1st Edition

Disability, Happiness and the Welfare State Finland and the Nordic Model

Edited By Hisayo Katsui, Matti T. Laitinen Copyright 2024
288 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

288 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

288 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

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... Read more

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.