.
And that's just the summary. Lots of lovely data to poke.
Like categories in more detail - apparently mental health is one of them.
This is actually the topic for my next essay. I'm doing homework. In advance even. Woah.
Of course *today's* lesson is about age, not disability. But I already know a chunk about youth cultures and representations thereof, and I read the pages we're supposed to. The one I wanted to chase was the disability bit.