Enabling Technology : Disabled People, Work and New Technology

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.