The affirmative does not enhance the daily lives of disabled people – only a critical pedagogy committed to challenging the marketization of work/education can empower the disability community – it’s a pre-requisite to policy

(Jennifer Van Aswegen – Doctorate of Education from University of Sheffield and Michael Shevlin – Professor of Education @ Trinity College Dublin, “Disabling discourses and ableist assumptions: Reimagining social justice through education for disabled people through a critical discourse analysis approach,” Policy Futures in Education 17.5, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1478210318817420#bibr27-1478210318817420)

Although studies have shown that there are benefits associated to varying degrees with approaches focused on the supply side of the labour market (), a simplistic social capital enhancement and a supply-side focus does not of itself reduce employment barriers for people with disabilities (). As : 355) points out ‘the provision of skills training may well improve a person’s functioning as an economic actor, but it will not of itself enhance his/her capacity to choose how he/she lives or to achieve happiness’. In fact, supply-side interventions are reproved as the ‘very opposite of what is needed’ for disabled people, serving to ‘reinforce, rather than undermine, the traditional assumption that disabled workers are somehow not equal to non-disabled peers’ (: 4). The very fact that this policy is a standalone specialist policy for disabled people situated alongside its able-bodied counterparts Action Plan for Jobs() and Pathways to Work() is evidence of the twin track approach to mainstreaming, where disabled people are seen as requiring a specialised strategy that is built on a charitable model of the ‘deserving poor’. Policies from this framework of thinking focus on ensuring that citizens do not become a burden on the welfare system by enhancing their productive potential and their labour market readiness – in other words, their human capital potential. Underpinning this perspective is the wider ideological commitment to the marketisation of education – a managerialist perspective that is preoccupied with maximising economic output and individual self-sufficiency, rather than enhancing human capabilities. : 295–296) himself has been critical of the misappropriation with and conflation of human capital to the concept of human capabilities. The use of the concept of ‘human capital’, which concentrates on only one part of the picture (an important part), relayed to broadening the account of ‘productive resources’, is certainly an enriching move. But it does need supplementation. This is because human beings are not merely means of production, but also the end of the exercise. Similarly, Dean et al. argue, ‘skills and knowledge that may be exploited in the labour market are not the same things as human capabilities’ (2005: 9). Valued knowledge Embedded within the human capital paradigm is a new code of values underlying what constitutes valuable knowledge – and from this perspective, market knowledge trumps all other forms. The lack of critical sociological and philosophical research in Ireland, as noted by Lynch, has resulted in impoverished discourses that are scientifically misinformed and frequently inaccurate, and a policy arena where ‘disciplines and fields of study that are not marketable have lower status and power’ (2014: 9). From a capability perspective, an education that enables people to achieve well-being as well as the exercise of agency, entails the promotion of functionings and capabilities relating to abilities and knowledge that enable them to participate in dominant social frameworks (). Education should not be construed merely as the provider of technical skills, but equally as the empowerment of the person through critical thinking and imagination (). However, the Irish State’s directive is evident: increase the skills base in strategic growth areas in order to create and attract more business and investment; in other words, ‘teach what can be sold’ (). An alternative discourse Ivan Illich once famously stated ‘If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story’ (cited in : 2). In seeking an alternative to neoliberal human capital discourse, a capabilities approach provides a framework for new ways of thinking alongside ‘an underpinning ideological narrative from which policy development can flow’ (: 352). A capabilities approach has the potential to emphasise the ethical aspects of inclusion because it embraces an understanding of difference as a specific variable of human diversity; equally, it understands human dignity as the development of capabilities. From this perspective, there is no tolerance for disabling/ableist discourses or the unequal treatment of individuals. makes this clear, stressing that a capabilities approach must be concerned with the impact of deeply embedded social injustice and inequality, because it is these features that generate capability failures through discrimination or exclusion. Instead of emphasising the specifics of the disabling situation, a capabilities approach shifts the focus to look at establishing equality in terms of possibilities and choices (). A capabilities perspective emphasises that people not only require access to resources and opportunities, but also need to be able to convert these into valuable and valued achievements and goals (). Policies that improve the lot of groups are to be rejected, : 16) argues, unless they deliver the central capabilities to each individual. A capabilities approach puts the onus on government and public policy to overcome structural obstacles in ensuring that all individuals in a society can achieve their capabilities. Concluding comments Although welcomed on the surface by the disabled people’s movement, CES raises serious questions about the framework of thinking that guides the development of inclusive policies and practices for disabled people in Ireland (). The prioritisation of economic imperatives has greatly impacted on rights of disabled people to exercise agency in relation to their available choices to achieve the forms of inclusion that are highlighted within materialist social models of disability (). As Nussbaum argues ‘we need a counter-theory to challenge these entrenched but misguided theories, if we want to move policy choice in the right direction’ (2011: xi–xii). In response, this study highlights the real potential of a capabilities approach for overcoming the deficient discourses and disablist assumptions in CES in favour of a policy framework that seeks to reconcile personal fulfilment, social inclusion and economic independence for disabled people.