Impact of Environmental Barrier on Social Participation among People with Disabilities — A Case Study of People with Physical Disabilities

• Main Authors: Yen-Chang Liao, 廖彥璋
• Other Authors: Yueh-Ching Chou
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/00029675740634482345

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 衛生福利研究所 === 94 === The main purpose of this study is to explore how the environmental factors impact the social participation of people with disability through their viewpoints and experiences. The research method is the semi-structured interview. The participators are eleven people, with physical disabilities, coming from Taipei and Changhua. This study includes four questions: (1) What are the environmental barriers perceived by people with disability? (2) How do these barriers impede people with disability from social participations? (3) What effect do these environmental barriers have on people with disability? (4) How are they going to improve these environmental barriers? According to the research results, the self-accusation, self-defense, and impediment of people with disability result from the feeling of inability to act towards environmental barriers, not from their impairment. Environmental barriers indeed aggravate the impediment of people with disability and greatly hinder their social participations. The restriction of social participation is due to environmental barriers, not towards internal problems of people with disability, hence we should amend the viewpoint of social adjustment. We should rather improve the environment through offering people with disability equal opportunities to participate in social affairs than asking them to change their behavior to adapt the environment. Finally, this research advances some suggestions for social policy makers and practice worker according to research result, discussion and conclusion.