Review: Sally Lindsay on Freedom and Disability in a Community Group Home

Jack Levinson. Making Life Work: Freedom and Disability in a Community Group Home. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010, 304 pp. $US 22.50 paper (978-0-8166-5082-8), $US 67.50 hardcover (978-0-8166-5081-1)

Jack Levinson’s book describes a year-long ethnography of a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities. This book is important because in the sociological literature relatively little attention has been paid to people with intellectual disabilities. Most of the research on group homes focuses on homeless or troubled youth, and very little is known about the inner workings of a group home for people with intellectual disabilities. Levinson’s book addresses these gaps in the sociology and disability studies literature. Read more