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Understanding disabled people as gray-collar workers who are under-paid, under-valued and under-employed is recognized as in urgent need of attention but remains unaddressed. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews with disabled people, observations and document analysis, the authors argue that the disabled gray-collar workers in the performing arts provide a context and socio-cultural perspective on how gray-collar workers can attain dignity through social inclusion. Building on a novel framework of four dimensions of social inclusion theory – access, participation, representation and empowerment – the authors identify social interactions portrayed in the performing arts in order to deconstruct the processes that normalize and reinforce exclusion and inequality. The authors demonstrate how social inclusion can be “enabled” which has implications for theory, policy and practice.

This exploratory study seeks to understand whether an arts event designed with/by/for disabled people (the InterACT Disability Arts Festival in New Zealand) has the potential to create revolutionary futures, defined as those which help determine new paths, make the future less fearsome and allow more positive outcomes.

A qualitative approach was taken in this study. Interviews were carried out with ten disabled event attendees, two support workers, one family member, four event volunteers, two activity providers and the main event organiser of the 2019 festival. Active participant observation was also used to collect data. Deductive thematic analysis was used to determine themes and subthemes in the material.

The findings suggest the case study arts event does help to create revolutionary futures for disabled attendees through disrupting the narratives of disability, making sense of lives lived and changing lives yet to be lived.

Limited windows of opportunity were available to interact with attendees, and just 17 in-the-moment interviews were conducted. However, the findings still have value as data saturation was reached. A “revolutionary futures” conceptual framework is presented to understand the nexus between disability worlds and events and thus amplify the benefits for attendees.

Research carried out to date has provided much-needed understanding about the challenges facing disabled people at events, but this study turns this deficit approach around to focus on the opportunities provided by event participation.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

The Barbican Library is the headquarters of the City of London's lending library service. It includes a music library and a children's library as well as a special section devoted to the fine and performing arts. Anyone who lives, works or studies in the City may apply to be a member. Others who wish to join may do so under the interavailability scheme.

Purpose: Artists with disabilities use their bodies and minds to create art. Yet, the prevailing cultural narrative that art is “therapeutic” for people with disabilities shifts attention from their creative accomplishments to their disabilities. Some ally organizations attempt to challenge the narrative that art is merely therapy for people with disabilities. However, drawing on narratives of “helping” people with disabilities attracts funding. This chapter examines how organizations navigate empowering allies while still maintaining funding.

Methods/Approach: This chapter uses narrative analysis of material accessed through a nonprofit arts-based disability ally organization's website to address two research questions: 1. How do ally organizations both draw on and resist cultural narratives of disability in order to garner public support?; and 2. How do personal narratives of disabled artists associated with ally organizations support and/or resist organizational and cultural narratives about the connection between disability and art?

Findings: The organization uses narratives to address important and sometimes conflicting goals. Personal narratives from artists with disabilities that are available through the website tell a range of stories about art and disability. The organization draws on these heterogeneous stories to position itself as an ally. By including such personal narratives on its website, the organization challenges the cultural narrative that the art produced by disabled artists is merely therapeutic.

Implication/Value: Much of the work on allyship focuses on how individuals can be allies. Examining ways in which organizations frame themselves as allies can help us to more fully understand allyship on multiple levels of social life.

Despite the legacies of many talented artists with disabilities, art programs for people with disabilities are consistently framed as important because of their “therapeutic” value. Such framing is a well-established way for organizations to garner support from publics drawn to images of disabled people as tragic victims and such programs as heroic in offering help. Some non-profit art programs, however, resist this narrative.

Data come from the organizational web-site of a community-based non-profit disability centered arts education organization that takes active steps to challenge traditional tragedy narratives. Data show how the organizational narrative does this by affirming the value of disabled artists and by casting as villains the stigma, discrimination, and misinformation surrounding people with disabilities.

While this organization constructs a narrative that portrays society and art spaces as victims in that they miss out on the contributions to art that people with disabilities can produce, the organization nonetheless must also offer to community stakeholders and potential donors reasons for its existence.

This examination highlights the ways in which this organization navigates the competing demands of fund raising and disability advocacy by constructing organizational narratives that affirm people with disabilities while still articulating the value of the organization to the wider community. This suggests the complex work narratives do and the tensions that can arise when narratives serve multiple purposes for multiple audiences.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides: