Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Social Production of Space for Individuals with Disabilities Who Are Residing in Communities

这个博士论文研究项目将侧重于了解残疾人如何体验空间，如果他们有身体和行动限制，他们已经从机构设置搬迁到社区生活。博士生将分析这些人在社会产生的不平衡发展空间中日常生活中经历和看待社区促进者和障碍的方式。该项目将有助于增进对残疾人如何融入社会、如何面对挑战以及如何在社区生活的基本了解。它还将具有方法论意义，因为它将为一种新的研究方法的使用提供测试，这种方法被称为基础批判性可视化，它为研究生活空间、概念空间和感知空间创建了一个框架。该项目将通过提供有关残疾人社区以及其他遭受身体限制的社区的社会空间维度的新信息和视角，产生直接的社会效益。它将通过直接让残疾人参与研究，扩大代表性不足群体的参与，并将提供新的见解，帮助调整政策和项目实施，最大限度地提高残疾人在社区的可及性和参与度。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。随着美国越来越多地将残疾人从机构安置到社区环境中，需要更多地了解他们在社区生活经历的复杂性。学生将采用基于批判性可视化的多方法方法，其中结合了photovoice（一种使用参与者拍摄的照片来“表达”他们的经验的方法），问卷调查，访谈，空间分析和统计分析的各个方面，以帮助回答最重要的研究问题：“生活在社区中的残疾人的当地日常实践与他们的社会空间生产之间的关系是什么？”该学生将在芝加哥地区的两个地点进行她的工作，芝加哥西部的橡树公园市和芝加哥东南部的社区。除了帮助学生完成博士论文外，项目研究结果还将通过会议、同行评审期刊和焦点小组的本地讨论进行传播。所有参与者参加的市政厅会议将提高对残疾人的认识，扩大对残疾人的了解，并有助于进一步研究残疾人空间的生产。

This doctoral dissertation research project will focus on understanding how individuals with disabilities experience space if they have physical and mobility limitations and they have been relocated from institutional settings to live in the community. The doctoral student will analyze the ways in which these individuals experience and view community facilitators and barriers as they navigate through their everyday life in socially produced spaces of uneven development. The project will help enhance basic understanding of the ways that people with disabilities integrate, face their challenges, and live in the community. It also will have methodological implications, because it will provide a test for the use of a new research approach called grounded critical visualization, which creates a framework for studying lived, conceptual, and perceived spaces. The project will have direct societal benefits by providing new information and perspectives about socio-spatial dimensions of the disability community as well as other communities experiencing physical limitations. It will expand the participation of underrepresented groups by directly engaging people with disabilities in the research, and it will provide new insights to help realign policy and program delivery to maximize accessibility and engagement in communities by people with disabilities. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.As the U.S. increasingly relocates people with disabilities from institutional to community settings, greater knowledge is needed about the complexity of their experience living in the community. The student will employ the multi-method approach of grounded critical visualization, which incorporates aspects of photovoice (an approach using photographs taken by participants to "voice" their experience), questionnaires, interviews, spatial analysis, and statistical analysis to help answer the overarching research question: "What is the relationship between the local, everyday practices of people with disabilities who are living in the community and their social production of space?" The student will conduct her work in two locations in the Chicago area, the city of Oak Park just west of Chicago and neighborhoods in the southeast side of Chicago. In addition to helping the student to complete her doctoral dissertation, project findings will be disseminated through conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and local discussions in focus groups. A town hall meeting involving all participants will build awareness, expand understanding of people with disabilities, and contribute to further research on the production of disability space.