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Chen, Minjie (2025) Understanding disability from a life course perspective: lived experiences of education and work of visually impaired people in China. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

The life course approach emphasises the importance of both a person’s impairment and the social barriers that impact disabled people’s lives. Currently, disabled people in China still face many barriers to their access to education and work. Chinese socialism requires disabled people to be economically productive so that they contribute to society like their non-disabled peers. Given this, the state proposes vocational training for disabled people. For people with visual impairments, the state particularly emphasises the massage industry. This vocational stereotype has affected their transition into education and work, and many of them are encouraged to take massage courses or subsequently work in massage parlours. Of the few current studies that investigate education and employment for disabled people, very few mention how people with visual impairments take up massage-related work and what barriers they face during their transitions into education and work. This study explores how visually impaired people transition into education and work, what barriers they face during this process, and, more importantly, how they use their agency when they encounter these barriers. Evidence was gathered from 26 visually impaired people through telephone interviews; the narrative and thematic approaches were used to analyse the data. Based on an understanding of the medical model and the social model of disability, this study applies the life course perspective to explore visually impaired people’s transition into education and work; it then applies the PCS model to analyse the barriers they face at the Personal (P), Cultural (C) and Structural (S) levels. This study shows that visually impaired people are not passive victims of social barriers. Instead, it also indicates participants’ different types of agency as they encounter social barriers.

In conclusion, this study demonstrates that mainstream education and workplaces unrelated to massage often exclude visually impaired people. Mainstream educational systems often reject participants, particularly those with more significant levels of vision impairment, leading many of them to start formal education in special schools or transfer to special schools from mainstream education. However, the limited provision of special education and the influence of vocational stereotypes of the massage industry result in almost every participant receiving massage training and working in this industry. Some participants exercised their agency differently, attempting to get employed in fields unrelated to massage. However, their ability to act was affected by social constraints and cultural beliefs.

Item Type:	Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors:	Dauncey, Sarah Chau, Ruby
Keywords:	Disability in China; Education and work; The life course; The PCS model; Visually impaired people;
Subjects:	H Social sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
Faculties/Schools:	UK Campuses > Faculty of Social Sciences, Law and Education > School of Sociology and Social Policy
Item ID:	80751
Depositing User:	Chen, Minjie
Date Deposited:	25 Jul 2025 04:40
Last Modified:	25 Jul 2025 04:40
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/80751

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