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How proposing an activity to a person with an intellectual disability can imply a limited identity

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journal contribution
posted on 2009-11-03, 13:35 authored by Charles Antaki, Chris Walton, W.M.L. Finlay
In residential homes for people with learning or intellectual disabilities (or mental retardation, in North American usage), a routine way for staff members to structure residents' time is to propose outside activities (e.g. shopping trips to town, attendance at a concert and so on). We identify one common way of proposing such activities that reveals a subtle but significant aspect of the staff's understanding of the residents' identities. Staff often introduce an activity not by mentioning its actual qualities (e.g. `Do you want to go and see a church concert with lots of singing?'), but by associating it with a given individual (e.g. `Do you want to go to a concert with Bill?'). This practice favours the social aspect of the residents' choices over any other, and encourages the residents' conceptions of themselves as people with feelings who care about others, and who are, in turn, cared about. We discuss the implications of such an apparently positive identity ascription.

Funding

The research reported here was facilitated by grant number Res-148-25-0002 from the United Kingdom ESRC.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Citation

ANTAKI, C., WALTON, C. and FINLAY, W.M.L., 2007. How proposing an activity to a person with an intellectual disability can imply a limited identity. Discourse & Society, 18 (4), pp. 393-410

Publisher

© Sage

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2007

Notes

This article was published in the journal, Discourse & Society [© SAGE Publications]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926507075473

ISSN

0957-9265

Language

  • en