An auto-biographical approach to learning disability research - Dorothy Atkinson

This book explores and analyzes biographical research in relation to people with learning disabilities. It uses vivid illustrative material from the author?s research to chart the possibilities and the pitfalls, of this approach. The author explores the research process and how the research participants came to tell the stories of their lives. This exploration includes a reflective look at these stories, and their meanings, setting them within a wider research and practice context. Can other groups of people, similarly disadvantaged or powerless, find ways to recapture their pasts? The book includes the practical application of this approach to other groups in other settings. Biographical research emerges as a means of 'giving a voice' to people otherwise unheard. It has the potential to enable disadvantaged people not only to reclaim their personal pasts but also to construct a collective account of a hitherto 'hidden history'.