In 2018, the School of Education and iHuman’s Dr Kirsty Liddiard and Professor Katherine Runswick-Cole, along with Dr Tillie Curran (University of West England), published a field-defining edited collection published by Palgrave – The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies (Runswick-Cole, Curran and Liddiard, 2018). According to latest news from Palgrave, The Handbook is now among the top 25% most downloaded eBooks in its collection for 2019 and its chapters are being accessed by a global readership. The editors are absolutely delighted that contributors’ work is being shared so widely.
The Handbook, which is a follow up to Runswick-Cole and Curran’s Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies: Critical Approaches in a Global Context (2013), has established Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies (DCCS) as an exciting new sub-discipline of Childhood Studies and Critical Disability Studies. Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies makes key contributions to the field to counter the ways in which disabled childhoods have largely been omitted from progressive moves to develop participatory methods in child-led research.
The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies brings together a rich, international, collection of work by disabled children and adults, family members, carers, staff, doctoral students and leading academics in various fields. It represents a range of different perspectives and areas of focus which are woven together to produce a deeply committed, textured, important and, in many ways, celebratory text. At the heart of this collection are stories of humanity. Stories of growing up about those labelled as different, and who are often denied opportunities others typically experience, are presented. Stories of taking part in participatory research, of children’s experiences in the classroom, of being the parent of disabled adult children and of being silenced are also presented. The authors are deeply immersed within their research and writings, and the boundaries between public and private, personal and professional, activism and research are blurred, shaped and reshaped in innovative ways.
A published review of The Handbook states, ‘A key strength of The Palgrave Handbook is the assembly of a myriad of diverse contributions which go beyond detailing contemporary challenges for disabled children, as one might expect from a ‘handbook’, and towards the provoking of change through innovative approaches to research, practice and policy’ (Ptolomey, 2018: 1179).
To learn more about The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies please see here.
