ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the major issues discussed in the book and presents the key concepts adopted to produce new and relevant knowledge about these issues. The book focuses on how persons with disabilities experience their opportunities to exercise Active Citizenship. It explains some factors and mechanisms that may explain why people find variation in the Active Citizenship of persons with disabilities among countries, between women and men, and among different disabilities, age groups and birth cohorts. Citizenship is not only about social status or the extent to which people are recognised as full and effective members of society, regardless of differences in social position or other characteristics. The book describes a number of reforms in public policy that could potentially enhance the Active Citizenship of persons with disabilities, particularly since the 1990s. It argues how the Active Citizenship of persons with disabilities evolves over time by adopting a life-course approach.
