Research On Social Space Of Urban Disabled People In Shanghai

With the human-oriented development view and strategic thought of constructing harmonious society, Disabled people and their living situation become the focus of govement and society. And at the same time, with th rapid social and economic development of our country, the current living conditions of disabled people are becoming better and better. However, in big cities with sever competition, how is the relationship between disabled people and "mainstream society" composed of healthy persons? Whether disabled people are treated by "mainstream society" equally and justly or not? This is the origin of this study.Social space is the concept integrating geography and sociology, which includs employment behavior space, everyday space and image space, reflecting spatial differentiation and its implication of groups'social attributes. This paper takes the city of Shanghai as a case of study, analysizing social space of urban disabed people combined with new theory of social development-social exclusion, exploring its current characteristics and reprentations of social exclusion in the context of large-scale urban renewal and development of urban social economy. Expecting to make a little contribution to the disabled people.Based on spacial equality as public resource, this paper puts forward the following hypotheses. During the urban development and urban renewal, the employment behavior space of urban disabled people is compressed, settlement and employment behavior space is relatively concentrating;everyday space is small, types of activity are tedium; the level of community involvement is low; compared with the urban social agents of healthy persons, the image space of urban people is simple and blurry, and its coverage area is also small.1 Carding the socialization features of urban disabled people and the current social economy situation of disabled people in Shanghai. Finding that the socialization,social role fufillment and interpersonal relationship are special, The current social economy status of disabled people is below that of healthy people in Shanghai.2 Based on the psychology and mechanism of employment, analysing the spacial features of employment behavior of urban disabled people from microcosmic view. Finding that employment and settlement behavior space of urban disabled people is neighbouring in order to avoid employment risks; employment behavior has the phenomena of social prejudice and spacial isolation; the employment behavior space of urban disabled people is related to disability scale and disability types.3 Analysing the everyday space of middle-aged and young disabled people. Finding that family income is the main influential factor for the shopping space of urban disabled people; leisure and entertainment space is around settlement area, long-distance tourism activites is seldom; real social communication space is small as a cultural sub-group, internet extends virtual social communications for urban disabled people; economy and mobility exclusion are the main influential factors.4 Analysing the evaluation image and structural image of urban disabled people by the cognitive map. Finding that urban disabled people are proud of social economy development in Shanghai since the reform and open policy, While urban disabled people are not satisfied with current social involvement,living conditons and perceived life. The bad milk of human kindness and high living pressure are the main evaluation to the living environment;The structural urban image of disabled people focuses on the area of settlement and employment, reflecting the features of social space for urban disabled people to some extent.5 Theoretical study on the social space of urban disabled people based on the perspective of social exclusion.This paper summarizes some presentation of social exclusion in Shanghai such as labor market segmentation,education exclusion,mobility exclusion,economic exclusion and so on. Putting forward that Urban disabled people belong to low-end labor market, Employment level is low. Social exclusion faceors lead to socio-spacial differentiation; Mobility is an important public resource, mobility deficiency for urban disabled people causes spacial exclusion.