Disability, sibling relationships and everyday life: exploring mundane realities as counter-storytelling

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This proposed research engages directly with the key challenge ofdisability inclusion in education and society (ECY) through a foregroundingof the often ignored perspectives of siblings of people with learningdisabilities (CDD) which have huge implications for the health andwell-being of families (CDD). Families and their members are key socialactors involved in promoting the societal inclusion and communityparticipation of people with learning disabilities; though their expertise andexperiences are often missing from research, policy and practice. Thisinnovative project centralises the perspectives of siblings through thedeployment of a methodology of counter-storytelling - to generate moreaffirmative familial stories that move academic discussion away fromcommonplace pathological narratives of disability in families. Recognisingits origins within critical race theory; counter-storytelling will capture andexplore counter stories of experiences that come from growing up in adisabled family. Using this approach alongside critical disability studies, theresearch will excavate celebratory and positive narratives of childhooddisability in the family. While disability will inevitably feature in this, howsiblings themselves reflect on their wider childhoods will undoubtedlyconnect with issues including class, location, gender and race/ethnicity.