Monograph · 2020
Allies and Obstacles
Disability Activism and Parents of Children with Disabilities
When parents fight for their disabled children, whose voice leads?
2 national awards348 pages
Pamela Block · Allison C. Carey · Richard K. Scotch
Parents, disabled activists, and the uneasy alliances between them.
Two books on seventy years of disability activism, including the award-winning Allies and Obstacles — from the parents who built the first national movements in the 1950s to BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ families organizing today.
- Books
- 2
- Years of activism
- 1949 to 2025
- Activists interviewed
- 27
- Chapter contributors
- 12
- National book awards
- 2
Temple University Press
The books
A history and its sequel. The first maps how parent activism shaped disability policy; the second centers the voices the first could not fully hold.
Edited volume · 2025
Family and Disability Activism
Beyond Allies and Obstacles
BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ disabled activists and families, in their own words.
Free audiobook188 pages
The question at the heart of the books
Allies, obstacles, or something in between?
Parents won the right to public education, helped empty the institutions, and built a nationwide system of services. Yet many disabled activists experience parent advocacy as speaking for them rather than with them. The authors argue that parents are best understood as “sometimes allies” — and that three shared commitments predict when an alliance will hold.
Read the key ideas-
Social model over the medical model
Seeing disability as shaped by barriers in society, not only as a condition to be cured.
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Integration over segregation
Working for access to ordinary schools, jobs, and communities rather than separate settings.
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Empowerment over parental control
Letting disabled people lead, speak, and decide for themselves.
Timeline
Seventy years of organizing
When parent-led organizations appeared — and why some disability communities organized decades before others.
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1949
United Cerebral Palsy
Parent-led
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1950
The Arc
Parent-led
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1975
Right to a public education
Law & policy
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1979
NAMI and the National Down Syndrome Society
Parent-led
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1990
Americans with Disabilities Act
Law & policy
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2005
Autism Speaks
Parent-led
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2020
Allies and Obstacles is published
The books
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2025
Family and Disability Activism is published
The books
- See all 21 moments
Listen to Family and Disability Activism for free
The full audiobook is free to download and keep. No account, no subscription. We walk you through adding it to your phone, computer, or favorite audiobook app.
Recognition
Award-winning scholarship
Outstanding Publication Award, 2022
Section on Disability in Society, American Sociological Association · Allies and Obstacles
Scholarly Achievement Award, 2021
North Central Sociological Association · Allies and Obstacles
The best short anthology I’ve read on disability justice activism in years.
Authors & editors
The authors
An anthropologist and two sociologists, in Canada and the United States.
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Pamela Block
Professor of Anthropology, Western University
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Allison C. Carey
Professor, Department of Political and Social Inquiry, Shippensburg University
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Richard K. Scotch
1951 – 2026
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Public Policy and Political Economy, The University of Texas at Dallas
In memory
Richard K. Scotch, 1951 – 2026
Our co-author, colleague, and friend died in June 2026. A pioneer of disability policy scholarship, Richard first proposed the collaboration that became Allies and Obstacles.
Read our tribute to RichardReviews, podcasts & articles
Listen, read, discuss
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Review
Review in History: Reviews of New Books (external site)
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Review
Review in Disability & Society (external site)
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Podcast
Barrier Free Futures with Allison C. Carey, Pamela Block, and Richard K. Scotch (external site)
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Podcast
Episode 42: Allyship and parent activism (external site)
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Podcast
Episode 24: Allies and Obstacles with the authors (external site)
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Review
Review by Amy Heider (external site)
