Barbara Gibson, Professor Emerita, conducts research and scholarship investigating how social, cultural, and institutional practices intersect in producing health, inclusion/exclusion, and identity with disabled children and youth. She has led several initiatives developing the field of Critical Rehabilitation Studies, an area of scholarship which applies critical social theories to expand rehabilitation research, education, and practice.
Barbara’s research draws from critical and posthuman theories to examine the social and ethical dimensions of disability, rehabilitation and community care. Her work investigates the intersections of social, cultural, and institutional practices in producing health, inclusion/exclusion, and identity with disabled young people. The aim is to improve the wellbeing of disabled young people through a critical interrogation of key concepts (e.g. disability/normalcy, in/dependence, quality of life) underpinning children’s rehabilitation and societal understandings of disability. The work is interdisciplinary and intersectional; drawing upon sociological studies of health, bioethics, postmodern scholarships, and critical disability studies.
