Enabling Technology: Disabled People, Work and New Technology (Disability, Human Rights, and Society)

*What is the significance of new microchip technologies for disabled workers/job seekers?
*How is new technology enabling some disabled workers to gain enhanced access to employment and a more enabling employment?
*What are the policy implications of the research findings and the reevaluation of the role of new technology?

There is much evidence to suggest that disabled people are less likely to be afforded the same rights as able-bodied workers in accessing jobs, equal employment rights and equal access to the workplace. Using a social barriers model of disability Enabling Technology addresses the role of new technology in reducing the environmental and attitude barriers disabled people have commonly faced in the field of employment. This work is critical of established writings on disability and new technology and suggests that by adopting a medical model of disability such analyses have misrepresented the benefits of new technology for disabled people. A social barriers model views the benefits of new technology as inhering in its potential to rehabilitate disabling environments. The book addresses the urgent need to reframe policies on technology access away from a welfarist 'eligibility' model to a 'social rights' approach, one where disabled people are centrally involved in the framing, operation and review of technology access policy.

Enabling Technology is recommended reading for students and researchers in disability studies, applied social sciences and the sociology of work. It is also of relevance to those working in rehabilitation medicine and occupational therapy.

Alan Roulstone is currently Programme Director for Social Sciences at the University of Sunderland where he lectures in Disability Studies and Work, Leisure and Employment. He obtained a PhD in Disability Studies at the Open University in 1995 and has previously lectured in Employment Studies and Law at Staffordshire University.