Online Disability Studies, Rights and Inclusion MSc

You’ll be introduced to the nature and lived experience of disability inequalities in contemporary global contexts. The starting point is the concepts of equality and inequality, it considers the differing ways these and related concepts like justice, fairness and entitlement are articulated and applied in relation to disability.

You will be provided with the foundational knowledge and understanding about how disability has been conceptualised and theorised. This module will introduce you to the big ideas that emerged from the disabled people’s movement and to theoretical approaches to disability developed by/employed within contemporary Disability Studies.

In this foundational module, you will discover a theoretical understanding of social inclusion as a basis for building more inclusive cultures, institutions and communities for disabled people. You will examine the nature and operation of exclusion and inclusion in contemporary global contexts and how they are experienced, understood and explained by a variety of actors.

Build the knowledge and skills to engage critically with the ways in which governments and other civil society actors have sought to meet the needs of disabled people and to evaluate the implications of this for disabled people’s lives, individually and collectively.

Explore disability as a human rights issue. Consider the development and influence of the human rights approach to developing disability legislation, policy, programmes and practices. In particular, you will examine the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, 2006) and understand its core principles. 

Gain the knowledge and skills to engage critically with public policy reforms in the field of disability equality. This module provides you with an understanding of opportunities for policy change and the challenges this presents. It allows you to explore the choices facing policy makers, and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to policy reform (such as between legislating or educating, or between targeting and mainstreaming policy interventions).

Engage with a rights-based approach to disability research and discover key approaches and debates in the field. This includes an engagement with key ethical debates, sampling and a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods.

This module is designed to be relevant to those who are or strive to be activists, advocates, or allies (be that family-, professional- or academic-allies). What does it mean to be an effective human-rights defender or disability-inclusion change-maker? What are the objectives of these defenders and change-makers? 

The Applied Project provides an opportunity to follow up on your own interests in the context of disability rights and inclusion and explore this in more depth with a strong focus on producing knowledge or evidence to effect positive change.