Professor Dan Goodley
PhD, BSc (Hons)
School of Education
Professor of Disability Studies and Education
iHuman Co-director

+44 114 222 8185
Full contact details
School of Education
Edgar Allen House
241 Glossop Rd
Sheffield
S10 2GW
- Research interests
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Critical disability studies
Dan is interested in theorising and challenging the conditions of disablism (the social, political, cultural and psycho-emotional exclusion of people with physical, sensory and/or cognitive impairments) and ableism (the contemporary ideals on which the able, autonomous, productive citizen is based). He draws on ideas from critical psychology, philosophy, sociology and education.
Critical Posthumanities
Dan is interested in engaging with Critical Posthumanities and their contribution towards understandings of exclusion and political resistance. Dan is working with colleagues in the School of Education and across the university to explore how we might understand the human in the 21st century in a time of technological and capitalist advance. He co-directs (with Professor Paul Martin, Sociological Studies) iHuman.
Current and a selection of previous research projects include:
- Economic and Social Research Council (£443,000 – Grant No. ES/P001041/1). Life, Death, Disability and the Human: Living Life to the Fullest. PI: Goodley (University of Sheffield), Co-Is: Katherine Runswick Cole and Kirsty Liddiard (University of Sheffield). March 2017 - March 2020.
- Economic and Social Research Council (£425,000 – Grant No. RES-622-26-376). Big Society? Disabled People with Learning Disabilities and Civil Society. Principal Investigators; Dan Goodley (University of Sheffield), Co-Is: Katherine Runswick Cole (Manchester Metropolitan University), Toby Brandon (Northumbria University), Kelley Johnson (Bristol University). July 2013 - July 2015.
- SCOPE (£51,500). Resilience in the lives of disabled people across the life course. Principal Investigators; Dan Goodley and Katherine Runswick Cole (Manchester Metropolitan University). October 2011 – September 2012.
- British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) (£8,500). Researching placement parties and child adoption. Principal Investigators: Goodley and Katherine Runswick-Cole (Manchester Metropolitan University). October 2011 – September 2012.
- Economic and Social Research Council (£255, 000 – Grant No. RES-062-23-1138). Does every child matter, post Blair? The interconnections of disabled childhoods. Principal Investigators; Dan Goodley (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Janice McLaughlin (University of Newcastle); Research Fellow: Katherine Runswick Cole. September 2008 – October 2010.
- Prime Minister’s Initiative 2 / UK Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) Research Co-operation Programme (£40,000). Towards a culturally sensitive disability studies: Interconnections of disability studies in and across Malaysia and the UK. Principal Investigators: Dan Goodley and Rebecca Lawthom (Manchester Metropolitan University); Dr Ling How Kee and Mr Dolly Paul Carlo (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia). August 2008 - August 2010.
- European Social Fund (£425,000). Jobs not Charity. Dan Goodley (University of Sheffield) in association with Breakthrough UK Ltd and Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People. December 2003 – December 2005.
- Economic and Social Research Council (£300, 000 – Grant No. RES-000-23-0129). Parents, Professionals and Disabled Babies: Identifying Enabling Care Dan Goodley (University of Sheffield) and Janice McLaughlin (University of Newcastle). June 2003 – November 2006.
- Economic and Social Research Council (£85, 000 – Grant No. R000237697) Self-advocacy, Civil Rights and People with ‘Learning Difficulties. Dan Goodley (Bolton Institute) and Derrick Armstrong. September 1998 – June 2001.
- Publications
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- Books
- Edited books
- Journal articles
- Chapters
- Book reviews
- Conference proceedings papers
- Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
Books
- Families Raising Disabled Children. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Dis/ability Studies. Routledge.
Edited books
- Disability and social theory: New developments and directions. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Journal articles
- The desire for new humanisms. Journal of Disability Studies in Education. View this article in WRRO
- Plans that work: improving employment outcomes for young people with learning disabilities. British Journal of Special Education. View this article in WRRO
- Storying disability’s potential. International Journal of Inclusive Education. View this article in WRRO
- Teaching disability : strategies for the reconstitution of disability knowledge. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1-20. View this article in WRRO
- Working the edges of Posthuman disability studies : theorising with young disabled people with life-limiting impairments. Sociology of Health & Illness. View this article in WRRO
- Critical Disability Studies, Brexit and Trump: A Time of Neoliberal-Ableism. Rethinking History, 23(2), 233-251. View this article in WRRO
- A critical discourse problematization framework for (disability) policy analysis: “good cop/bad cop” strategy. Qualitative Research Journal. View this article in WRRO
- Provocations for Critical Disability Studies. Disability & Society. View this article in WRRO
- “I was Excited by the Idea of a Project that Focuses on those Unasked Questions” Co‐Producing Disability Research with Disabled Young People. Children & Society. View this article in WRRO
- Understanding Disability: Biopsychology, Biopolitics, and an In-Between-All Politics. Adapted physical activity quarterly : APAQ, 35(3), 308-319. View this article in WRRO
- The Dis/Ability Complex. DiGeSt. Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies, 5(1), 5-22. View this article in WRRO
- Feeling disability: Theories of Affect and Critical Disability Studies. Disability & Society, 33(2), 197-217. View this article in WRRO
- Precarious lives and resistant possibilities: the labour of people with learning disabilities in times of austerity. Disability and Society, 32(2), 160-175. View this article in WRRO
- The DisHuman child. Discourse, 37(5), 770-784. View this article in WRRO
- The mouth and dis/ability. Community Dental Health, 33(2), 152-155. View this article in WRRO
- The trouble with ‘hard working families’. Community, Work & Family, 19(2), 257-260.
- Big Society? Disabled people with the label of learning disabilities and the queer(y)ing of civil society. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 17(1), 1-13. View this article in WRRO
- Critical psychologies of disability: boundaries, borders and bodies in the lives of disabled children. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 20(1), 51-63. View this article in WRRO
- DisPovertyPorn:Benefits Streetand the dis/ability paradox. Disability & Society, 30(4), 645-649.
- Becoming dishuman: thinking about the human through dis/ability. Discourse. View this article in WRRO
- Posthuman disability studies. Subjectivity, 7(4), 342-361. View this article in WRRO
- Dis/ability and austerity: beyond work and slow death. Disability and Society, 29(6), 980-984. View this article in WRRO
- The posthuman. Disability & Society, 29(5), 844-846.
- Disability rights and wrongs revisited. Disability & Society, 29(4), 659-661.
- Political and educational springboard or straitjacket? Theorising post/human subjects in an age of vulnerability. Discourse. View this article in WRRO
- Dis/entangling critical disability studies. Disability and Society, 28(5), 631-644.
- Hardt and Negri and the geo-Political Imagination: Empire, Multitude and Critical Disability Studies. Critical Sociology, 39(3), 369-384. View this article in WRRO
- Towards a contextual psychology of disablism. Disability & Society, 28(3), 431-433.
- The body as disability and possability: theorizing the 'leaking, lacking and excessive' bodies of disabled children. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 15(1), 1-19.
- Resilience: A Disability Studies and Community Psychology Approach. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 67-78.
- Big society: A dismodernist critique. Disability and Society, 26(7), 881-885.
- Something in the Air?Creativity, culture and community. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 16(1), 75-91.
- Problematising policy: Conceptions of 'child', 'disabled' and 'parents' in social policy in England. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 15(1), 71-85.
- Disability, community and empire: Indigenous psychologies and social psychoanalytic possibilities. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 15(1), 101-115.
- The violence of disablism. Sociology of Health & Illness, 33(4), 602-617. View this article in WRRO
- Len Barton, inclusion and critical disability studies: theorising disabled childhoods. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 20(4), 273-290.
- Emancipating play: Dis/abled children, development and deconstruction. Disability and Society, 25(4), 499-512.
- Moving beyond the minimum: Socially just pedagogies and Asperger's syndrome in UK higher education. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 14(2), 115-131.
- Social psychoanalytic disability studies. Disability and Society, 26, 715-728.
- Bringing the Psyche back into Disability Studies: The Case of the Body with/out Organs. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 3(3), 257-272.
- Families Raising Disabled Children: Enabling Care and Social Justice â By Janice McLaughlin, Dan Goodley, Emma Clavering & Pamela Fisher. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 9(3), 219-222.
- A Unique Child: Inclusion - Becoming disabled. Nursery World, 2009(11).
- Seeking and Rejecting Certainty: Exposing the Sophisticated Lifeworlds of Parents of Disabled Babies. Sociology, 42(2), 317-335.
- In defence of disability studies: A response to Forshaw (2007) 'In defence of psychology: A reply to Goodley and Lawthom (2005)'. Disability and Society, 23(2), 191-192.
- Narrative in a nutshell: sharing hopes, fears, and dreams with self-advocates.. Intellect Dev Disabil, 45(5), 323-334.
- Becoming rhizomatic parents: Deleuze, Guattari and disabled babies. Disability and Society, 22(2), 145-160.
- Towards socially just pedagogies: Deleuzoguattarian critical disability studies. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 11(3), 317-334.
- The linear medical model of disability: mothers of disabled babies resist with counter-narratives.. Sociol Health Illn, 29(1), 66-81.
- Storying disability and impairment: retrospective accounts of disabled family life.. Qual Health Res, 16(5), 630-646.
- Disability Research by Disabled and Non‐Disabled People: Towards a Relational Methodology of Research Production. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8(5), 363-374.
- Empowerment, self-advocacy and resilience.. J Intellect Disabil, 9(4), 333-343.
- Epistemological journeys in participatory action research: Alliances between community psychology and disability studies. Disability and Society, 20(2), 135-151.
- Editorial. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 32(2), 49-51.
- Community projects and excluded young people: Reflections on a participatory narrative research approach. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 8(4), 331-351.
- Self-advocacy, "learning difficulties," and the social model of disability.. Ment Retard, 41(3), 149-160.
- How do you understand "learning difficulties"? Towards a social theory of impairment.. Ment Retard, 39(3), 229-232.
- Making connections: The relevance of the social model of disability for people with learning difficulties. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 29(2), 45-50.
- 'Learning difficulties', the social model of disability and impairment: Challenging epistemologies. Disability and Society, 16(2), 207-231.
- Acting out the Individual Programme Plan. Critical Social Policy, 20(4), 503-532.
- Doing Disability Research: Activist lives and the academy. Disability and Society, 15(6), 861-882.
- Disability Research and the “Researcher Template”: Reflections on Grounded Subjectivity in Ethnographic Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 5(1), 24-46.
- Supporting people with learning difficulties in self-advocacy groups and models of disability.. Health Soc Care Community, 6(6), 438-446.
- Locating self-advocacy in models of disability: Understanding disability in the support of self-advocates with learning difficulties. Disability and Society, 12(3), 367-379.
- Tales of hidden lives: A critical examination of life history research with people who have learning difficulties. Disability and Society, 11(3), 333-348.
- Rebooting Inclusive Education? New Technologies and Disabled People. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 9(5), 515-549.
- Challenging Transhumanism. Balkan Journal of Philosophy, 12(1), 5-16.
- Disability, Austerity and Cruel Optimism in Big Society: Resistance and “The Disability Commons”. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 4(2), 162-162.
- View this article in WRRO
Chapters
- Theorising Disability and Humanity, Critical Readings in Interdisciplinary Disability Studies (pp. 41-51). Springer International Publishing
- Towards a DisHuman Civil Society, The Palgrave Handbook of Disability and Citizenship in the Global South (pp. 211-222). Springer International Publishing
- Resilience in the Lives of Disabled Children: A Many Splendoured Thing, The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies (pp. 425-442). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- The ‘Disability Commons’: Re-thinking Mothering Through Disability, The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies (pp. 231-246). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Teaching disability, teaching critical disability studies, Teaching Critical Psychology (pp. 64-81). Routledge
- Critical Disability Studies, The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology (pp. 491-505). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- The Place of Disability, Disability in the Global South (pp. 69-83). Springer International Publishing
- Critical Disability Studies and Critical Health Psychology: Comrades in Arms?, Critical Health Psychology (pp. 275-290). Macmillan Education UK
- Thinking about Schooling through Dis/Ability, Disability Studies (pp. 241-253). SensePublishers
- Against a politics of victimisation: Disability culture and self-advocates with learning difficulties, Disability, Culture and Identity (pp. 105-130).
- Disability: Cripping Men, Masculinities and Methodologies, Men, Masculinities and Methodologies (pp. 142-156). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- The psychology of disability, Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies (pp. 310-323).
- Disabled Children's Childhood Studies Palgrave Macmillan UK
- The Disavowal of Uncanny Disabled Children: Why Non-Disabled People Are So Messed Up Around Childhood Disability, Disabled Children's Childhood Studies (pp. 164-179). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Decolonizing Methodology, Inclusive Communities (pp. 215-232). SensePublishers
- Inclusive Communities SensePublishers
- Disabled children, their parents and their experiences with practitioners, Working with Children and Young People (pp. 69-79). Macmillan Education UK
- Families Raising Disabled Children Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Conclusions: Making Enabling Alliances between Disability Studies and Psychology, Disability and Psychology (pp. 187-204). Macmillan Education UK
- Disability Studies and Psychology: New Allies?, Disability and Psychology (pp. 1-16). Macmillan Education UK
- Gerry O'Toole: A design for life, Researching Life Stories: Method, Theory and Analyses in a Biographical Age (pp. 3-14).
- Preface In Clough P, Goodley D, Lawthom R & Moore M (Ed.), Researching Life Stories: Method, Theory and Analyses in a Biographical Age (pp. ix-x). Taylor & Francis
- Manifestos for the Future of Critical Disability Studies Routledge
- The Routledge International Handbook on Narrative and Life History Routledge
- Disability Theory (pp. 401-405). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
- Resilience, Disability Studies: A Student's Guide (pp. 126-128). SAGE Publications Ltd
- Disability, Men, Masculinities and Methodologies Palgrave Macmillan
- Conclusion, Disability and Social Theory Palgrave Macmillan
- Introducing Disability and Social Theory, Disability and Social Theory Palgrave Macmillan
- Jacques Lacan + Paul Hunt = Psychoanalytic Disability Studies, Disability and Social Theory Palgrave Macmillan
- Gerry O’Toole, Researching Life Stories (pp. 3-14). Taylor & Francis
- Social Model of Disability, Key Concepts in Learning Disabilities (pp. 243-247). SAGE Publications Ltd
- The Disavowal of Uncanny Disabled Children, Disabled Children's Childhood Studies Palgrave Macmillan
Book reviews
- Disability and Difference in Global Contexts: Enabling a Transformative Body Politic by Nirmala Erevelles. African American Review, 50(2), 246-248.
Conference proceedings papers
- View this article in WRRO
Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
- Disability and Impairment. In The Wiley-Blackwell Encylopedia of Social Theory. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons. View this article in WRRO
- Research group
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Dan supervises undergraduate, masters and doctoral students in the areas of:
- Critical disability studies;
- Qualitative research including ethnography, narrative inquiry, discourse analysis, Inclusive education;
- Queer, Feminist, Postcolonial and Crip studies, Critical Psychology, Sociology of Education, Sociology of the Body, Sociology of Emotions/Affect;
- Posthuman and DisHuman studies.
- Teaching activities
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Dan has taught psychology, education, sociology and research methodology at A level, undergraduate, masters and doctoral levels. He has led and contributed to a number of undergraduate modules:
- EDU206 Psychology and Learning Communities
- EDU309 Globalising Education
- Professional activities
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- Visiting Professor, University of Ghent, 2017-2018
- Visiting Research, University of Toronto, 2018
- Professorial Visiting Fellow, University of New South Wales, School of Social Sciences, 2011 – 2014
- Visiting Scholar, University of Iceland, Centre for Disability Studies, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, 2010 - 2013
- Editorial Advisory Board member for NASEN journals, 2012 - 2014
- Editorial board member: Disability & Society; Educational Action Research; Skandinavian Journal of Disability Research; Ethnographica Journal of Culture and Disability; The Journal of Inclusive Practice in Further and Higher Education; Disability and the Global South.
- ESRC Peer Review College member, 2010 -
- Illustrator, Viewpoint ‘The Learning Disability Magazine’: MENCAP publications (2001-2004)
- Columnist, Community Living Magazine (2002-2003)