Educational Achievement and Psychosocial Transition in Visually Impaired Adolescents (eBook)

This book provides a fresh approach to studies on adolescents with visual impairment. It threads through the three elements of disability (visual impairment), psychosocial development of adolescents, and their educational achievement. It highlights how these concepts traverse across and cast an irrefutable impact on each other. The author prepares the ground by highlighting the failure of existing theories of disability studies in addressing issues concerning adolescents. She further critiques the psycho-medical approach to disability which undermines or disregards its social construction. The book provides an analysis of numerous issues affecting the psychosocial development of adolescents with visual impairment, which is further validated through narratives in educational settings. It also strongly advocates the need to create awareness about the basic ethics of human relationships and rights, moral consciousness and social and civic responsibilities, which can play a vital role in ensuring healthy psychosocial development of adolescents with visual impairment, and in ensuring inclusion.

Ranjita Dawn, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Loreto College, University of Calcutta. She received her doctorate in the Social Psychology of Education from the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. It was through her association with organizations like the Blind Relief Association and the National Association for Blind, New Delhi that she discovered her interest in disability research. She has authored many research papers for international and national journals, and two books: Psychosocial Dynamics of Blind Students (2011) and Visual Impairment (2015). She is continuously working to bring their problems and issues to the forefront. Her experience of being an educationist encourages her at each moment to address the potential problems that people with disabilities experience in their daily lives. Dr. Dawn has been the recipient of various prestigious awards such as the Indian Council for Social Science Research Doctoral Fellowship, National Scholarship Award, Dr. Neelu Sanghvi Sancheti Memorial Medal for Graduation and was felicitated by the Calcutta Corporation Co-operative Credit Society.

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This book provides a fresh approach to studies on adolescents with visual impairment. It threads through the three elements of disability (visual impairment), psychosocial development of adolescents, and their educational achievement. It highlights how these concepts traverse across and cast an irrefutable impact on each other. The author prepares the ground by highlighting the failure of existing theories of disability studies in addressing issues concerning adolescents. She further critiques the psycho-medical approach to disability which undermines or disregards its social construction. The book provides an analysis of numerous issues affecting the psychosocial development of adolescents with visual impairment, which is further validated through narratives in educational settings. It also strongly advocates the need to create awareness about the basic ethics of human relationships and rights, moral consciousness and social and civic responsibilities, which can play a vital role in ensuring healthy psychosocial development of adolescents with visual impairment, and in ensuring inclusion.