Journal Article

Embracing Enablement: Impairment, Community and Disability Identity in Young Adult Fiction

Shuo, Yang, Mani, Manimangai

2024

Overview

Many authors in recent years have worked to encourage the inclusion of disabled people and to show disability characters in a positive light. In order to accomplish this, they tend to produce counter-disability characters and scenarios to promote enablement. This textual analysis focuses on three young adult fictions that provide positive portrayals of protagonists with disability, including Out of My Mind (Draper, 2010), Five Flavors of Dumb (John, 2010) and Jerk, California (Friesen, 2008). Drawing on the social identity theory and the social model, this paper explores how the protagonists' disability identities are formed. Three themes emerged from the textual analysis: impairment and identity, which looked at the complex interactions between impairment and identity; community transformation, which analyzed factors causing both socially constructed disability and positive interaction; and positive disability identity, which examined how protagonists navigate challenges and form positive identity. This study may offer recommendations for educators, parents, and researchers who might utilize this study to advance and build an inclusive society.

• Publisher: Academy Publication Co., LTD,Academy Publication Co., Ltd
• Subject: Adolescent Literature / Analysis / Cerebral Palsy / Characters / Childrens Literature / Community Relations / Criticism and interpretation / Disability / Disabled persons / Economic Factors / Fiction / Group identity / Heroism & heroes / Novels / People with disabilities / Portrayals / Self Actualization / Self esteem / Social aspects / Social Change / Social identity / Social Influences / Teachers / Teaching Methods / Text analysis / Textual analysis / Transformation / Young adult fiction / Young adult literature / Young adults