The past few years have seen the development of an important debate over methodology in disability research. The rise of emancipatory and participatory methodologies has meant that disabled people are making increasing demands to be included in the research process. The present paper will examine this debate and its implications for learning difficulty research. The article will discuss the reasons why participatory methodology is gaining greater acceptance than emancipatory methodology among learning difficulty researchers by examining the position of participatory research in the methodological traditions of social research into learning difficulty.

Summary The present paper explores the social model of disability and its significance for people with learning difficulties. The authors argue that, while the social model has been adopted as an explicit framework for analysis by many people with physical and sensory impairments, its impact on people with learning difficulties, and the non‐disabled people who write about them or research with them has been much less marked. In the first part of the present paper, the authors examine why the social model appears to have neglected learning difficulty and why learning difficulty researchers have not utilized the social model as a means for understanding the experiences of people with learning difficulties. Drawing on research with self‐advocates, the second part of this paper discusses the way that many people with learning difficulties can be seen to engage with ideas inherent to the social model. However, the political nature of many of the everyday actions of people with learning difficulties, which impinges on the social model, is not recognized. Consequently, it has not been theorized.

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This article provides insights into the outcomes of reflection following two interview approaches used to explore narratives of the lived, individual experiences of South-Asian girls living in West London. In attempting to illuminate and re-present the cultural experiences as told by these girls, the choice of interview approach became critical in allowing the voices to be effectively heard (Rogers, 2005). This article therefore considers how a semi-structured interview approach offered valuable insights into the girls' experiences but became constraining for both researcher and participant in unveiling the complexity and depth of their lives. These constraints emerged through reflection by both participants and researcher. As a result of reflexivity during the research process, the researcher moved towards the use of research conversations during the second phase of the study. Ultimately the study revealed how the girls felt empowered by the opportunity to narrate their individual experiences and tell of their lives. In narrating their reflections on being part of the research, there was a clear recognition that the process facilitated the articulation of new voices and 'multi-voicedness ' (Moen, 2006)

This paper examines the experience of disabled people in the British criminal justice system, paying particular attention to people with learning difficulties. Two aspects of the criminal justice system are discussed. The first concerns the nature of specific legislation which impacts on disabled people. The second refers to recent cases where there has been a miscarriage of justice. Several of the individuals wrongly convicted in such cases have had learning difficulties. The paper argues that disabled people experience discrimination within the criminal justice system, Tackling this discrimination must form part of the agenda for civil rights for disabled people.

Programmes for sexual violence prevention have focussed historically on university, school or college students rather than staff working at these institutions. The Universities Supporting Victims of Sexual Violence project (USVreact), co-funded by the European Commission, worked across universities in Europe to address this gap in the provision and knowledge of programmes aimed at staff. Each institutional partner in the project designed a programme to enable staff to respond appropriately to disclosures of sexual violence. This paper focuses on one UK university to explore the use of and reception to education principles and feminist pedagogy with staff from across the institution. These diverse pedagogical approaches were significant to the design of the university's innovative programme. The findings demonstrate the importance of a process of sexual violence pedagogy, as opposed to training, and highlight its positive implications for the whole university community.

In this paper, we look at what engaging with psychoanalysis, through psychosocial accounts of subjectivity, has contributed to our struggles for legitimacy and security within our ways of knowing. The psychosocial, with its insistence on the unconscious and the irrational, features as both a source of security and of insecurity. We use three examples drawn from our own empirical research to explore the entanglement of the researcher with the researched and how this can offer a re-imagined sense of legitimacy for our work. In elaborating our argument, we discuss our experiences of 'being captured' by data and participants, and of negotiating the ethics of analysing participants' accounts.