Disabilities

Disability in society is very important and it may be that you would prefer to investigate this further within your dissertation. Take a look at some recommendations below:

Example disability dissertation topic 1:

Representations of disabilities in children’s picture books: Why are anthropomorphic figures rarely disabled?

The portrayal of disabled children is gaining more attention in cultural studies, but the extension of such equality is not given to anthropomorphic characters. This dissertation explores the value (or otherwise) of introducing children to issues of equality in a manner that will be familiar to them. In so doing, it presents a total of ten specially constructed texts to a sample of 100 five year olds. Of the texts, two present animals with physical disabilities (for example, The Adventures of Maude, the Three-Legged Rabbit), two with animals with learning disabilities, two with animals with autism spectrum disorders (such as Alasdair, the Autistic Aardvark, Goes to School), two with humans with physical disabilities (for example, Jenny’s Wheelchair Olympics), one with a human with a learning disorder and one with an autism spectrum disorder. Measures of empathy and involvement with the text are taken and evaluated.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Ayala, E.C. (1999). ‘”Poor little things” and “Brave little souls”: The portrayal of individuals with disabilities in children’s literature’, Literacy Research and Instruction, Vol. 39(1), pp. 103-117.
• Burke, C.L., Copenhaver, J.G. and Carpenter, M. (2004). ‘Animals as people in children’s literature’, Language Arts, Vol. 81(3), pp. 205-213.
• Matthew, N. and Clow, S. (2007). ‘Putting disabled children in the picture: Promoting inclusive children’s books and media’, International Journal of Early Childhood, Vol. 39(2), pp. 65-78.