Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Social Production of Space for Individuals with Disabilities Who Are Residing in Communities

University Of Illinois At Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation research project will focus on understanding how individuals with disabilities experience space if they have physical and mobility limitations and they have been relocated from institutional settings to live in the community. The doctoral student will analyze the ways in which these individuals experience and view community facilitators and barriers as they navigate through their everyday life in socially produced spaces of uneven development. The project will help enhance basic understanding of the ways that people with disabilities integrate, face their challenges, and live in the community. It also will have methodological implications, because it will provide a test for the use of a new research approach called grounded critical visualization, which creates a framework for studying lived, conceptual, and perceived spaces. The project will have direct societal benefits by providing new information and perspectives about socio-spatial dimensions of the disability community as well as other communities experiencing physical limitations. It will expand the participation of underrepresented groups by directly engaging people with disabilities in the research, and it will provide new insights to help realign policy and program delivery to maximize accessibility and engagement in communities by people with disabilities. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career. As the U.S. increasingly relocates people with disabilities from institutional to community settings, greater knowledge is needed about the complexity of their experience living in the community. The student will employ the multi-method approach of grounded critical visualization, which incorporates aspects of photovoice (an approach using photographs taken by participants to "voice" their experience), questionnaires, interviews, spatial analysis, and statistical analysis to help answer the overarching research question: "What is the relationship between the local, everyday practices of people with disabilities who are living in the community and their social production of space?" The student will conduct her work in two locations in the Chicago area, the city of Oak Park just west of Chicago and neighborhoods in the southeast side of Chicago. In addition to helping the student to complete her doctoral dissertation, project findings will be disseminated through conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and local discussions in focus groups. A town hall meeting involving all participants will build awareness, expand understanding of people with disabilities, and contribute to further research on the production of disability space.