1st Edition
Disability, Happiness and the Welfare State Finland and the Nordic Model
This book looks at disability as an evolving social phenomenon. Disability is created through the interaction between persons with impairments and their environment.
Exploring these experiences of persons with disabilities and discussing universality and particularity in our understanding of assumed development and normalcy, it takes Finland, which has been chosen repeatedly as the happiest country in the world as its case- study. Using disability as a critical lens helps to demystify Finland that has the positive reputation of a Welfare State. By identifying different kinds of discrimination against persons with disabilities as well as successful examples of disability inclusion, it shows that when looking Finland from the perspective of persons with disabilities, inequality and poverty have been collective experiences of too many of them.
It will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, social policy, social work, political science, health and well-being studies and Nordic studies more broadly.
Introduction
Hisayo Katsui and Matti Laitinen
Chapter One – The sense of difference: Disability and loneliness as emotional and social isolation
Merja Tarvainen
Chapter Two – ‘Disability is so invisible at the University’––Disability Inclusion/Exclusion Experiences of Students with Disabilities at the University of Helsinki
Hisayo Katsui, Matti Laitinen, Ira Kuosmanen, Milla Tengström and Maija Lindström
Chapter Three - Being independently dependent– Experiences at the intersection of disability and old age in Finland
Salla Era and Teppo Kröger
Chapter Four – One step backward? Exploring the outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic for persons with intellectual disabilities in supported and service housing
Sonja Miettinen
Chapter Five – The state of inclusion in the state of inclusion? Inclusion as principled practice in Finnish basic education
Juho Honkasilta, Päivi Pihlaja and Henri Pesonen
Chapter Six – Media Representations of Disability
Marjaana Hakala and Hisayo Katsui
Chapter Seven – Reforming disability services to balance rights and needs
Stina Sjöblom and Päivi Nurmi-Koikkalainen
Chapter Eight – Employment, the Finnish disability pension system, and self-determination of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities
Lotta-Kaisa Mustonen and Hisayo Katsui
Chapter Nine – The happiness of having a hobby: Inclusion of persons with disabilities in leisure activities
Eero Saukkonen, Jenni Valmari and Reetta Mietola
Chapter Ten – Spiral of progress: Disability activists’ perception of the societal and political position of disabled people in Finland
Pekka Koskinen, Aarno Kauppila and Reetta Mietola
Chapter Eleven – “Second Class Citizens” – Challenges with Truth and Reconciliation Process of Deaf People and the Sign Language Community in Finland
Maija Koivisto and Hisayo Katsui
Chapter Twelve – Examining cooperation-based advocacy between government and disability activists in transnational advocacy networks
Mina C. Mojtahedi and Hisayo Katsui
Concluding Remarks
Hisayo Katsui
Biography
Hisayo Katsui is Professor in Disability Studies at the University of Helsinki. She is a permanent expert to the Finnish Advisory Board for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and a board member of the Nordic Network of Disability Research and the Finnish Society for Disability Research. Her research interests are disability rights realisation in practice and participatory research approaches.
Matti T. Laitinen is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. His research interests lie in disability, inclusive education and the life stories of persons with disabilities. Laitinen identifies as a disabled person and he has been involved in the disability right movement since 1987.
