Allies and Obstacles

Disability Activism and Parents of Children with Disabilities

By: Allison C. Carey, Pamela Block, Richard Scotch

Narrated by: Rebecca Anderson

Parents of children with disabilities often situate their activism as a means of improving the world for their child. However, some disabled activists perceive parental activism as working against the independence and dignity of people with disabilities. This thorny relationship is at the heart of the groundbreaking Allies and Obstacles.

The authors chronicle parents' path-breaking advocacy in arenas such as the right to education and to liberty via deinstitutionalization as well as how they engaged in legal and political advocacy. Allies and Obstacles provides a macro analysis of parent activism using a social movement perspective to reveal and analyze the complex—and often tense—relationship of parents to disability rights organizations and activism.

The authors look at organizational and individual narratives using four case studies that focus on intellectual disability, psychiatric diagnoses, autism, and a broad range of physical disabilities including cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy. These cases explore the specific ways in which activism developed among parents and people with disabilities, as well as the points of alliance and the key points of contestation. Ultimately, Allies and Obstacles develops new insights into disability activism, policy, and the family.

The book is published by Temple University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

Outstanding Publication Award from the Disability & Society section of the American Sociological Association, 2022

©2020 Temple University-Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education (P)2024 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"A must-read not only for disability scholars in sociology and in disability studies but for scholars of social movements and political sociology. (American Journal of Sociology)

"An essential read that challenges facile categorizations, easy binaries, and any quick reliance on rights talk."(H-Disability)