ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. A major aim of the book is to gain insight into how visually impaired people in Britain obtain and sustain their employment. A further aim is to present an historical record of employment for visually impaired people by tracing their working lives from the eighteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. By means of narrative research, the book attempts to address this imbalance by focusing on the experiences of visually impaired people in post-school education and work both now and in the past. A major barrier to finding work is the attitudes of employers. Other barriers include attitudinal barriers, environmental barriers and structural barriers. The overall analysis of the 50 stories in this book will give fresh insights into the factors which enable visually impaired people to find and sustain paid employment.
