Grounded Theory and Disability Studies: An Investigation Into Legacies of Blindness
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Grounded Theory and Disability Studies: An Investigation Into Leg ...

Chapter 1:  Introduction
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  • (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). These classifications were rigidly defined and disallowed movement between like cultural groups during the life course.
  • Largely biologically determined and created, culturally defined classifications, such as disability and gender. People were defined through biological or nonhuman factors (including impairment, disability, aging, illness, and disease), which were themselves delineated by rigid cultural expectations, often based on practical, economic, social, or aesthetic principles. These classifications were seen as semirigid and allowed medical or aesthetic changes between like cultural groups during the life course. For example, some people with impairments or disabilities were taught to act as able-bodied people, such as in the case of teaching congenitally deaf people to speak as hearing people do (Padden, 2005). Or, people became transgendered as a result of their feelings of unhappiness with the body they were born with (Carroll, 2006).
  • Culturally determined, created, and defined classifications, such as religion, nationality, class, and youth subcultures. Thus, people formulated ideas according to different cultural definitions of belief, manner, practical usage, economic production, behaviour, and dress, often within broader culturally defined groups. These were relatively plastic in industrial societies and more easily allowed movement between cultural groups within the life course. However, tradition often determined that many people stayed within the group they were raised in and had emotional ties with (Lipset & Bendix, 1991).

    • In this book, I discuss the development of the research that emerged from these observations in four distinct blind communities, including school populations, students in adult education classes, visitors to museums, and participants in online programming groups. I focus on the development of the fieldwork that was used in this research, the form of data that were collected during the fieldwork, and the ethical issues I encountered at the time. I also compare and contrast the cultural progression, experiences, and behaviour of the participants in the research; address the difficulties I faced when overcoming common barriers in