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Can welfare reform make disability disappear?
Author(s) -
Galvin Rose
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.2004.tb01181.x
Subject(s) - poverty , welfare , gateway (web page) , odds , project commissioning , publishing , social security , welfare reform , sociology , social welfare , disabled people , style (visual arts) , movement (music) , medical model of disability , political science , political economy , life style , law , psychology , medicine , logistic regression , demography , psychiatry , world wide web , computer science , philosophy , archaeology , history , aesthetics
I argue here that, while welfare reform policy and the disability rights movement appear to share a common agenda based on the belief that disability is a social creation which can be remedied by way of increased access to employment and social resources, their world views and objectives could not be more at odds. By demonstrating how welfare reform policy makers have opportunistically appropriated the language which frames the disability rights movement and, in the style of Orwell's Newspeak, used it to conceal an agenda which actually aims for the reverse of what it promises, I seek to show that what is being promoted as a means for increased access to a better life for disabled people could be more aptly described as a gateway to poverty.