Critique of Thomas's Study on Disablism and Disabled Mothers

Overview of Thomas's Study and Theme Selection

Thomas (1997) presents an interesting, but somewhat flawed, qualitative study of disablism as it applies to attitudes toward mothers or soon-to-be mothers with disabilities. Thomas draws on data from in-depth interviews with 17 disabled mothers or mothers-to-be. She describes the manifestation of disablism applied to these women in terms of three themes that she admittedly chose subjectively: (1) the struggles, both personal and those placed on them by others, regarding the risk of giving birth to children who may themselves suffer disabilities due to the medications the mothers take or due to genetic factors; (2) doubts from others about their ability to adequately parent their children given their disability — the "good mother" theme; and (3) the experience of receiving unwanted help from others due to their disabilities, fueled by the perception that they are inadequate mothers.

The problem here is that Thomas has chosen two themes so closely related that they are nearly one and the same. The unwanted help theme and the ability-to-parent or good mother theme are highly related; in fact, the unwanted help theme is largely a consequence of the good mother theme. Reading the paper, the description of these two themes and the participants' experiences felt somewhat redundant. After finishing the paper, one is left wanting a broader view of these women's experiences. Thomas admits that other themes emerged from the data, and it may have been more helpful to focus on more disparate themes from the data analysis in order to gain a fuller picture of these women's overall struggles and experiences.

Data Collection and Analytical Transparency

With respect to the data collection and analysis itself, Thomas does not spend a great deal of time explaining how the data was coded and analyzed. Her description of the sample and data collection is more than adequate; however, the reader is not told how the interviews were coded or what criteria were used to select themes from the analysis. We do not know what themes were most prevalent, how the severity or intensity of perceived disablism was rated and coded, or how data was grouped into themes. We are told that the data was cross-indexed and that 19 categories were grouped into themes, but no table of those categories or the themes they were grouped under is provided. Moreover, the criteria used to group them into themes are never explained.

This is precisely where tables can be useful. All it would have required is a table of the categories and a brief description of how they were grouped into themes. It is important in any study to describe the analysis and data collection in sufficient detail that readers could reproduce the procedures based on reading alone — otherwise there are no grounds to accept the findings as trustworthy. Even in qualitative research, any hint of unaddressed subjectivity is detrimental to the research conclusions.

Trustworthiness and the Question of Disablism

This brings up a discussion of trustworthiness in the data. Thomas reports that the themes in her study could be argued to be manifestations of disablism, but she offers no criteria for this argument. Is there any research indicating that these themes are observed to a greater extent in disabled mothers than in non-disabled mothers? We are not given the answer. For instance, Thomas states that her study suggests that disabled women are particularly vulnerable to the "at risk" theme, but there is no evidence in the study to support that assertion — she assumes it. Is it possible, then, that these experiences might be common to women experiencing motherhood in general?

Thomas acknowledges this to some extent but continues to assert that disablism is responsible for the experiences of these women. Perhaps it is, and perhaps it is not — the study does not allow us to know. Additionally, Thomas contends that even though the sample and procedure may not permit generalizability, her theoretical argument is generalizable because her sample is not atypical of disabled women (p. 627). Given the earlier concerns, this claim is debatable. However, transferability may occur if practitioners find that their clients' situations are similar to those in the study (Bassey, 1981). If we assume that there are many reasons for the manifestation of these motherhood-related themes — including disablism, overbearing relatives or friends, marital strife, past experiences, ageism, and others — then the experiences of these women may be transferable to a broader group, though not indicative of disablism alone. In this respect, the experiences of the women in this study may prove quite valuable across many different contexts.

References

Bassey, M. (1981). Pedagogic research: On the relative merits of search for generalisation and study of single events. Oxford Review of Education, 7, 73–93.

Thomas, C. (1997). The baby and the bath water: Disabled women and motherhood in social context. Sociology of Health & Illness, 19(5), 622–643.

Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Sage.