Working towards Equity

Disability Rights, Activism, and Employment in Late Twentieth Century Canada

• Author(s): Dustin Galer,
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Pages: 309
• ISBN_10: 1487521308
  ISBN_13: 9781487521301
  
• Language: en
• Categories: History / Canada / General , History / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies) , Law / Disability , Law / Legal History , Medical / History , Political Science / Civil Rights , Political Science / Public Policy / Social Services & Welfare , Social Science / Sociology / General , Social Science / People with Disabilities ,

Description:...

In Working towards Equity, Dustin Galer argues that paid work significantly shaped the experience of disability during the late twentieth century. Using a critical analysis of disability in archival records, personal collections, government publications and a series of interviews, Galer demonstrates how demands for greater access among disabled people for paid employment stimulated the development of a new discourse of disability in Canada. Family advocates helped people living in institutions move out into the community as rehabilitation professionals played an increasingly critical role in the lives of working-age adults with disabilities. Meanwhile, civil rights activists crafted a new consumer-led vision of social and economic integration. Employment was, and remains, a central component in disabled peoples' efforts to become productive, autonomous and financially secure members of Canadian society. Working towards Equity offers new in-depth analysis on rights activism as it relates to employment, sheltered workshops, deinstitutionalization and labour markets in the contemporary context in Canada.