Introduction

Since the 1970s, disability research (as well as policy and practice) has been influenced by important theoretical and empirical advances in perspectives on, and understandings of, disability, evidenced specifically in the emergence of the social model of disability. This model proposes that disability is not a biological or medical human ‘deficiency’, but is influenced and shaped by social, political and economic factors, and is maintained through structural or systemic dynamics and ideologies. A number of important advances have also been made in the field of learning difficulty research, although perhaps not to the same extent as in disability research more generally, as well as within the field of disability activism and the emergence of advocacy organisations and movements (for example, People First and the Norah Fry Research Centre), and in new government initiatives, policies and laws. The inclusion of people with learning difficulties is now also a requirement of a number of funding agencies, ‘as a condition of research funding’ (Gilbert, 2004, p 298), and researchers with learning difficulties themselves have contributed their experiences, perspectives and expertise to learning difficulty research (see Atkinson and Williams, 1990; Aspis, 2000; Townson et al, 2004).

While these changes and new understandings have led to considerable improvements in the way learning difficulty is perceived, understood and managed, as well as to the empowerment of people with learning difficulties themselves, a number of challenges and tensions remain, particularly with respect to the social model and its relevance for people with learning difficulties, as well as in terms of research ethics and practice considerations. Furthermore, in order to prevent learning difficulty research becoming confined or restricted solely within its own field, or even in the broader arena of disabilities studies, some argue that it would be a positive step to see the inclusion of people with learning difficulties in general population studies using (tried and tested) participatory methods that are not incompatible with (or seen as barriers to) more conventional methods as part of a multi-method approach. These issues are explored in this chapter, drawing on relevant epistemological and methodological debates and evidence from research studies that use participatory methods with people with learning difficulties – and drawing on the specific examples of PR studies that use visual methods and PhotoVoice as part of multimethod projects (Booth and Booth, 2003; Sempik et al, 2005; Nind, 2008; Ollerton and Horsfall, 2013).