Perspective of parents with intellectually disabled children on disability

The ultimate goal of this qualitative research is to reveal how parents of disabled children construct disability on the basis of exclusion, stigma, discrimination, provision of services, charity, rights, and equality. This research consisted of face-to-face in-depth interviews with parents of a total of 40 mentally disabled children, one male and 39 females, in the Kemalpaşa district of Izmir. A semi-structured interview form was used as the main data collection source of the research. It was observed that almost all of the parents internalized and reproduced the medically based dominant definition of disability; In this context, this situation has affected the language used by parents when defining disability to be exclusionary and stigmatizing. When the language used by parents is evaluated from the perspective of critical gender and disability race studies, it is seen that the language used is simultaneously gendered and racialized, in addition to being stigmatizing, when categorizing disabled people by those who are not disabled and defining the group that categorizes them as disabled. While the construction of disability identity emerges as a gendered field, it has also been determined that disability care labor is also gendered. While parents stated that they were exposed to various physical and social obstacles, they underlined that the requirement for a RAM report was the most important obstacle. Parents, who state that they are exposed to various stigmatization, exclusion and discrimination by society, cannot escape the effects of gendered and racialized stigmatizing and exclusionary language, especially regarding disability. In addition, the fact that parents of disabled children have limited knowledge about the legal legislation and rights for disabled people, that they approve of a helpful and philanthropic approach instead of a rights-based approach, and that they are grateful to people who provide assistance contribute to the reproduction of stigma, exclusion and discrimination.