Enabling Technology

Using a social barriers model of disability, this text addresses the role of new technology in reducing the environmental and attitude barriers disabled people have commonly to face in the field of employment. This text is critical of established writings on disability and new technology, and suggests that the adoption of medical models of disability leads to misrepresentation of the benefits of new technology for disabled people. The social barriers model discussed in this book views the benefits of new technology as inhering its potential to rehabilitate disabling environments. The text also addresses the need to reframe policies on technology access away from a welfarist "eligibility" model and towards a "social rights" approach - one where disabled people are centrally involved in the framing, operation and review of technology access policy. The following questions are also addressed by this book: 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?; and what are the policy implications of the research findings and the re-evaluation of the role of new technology?