Viewing Disabled Children Through the Lens of Critical Disability Studies in Christabel and the Amazing Pedal Power Challenge, The Challenge, and Ian
摘要
Disabled children often feel excluded and marginalized. Despite all the inclusive efforts of parents, teachers, and activists, disabilities are sometimes insurmountable hurdles that prevent children from having a normal life and from interacting with their peers. Hence, a corpus of literary works dealing with the disabled or disabilities has increased in the last two decades seeking to expose stereotyping of disability so as to offer an all-inclusive call that alerts all members of the society, especially young children, to the importance of accepting differences, thus people with disabilities. In this paper, three works for children featuring children with mobility disabilities are selected: the American play Christabel and the Amazing Pedal Power Challenge (2011), the Egyptian short story The Challenge (2015), and the Argentinian animated film Ian (2018). The three different works from different genres and cultures delve into the world of the physically disabled children around the world who often see themselves as estranged from society, exposing their emotional dilemma, pain, and struggle. These works reflect the core tenets of critical disability studies as they revisit disability, critique the social causes of disability, and offer a model for inclusion. By drawing upon critical disability studies, the paper will examine the three works focusing on the portrayal of disabled children as struggling against negative social attitudes of exclusion and stereotyping in order to finally achieve inclusion and attain a just position in their communities and societies.