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A Question of Friendship: CommunityCare and the Relationships of People withLearning DifficultiesAnne Louise Chappell aa Faculty of Applied Social Sciences , Buckinghamshire College ,Gorelands Lane, Chalfont St Giles, Bucks, HP8 4AD, UKPublished online: 23 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Anne Louise Chappell (1994) A Question of Friendship: Community Care andthe Relationships of People with Learning Difficulties, Disability & Society, 9:4, 419-434, DOI:10.1080/09687599466780431

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Disability & Society, Vol . 9, No. 4, 1994

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A Question of Friendship :community care and therelationships of people withlearning difficultiesANNE LOUISE CHAPPELLFaculty of Applied Social Sciences, Buckinghamshire College, Gorelands Lane, ChalfontSt Giles, Bucks HP8 4AD, UK

ABSTRACT There is evidence that a number of people with learning difficulties living in thecommunity do not enjoy a range of satisfactory social relationships . This paper will examine theway that the issue of the apparent loneliness of people with learning difficulties has beenapproached in the community care literature . I will argue that there is a clear assumption inmuch of the literature that friendships between disabled and non-disabled people are of greatervalue than those relationships between disabled people . The low value accorded to friendshipsbetween disabled people is very damaging to their individual self-esteem, as well as to thepossibility of political action based on a sense of solidarity. The paper will point also to theconstraints that many people with learning difficulties face which render it difficult for them toform friendships and, therefore, reinforce their isolation .

Introduction

People's social relationships are important to the quality of their lives . Lacking suchrelationships can cause loneliness, exclusion and a sense of social failure . Peoplewith learning difficulties and their experience of social relationships have attractedconsiderable attention in the community care literature . In particular, concern hasbeen expressed over the apparent lack of friendships, especially close ones, of manypeople with learning difficulties living in the community .

This paper will discuss the issue of the friendships of people with learningdifficulties . I will examine the influence of the normalisation principle in informingresearch into the question of friendship. The paper will question the assumptionsdemonstrated by, first, the way that the topics of loneliness and isolation have beendefined in the community care literature and, secondly, the strategies which areproposed to tackle these related problems. I will argue that the question of therelationships of people with learning difficulties is important to a social theory ofdisability and, therefore, must take account of the significance of material andideological constraints on people with learning difficulties .

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The social theory of disability distinguishes between impairment and disable-ment. The former is located in the body or intellectual/developmental state of theindividual, although, as Abberley points out, impairment is also social in origin(1987, p. 17) . Disability refers to the social construction of impairment . Thisdefinition emphasises that the meaning and experience of disability are products ofhistorically-specific social and economic relationships . The strategies for changepresented within the social theory are collective action and the re-definition ofdisability by disabled people . An analogy is drawn between the political and civilrights struggles of the disability movement and those of the feminist and anti-racistmovements. The disability movement has been identified as a new social movement(Oliver, 1990) .

The debate which surrounds the issue of the social relationships of people withlearning difficulties needs to be re-defined in response to the emergence of thistheoretical position. The paper will present three principal arguments . First, greatervalue must be accorded to relationships between people with learning difficulties .Secondly, a connection must be acknowledged between the collective action ofdisabled people and their ability to form individual relationships with one another .Finally, by drawing on research data, I will argue that any examination of the lackof social relationships of many people with learning difficulties must include ananalysis of the constraints they face . These constraints inhibit the formation ofsatisfactory social relationships .

The Meaning of Friendship

Several themes emerge from academic examination of friendship . In this section, Ishall explore the definitions of friendship presented in, first, the sociological andcommunity studies literature and, secondly, the literature more specific to com-munity care and the lives of people with learning difficulties .

Kin relations are based on the "acknowledged and well-known principles" ofties of blood and marriage (Allan, 1979, p . 30) . It is easier to identify a person's kinthan it is her/his friends. Friendship, in contrast, can be used to describe a widerange of relationships which may change over time as people develop new friend-ships and lose contact with old ones . The term friendship is problematic .

Willmott offers a fairly pragmatic definition of friendship . Friends are peoplewho are not usually relatives, but who enjoy a continuing relationship based onsocial contact and shared leisure time, mutual help and emotional attachment(1986, p . 35) . Allan begins his definition by discussing the meaning of friendship asa personal relationship . First, it is a relationship between individuals which developsregardless of their formal role positions . Secondly, it is a private relationship and thebehaviour towards each other of those within the friendship is their business only.Thirdly, friends accept each other as they `really' are : they are admitted to the backregion (Goffman, 1959; Allan, 1979, pp . 38-40). Goffman's dramaturgical conceptof front and back regions has particular relevance, I would argue, to the inhibitionof friendships for people with learning difficulties . I will develop this point later .

Another component of friendships is that they are voluntary relationships :

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They are as consequent on the free choice and selection of each friend bythe other . . . they are achieved rather than ascribed . (Allan, 1979, p . 40)

This is an important, if somewhat problematic, point . Friendship is a voluntaryrelationship (unlike kinship), but a person's choice of friends is still socially con-structed, despite the voluntary nature of the relationship . As Blieszner and Adamspoint out :

If friendship is voluntary, why do people choose friends of the same sex,age, race, religion, geographic area and status levels? (1992, p . 2)

That people tend to select as friends those who are like themselves has importantimplications for people with learning difficulties. This will be addressed later .O'Connor's work on female friendships also emphasises the social construction ofthis seemingly very private and individual relationship :

Friendship has typically been seen as the most idiosyncratic form ofpersonal relationship . Hence, little attention has been paid to . . . the socialfactors which are associated with its emergence, maintenance or demise . . .there has been a tendency to idealize it and to ignore the fact that itrequires resources-such as time, money, etc . (O'Connor, 1992, p. 27)

Reciprocity has been identified as an important feature of friendship (Abrams, 1977 ;Allan, 1979) . However, reciprocity may not operate in the same way in all types offriendship . As O'Connor points out, there is evidence that reciprocity in long-stand-ing friendships assumes a different form . The requirement for reciprocity in terms ofa short-term balance of who does what for whom may not apply and even may beoverlooked (1992, p . 25) .

Literature which looks specifically at the question of friendship and people withlearning difficulties offers the following definitions :

Relationships, especially friendship, can provide company . They can bringa variety of important new opportunities to learn . . . They also bringintimacy, a sense of closeness and trust . . . Relationships can bring practicalhelp in little day-to-day ways, as well as in times of major disruption orcelebration . . . (They) can provide a way of confirming and validating ourexperiences. People who value us provide us with positive feedback . (Firth& Rapley, 1990, p . 19)

Friends are people who listen, who understand, who provide the oppor-tunity to share experiences and emotions . . . The engagement that friend-ship brings confirms and strengthens people's sense of feeling valued andvaluable . . . At its deepest level it provides intimacy . . . A second, importantfunction . . . is company . . . Friendships also have a function of providingpractical help . . . Friendship is not only about taking, it is equally aboutgiving. (Richardson & Ritchie, 1990, pp. 93-94, italics in original)

The description of friendship provided by Richardson and Ritchie also conveys thedifferent levels of friendship. This is important because, clearly, there are different

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kinds of friendship. They may range from those where time is spent together butconfidences not shared, to the most personal and intimate long-standing friendships .

The Normalisation Principle and the Relationships of Disabled People

People with learning difficulties are the focus of a great deal of research which hasinvestigated the quality of their lives and the services which they use . A concernwhich has emerged from this literature is the importance of satisfying relationships,such as friendships, to the quality of life for disabled people . People with learningdifficulties also recognise the importance of friendship to an individual's social statusand quality of life (Atkinson & Ward, 1986) . It would not be accurate to suggest thatall people with learning difficulties are lonely or dissatisfied with their socialnetworks, but there is evidence which suggests strongly that a significant proportiondo not participate in a range of satisfying social relationships (Atkinson, 1987 ;Flynn, 1989 ; Richardson & Ritchie, 1989 ; Ward, 1989; Firth & Rapley, 1990) .Instead, they experience loneliness, isolation and :

in terms of their day-to-day relationships, far too many lead impoverishedlives. (Richardson & Ritchie, 1989, p . i)

My own research has drawn similar conclusions as to the relationships of the peoplewith learning difficulties in my study (Chappell, 1993) .

The normalisation principle has exerted a major influence over research intocommunity care. In order to understand the implications of this influence for theconcern over lack of friendship for people with learning difficulties, it is necessary toexamine briefly its origins and, specifically, its links with interactionist sociology (fora more detailed account, see Chappell, 1992; Emerson, 1992) .

The Campaign for People with a Mental Handicap (CMH) provide this simplesummary of normalisation :

The use of means which are valued in our society in order to develop andsupport personal behaviour experiences and characteristics which are like-wise valued. (CMH, 1981, p . 1)

The transfer of normalisation from its Scandinavian origins to the more theoreticaland radical North American version developed by Wolfensberger (and adopted inBritain), was influenced strongly by interactionist sociology (Chappell, 1992) . Nor-malisation found its theoretical niche in the seemingly radical interactionist soci-ology of the 1960s . Thus, the preoccupation of interactionism with deviance, stigmaand labelling has been of central importance to the development of normalisationand the research which it has generated .

The influence of interactionist sociology is clear in both the work of Wolfens-berger and the British proponents of normalisation . Of particular significance is thenotion of deviance discussed by Goffman in Asylums (1961) and Stigma: notes on themanagement of spoiled identity (1968) . This is not to suggest that interactionism hasnothing useful to contribute to an analysis of disability . However, it should berecognised that its analysis fails :

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to link interpersonal relations with the material base upon which interac-tions take place . (Abberley, 1987, p . 14)

Normalisation is concerned that socially devalued people (like disabled people)should not follow a vicious circle of deviance and the "deviancy career" (CMH,1981, p . 6). Devalued people must have ascribed to them roles and labels which aresocially valued (for example, by wearing age-appropriate clothing) . Hence, thevicious circle of deviance can be transformed into a virtuous circle of a positivelyvalued image and a culturally valued life . This argument is predicated on anassumption that there exists an essential homogeneity of cultural norms and valuesin a society : these are easy to identify in order that devalued people can adopt them .

The emphasis which normalisation places on stigma, deviance and presumedcultural norms has been strongly criticised (see Novak Amado, 1988; Brown &Smith, 1989; Perrin & Nirje, 1989 ; Bayley, 1991) . My concern in this paper is toexplore the way that the influence on normalisation of interactionist sociology hasinformed the manner in which the issue of friendships for people with learningdifficulties has been problematised .

Stigma is a label which marks out those groups (such as disabled people) whoare identified as socially undesirable or inferior . It also can become attributed todisabled people by their association with other people or places so identified (Race,1987). There is a clear parallel here with the assimilationist position of race relationssociology (Chappell, 1992) . Normalisation argues, then, that grouping togetherdisabled people reinforces their deviancy and stigmatised identities, while markingthem out to the rest of the community as different or even dangerous . People withlearning difficulties lead lives which are isolated from socially valued people :

People with handicaps often spend most of their days and most of theirlives in the company of other people who are also handicapped and whoalso have been socially rejected . (Williams, 1986, p . 16)

Discussion of the apparent loneliness of many people with learning difficulties ismotivated by two anxieties . The first is that friendships are important to anindividual's life satisfaction . If people with learning difficulties are to lead fulfillinglives in the community, they must have access to fulfilling personal relationships .The second motivation is that by developing friendships, people with learningdifficulties can become integrated into their communities . As Atkinson and Wardargue, being in the community in a physical sense is not the same as being part ofthe community in the sense of social belonging (1986, p . 1) . The goal of an`ordinary life' for people with learning difficulties means :

helping them to use local facilities, to get to know local traders and to makeother social contacts and relationships in the area . Then, with time, they . . .may become a part of the web of social networks that make up theircommunity. (Atkinson & Ward, 1986, p . 1)

It is a person's network of social relationships which ensure s/he will become a fullmember of that community. Furthermore, `belonging' to a particular community

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means integration into the non-disabled world . Atkinson and Ward emphasise thisconnection :

Encouraging the social integration of people with mental handicaps in-volves a (further) dimension . . . The aim is that their relationships andsocial activities should not be confined to interactions with other peoplewith handicaps but should also include people who are not labelled"handicapped"-people valued by the local community . (1986, p. 2, my italics)

The implication of this line of argument is that friendships between disabled peoplerepresent relationships between people who are devalued and who stigmatise eachother by their association .

To this end, the community care literature has been far more interested inexamining the friendships between disabled and non-disabled people. It is thesefriendships which lead to integration . Friendships between people with learningdifficulties maintain their segregated position in `the handicapped world' . Theprojects which have been established to support people with learning difficulties indeveloping friendships indicate that the primary concern is facilitating relationshipswith non-disabled people (see, for example, Pilkington, 1991 ; Richardson &Ritchie's review of befriending initiatives, 1989) .

Relationships between people with learning difficulties, therefore, do not featureas prominently in the research on friendships nor do they feature in the kind ofbefriending initiatives which I refer to above . Indeed, relationships between disabledpeople may even be seen as evidence of a failure to integrate into the non-disabledcommunity and be described in such phrases as locked in "the confines of mentalhandicap sub-groups" (Atkinson, 1983, p . 20) .

The are two exceptions to this general tendency . The first is in the context ofthe relocation of people with learning difficulties from hospital to community. Here,people's friendships are seen as important to the success of the new placement andso attract sympathetic research attention (see, for example, Booth et al ., 1990). Thesecond exception questions the belief that integration with non-disabled peopleenhances the social status and self-esteem of devalued people . Szivos suggests thateducational integration may damage the self-esteem of children with learningdifficulties, because they compare themselves unfavourably to their non-disabledpeers (Szivos, 1992) . Although Szivos comments that "people with disabilities havemuch to gain from each others' company" (1992, p . 122), there is the sense in herargument that disabled people opt for relationships with each other as protectionfrom feelings of inferiority, rather than as a positive choice . The assumptions aboutthe respective values of friendships with non-disabled or other disabled peopledemonstrated in much of the literature have been noted with concern by somewriters interested in the question of social relationships (Flynn, 1989; Richardson &Ritchie, 1989) .

At this point, I should make it clear that I am not suggesting that disabledpeople should not befriend non-disabled people. Neither am I suggesting thatdisabled people are all the same. Disabled people are no more homogeneous thanany other social grouping and age, gender, ethnic background, individual experience

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and personality all play a part in the development of friendships . Rather, I amarguing that relationships with non-disabled people should not be assumed to bemore valuable than those between disabled people . If people select as their friendsothers like themselves with whom they have things in common-as was noted earlierin this paper-then it should be recognised that disabled people will appear to eachother as potential sources of friendship (just as many women look to other womenfor friendship) . This should be seen as a positive part of disabled people's lives .

Individual Friendship and Collective Identity

Disabled people are becoming involved increasingly in political action to highlightthe discrimination that they face and to demand greater control over their lives . AsI have already pointed out, the disability movement emphasises the similaritiesbetween its own struggles and those of feminists and anti-racists . The prerequisitefor such activity is a sense of solidarity with others who undergo similar experiencesto oneself. For this to develop, disabled people require the space to self-segregate(Brown & Smith, 1992). There is an important connection that must be madebetween the question of disabled people being together as friends, on an individualbasis, and their being together on a wider basis of political solidarity . Ignoring orundervaluing the significance of friendships between disabled people has implica-tions, therefore, for the development of a collective response to discrimination .

The normalisation principle demonstrates a very ambivalent attitude to thequestion of people with learning difficulties being together . On the other hand, it ispossible to recognise support within normalisation for the self-advocacy movement(see, for example, Williams & Shoultz, 1982) . On the other, as I have argued, theinfluence of the concepts of deviance and stigma mean that relationships betweendisabled people are not accorded the same value as those with non-disabled people,or are even treated as problematic . Brown and Smith argue that Wolfensberger, asarguably the single most important writer and teacher of normalisation, has rejectedthe possibility of there being positive value to the self-segregation of disabled people(1992, p. 155) .

People with learning difficulties may be encouraged to disassociate themselvesfrom one another and identify with non-disabled people . In one publication pro-duced by CMH, Williams attempts to describe the world as he imagines a personwith a learning difficulty would experience it. On the question of friendship,Williams imagines this individual would speak to an non-disabled person in thefollowing way :

Given a choice of mixing with mentally handicapped people or with you,we will very often choose you-just as you choose you. If someone isincontinent or has a peculiarity of behaviour or cannot talk, why shouldyou expect me to accept that person and live happily with him anymorethan you expect yourselves to do so? (1978, p . 3)

The argument made to disabled people, whether implicitly or explicitly, that isbetter to be associated with non-disabled people is very damaging . It implies that the

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problem for disabled people is other people who are disabled, particularly those whohave severe impairments . The solution is to become distanced from other disabledpeople and aligned with non-disabled people . Discouraging disabled people fromassociating together as friends undermines the basis for political action . The relativelack of interest in and the low value placed on relationships between disabled peopledamages their perception of themselves and each other. This, in turn, couldreinforce their social isolation .

Morris discusses this issue in some detail . She describes the way that therecognition of commonality with other disabled people can be a painful experience,as well as subjecting the individual to outside pressures :

One of the biggest obstacles to disabled people coming together todemand an end to the discrimination we face, is the way in which we feelpressure to take on the non-disabled world's judgments about ourselves .(1991, p. 35)

Being with non-disabled people may create a mistaken image of `normality', but itcan endanger relationships between disabled people :

How many times has a disabled person thought or said as a matter of pride,"Well, of course, most of my friends are able-bodied"? I can insist that I amnot like other disabled people who attend day centres, go to special schools,live in residential care, are taken on holiday in groups . But this divides mefrom the oppressed group of which I am inevitably a member . (Morris,1991, p . 37)

In effect, then, attempts to `integrate' disabled people may represent dispersal intoa hostile world . This can isolate disabled people, physically and emotionally, in thenon-disabled community :

One of the most important features of our experience of prejudice is thatwe generally experience it as isolated individuals . . . It is therefore verydifficult for us to recognise and challenge the values and judgements thatare applied to us and our lives . Our ideas about disability and aboutourselves are generally formed by those who are not disabled. (Morris,1991, p. 37)

In this light, being with other disabled people may be an experience more accuratelydescribed as "liberating" (Morris, 1991, p. 37)-a far cry from such terms asremaining confined in `the handicapped world' .

Of course, I am not advocating a return to the batch-living of the long-stayinstitution. Rather, I am arguing that the question of disabled people either beingtogether or with non-disabled people is not a simple matter of segregation in `thehandicapped world' versus integration into the (non-disabled) community. Animportant distinction needs to be made between disabled people being together onterms of their own choosing (whether for friendship or political activity) and disabledpeople being together on terms not of their own choosing (for example, because of

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the way that services are organised) . In this way, the value of relationships betweendisabled people, whether on an individual or political basis, can be recognised .

The Relationships of People with Learning Difficulties : a discussion

Using the social theory of disability outline at the beginning of this paper, I willexamine data from my own research and present an account of the reasons for thelack of friendship for many people with learning difficulties. This account willemphasise the significance of the environment of people with learning difficulties ininhibiting their social relationships . Particular attention will be paid to the con-straints imposed on them and their lack of autonomy over their lives .

The research comprised an ethnographic investigation into the lives and experi-ences of people with learning difficulties who live in private residential care (Chap-pell, 1993) . The research was conducted in three private residential homes inMiddlehurst, a town in the south of England . Felix House opened in the early 1980sand has 13 residents; Anstey House opened in the mid-1980s and has 12 residentsand Warwick House also opened in the mid-1980s and has 8 residents . The majorityof residents from both Felix House and Anstey House lived at a nearby long-stayhospital before their admission to residential care . The residents at Warwick Housewere admitted from their family homes . The research was completed before thecommunity care reforms were introduced in April 1993 . The majority of residentsat all three homes were eligible for Income Support and their places in the homeswere supported by Social Security funding .

In common with other studies, my data indicated that people did not appear toenjoy a wide range of personal relationships . Some of the reasons for this have beennoted by other research . However, where my analysis differs from that presented inmuch of this literature is in the relative weight given to different explanations of theabsence of friendship and the value accorded to relationships between disabledpeople. The key factor which, I would argue, limited the relationships of the peoplein this study was their lack of autonomy in their environments. They had littleinfluence on their daily lives and little scope to make decisions . This lack ofautonomy reinforced their social isolation . This section of the paper will discuss anumber of issues relevant to the question of friendship which emerged from myresearch .

The first factor which must be noted is that people with learning difficulties aregenerally very poor . As was pointed out earlier in this paper, having resources isimportant in sustaining social relationships and the significance of resources some-times is overlooked (O'Connor, 1992) . The majority of residents in this study hadthe cost of their residential place paid for by Social Security money . In addition, theyreceived spending money of £12 .20 per week (at April 1992). In 1992, the averageweekly expenditure of one adult non-retired households on leisure services (forexample, cinema and theatre admission and holiday expenses) was £17.48 (HMSO,1993) . In contrast, the amount of money available to the individuals in this study tospend on personal items of expenditure and leisure appears a paltry amount andmakes socialising very problematic .

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Such a low income means that it becomes difficult for people to make use of theadvice they are given regarding the importance to friendships of good social skills.Atkinson & Ward (1986) note that acquiring the appropriate social niceties are animportant element of developing relationships . However, it is simply beyond theincome of many people with learning difficulties to practice social niceties, such asbuying a round of drinks in a pub (Atkinson & Ward, 1986, p. 7) . For example, around of drinks for four people easily could cost half the weekly income available tothe people in this research . Other studies have noted that the very low incomes ofpeople with learning difficulties, lack of transport and cuts in services are factorswhich restrict their social lives (Richardson & Ritchie, 1989) . This also affected theindividuals in this research . One respondent, for example, identified a person at theday centre (Resource and Activity Centre) she attended as being a particular friend.However, as they lived several miles apart and had no access to transport, they neversaw each other in the evenings, at weekends or during the Resource and ActivityCentre (RAC) holidays .

Another factor here concerns the access to one's money . This is an importantpoint in understanding the limited social relationships of the people in this study.The proprietors of the three homes were all concerned that the small amount ofmoney which residents had should not be squandered . Each week, a portion (about40%) was put aside to save for birthdays, Christmas and holidays . This meant that,in effect, people's weekly spending money was more in the region of £7 (about 60%of their weekly spending money) . If residents considered that they required moremoney to spend (up to their £ 12 .20 allowance), they had to ask the permission ofthe proprietor. All the residents I interviewed were clear that they did not have anautomatic right of access to their money .

Residents' money also tended to be distributed in very small amounts . WarwickHouse, for example, experimented for a short time with giving residents their weeklyspending money all at once. This did not work and residents ran out of money orhad it stolen within a couple of days . Thereafter, the proprietor gave people theirmoney in what he termed a `workable minimum' of about 50p-£1 each day. Nosupport was given to residents at Warwick House to enable them to become moreconfident with money so that they could learn how to budget for the week, and noaccount was taken of individual preferences regarding the allocation of their money .

The organisation of staffing is another factor which has important implicationsfor residents' social lives . I will illustrate this point by contrasting the staffingarrangements of two of the homes . Felix House has made a concerted effort topursue the individual interests of residents . The home has a minimum of two staffon duty at any one time . This means that one or two residents can go out with amember of staff; for example, to the cinema or a drama and movement class. Thishas increased the number of trips made by residents outside the home .

Warwick House has quite different staffing arrangements . The home has amember of staff who lives-in . During the week, she is the only person on duty . Likemany residential homes, Warwick House has a rota for baths . The member of staffis responsible for helping residents with their baths . She tends to arrange residents'baths early in the evening so that she can then prepare her husband's meal for when

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he returns from work . This practice means that residents are in their nightwear anddressing-gowns from about 7 o'clock onwards. This restricts the possibility of themgoing out later in the evening.

As noted earlier, people with learning difficulties receive services and areobliged to spend time with other people on terms not of their own choosing .Consequently, the respondents in this study had different kinds of relationships witheach other in the residential homes . Some residents had obvious friendships. AtAnstey House, four residents identified other residents as their friends . One of thesefriendships went back many years to the time when all the residents at the home hadlived in a long-stay hospital . At Warwick House, it was clear that three residentsenjoyed each other's company and spent much of their time talking and jokingtogether.

However, several residents identified other residents whom they did not like orwho irritated them . There were frequent arguments between two of the residents atAnstey House. One resident at Warwick House said she was glad when anotherresident had left the home as she did not particularly like him . There were tensionsbetween two residents at Felix House which surfaced over the rota to set the table .Lack of privacy and poor access to resources made it difficult for people to findpeace and quiet away from the stresses of group living. The RAC's also werecriticised in this respect. They tended to be very noisy and several respondentscomplained about the difficulties of conducting a conversation while at the RAC .

As discussed earlier, trust is an important prerequisite of friendship . Allan, inhis definition of friendship, uses Goffman's concept of the back region to indicatethat friends have access to the back region of each other's performances . They seeand accept each other as they really are (Allan, 1979, p. 40) . When friends impartpersonal information to each other, it is in the knowledge that this position of trustwill not be abused . The people with learning difficulties in this research did not livein an environment which appeared conducive to the development of relationshipsbased on trust, such as friendship . They lacked autonomy over their lives and weresubject to the control of others .

One manifestation of this lack of autonomy concerned the way that residentsexercised little control over their physical environments . Having space and anopportunity to be oneself are factors important to the development of relationships .In the residential homes, respondents were under scrutiny for much of the time .They lived in an effective, if not a literal, pan-optican (Foucault, ca . 1977) . Indeed,some residents spoke of their presence in residential care in terms of `gettingwatched'. Privacy for residents was never guaranteed ; for example, most people inthis study shared a bedroom . Personal or embarrassing information about residentswas frequently brought into the public domain. This could even occur in thepresence of visitors to the home, as illustrated in the following extract from myfieldnotes. Here, a member of staff at Felix House has just told a resident, JudithWright, to go away and is justifying this to a visitor to the home :

Judith likes to lord it over the other residents and tell them what to do. At(the long-stay hospital) she had the chance to move to a high grade ward

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. . . for want of a better term. She didn't want to go because she liked tellingthe others what to do .

Judith was in earshot of this remark and the expression on her face indicated that shewas very upset .

On occasions, residents were publicly disciplined . In this extract, a seniormember of staff at Warwick House told a hairdresser who was visiting the homeabout the behaviour on holiday of one of the residents, Wendy Scott . Four residents,including Wendy Scott, and I were present also :

Wendy played up on holiday. She had a head fit and threw all her clothesout of the wardrobe. She must have thought I was her mother becausethat's how she behaves at home . She won't be coming on holiday with usnext year .

Wendy was visibly upset at the telling of this incident . She put her arms aroundherself, turned to the wall and hung her head.

The people with learning difficulties in this research had little control over theirpersonal information and what was imparted to whom . Residents could also usepersonal information about other residents to embarrass them or put them in theirplace. During my interview with Nicholas Warren, a resident at Warwick House, wediscussed his ambition to leave the home . Another resident was listening outside thedoor and shouted :

You can't leave here, Nicholas Warren! You don't know anything aboutmoney!

Not surprisingly, Nicholas was very embarrassed at this outburst .Thus, rather than choosing to share information with a friend to discuss it or

laugh over past failures and embarrassing moments, other people were in a positionto convey that information to others and often did so . The regular humiliations thatthis caused cannot be seen as creating an environment where people around theperson with a learning difficulty are seen either as trustworthy and potential friendsor political allies .

Fear of theft was another concern expressed by a number of people withlearning difficulties in my research . This particularly applied to the RAC's where themajority of respondents spent their days . Again, this is unlikely to promote anatmosphere of trust, vital to the development of friendships. Viewed against abackcloth of low income, lack of access to that income and poor access to transport,one can begin to understand the constraints which many people with learningdifficulties experience in attempting to develop relationships . This social isolation isespecially damaging because it undermines any sense of commonality with otherdisabled people . As I have argued, commonality is at the heart of both individualfriendship and collective action .

The final area of relationships which emerged from my research were sexualrelationships. Some residents who were interviewed were said that they were notinterested in the possibility of a sexual relationship . Other residents clearly wereinterested in this and talked about their ambition to marry and have children . None

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A Question of Friendship 431

of the proprietors of the three homes in this study gave an unsympathetic responsewhen asked about the likelihood of residents embarking on a sexual relationship .However, the following account highlights some of the difficulties residents mayencounter should they wish to embark on a sexual relationship .

Colin Mortimer, a resident at Anstey House, was involved in a relationship witha woman with learning difficulties who did not live at the home . Most of theresidents at Anstey House share a bedroom and Colin shares with Matthew Jordan .It was difficult for Colin to ensure any privacy when his friend, Caroline Giddings,visited the house. Consequently, she generally visited the home on a Sundayafternoon when Matthew was out visiting his mother. Then, Caroline and Colincould spend time in Colin's bedroom undisturbed . If Caroline ever spends the nightat Anstey House, she cannot stay with Colin because Matthew shares the bedroom .Sleeping in a single bed and sharing a bedroom with another resident deniesindividuals both the space and privacy usually associated with a sexual relationship .

Sexual activity among people with learning difficulties can appear as an uncom-fortable issue for staff. A female resident in this study was suspended from theweekly social club because of what was deemed as inappropriate sexual behaviourwith a male attender at the club . There was also evidence that residents also may feelthe need to keep their relationships secret from parents or residential staff, especiallyif the relationship is a homosexual one . One resident requested that the staff at hisRAC did not mention at his Individual Programme Plan meeting his relationshipwith a male student attending the same centre .

This discussion highlights the importance of relationships between people withlearning difficulties . It is clear that, for some people in this study, other disabledpeople were a valuable source of friendship . Nonetheless, this research also illus-trates that some individuals did not experience a wide range of friendships . They, incommon with many other people with learning difficulties, faced a number ofserious constraints which limited their opportunities to develop social relationships .

Conclusion

This paper has attempted an alternative analysis of the issue of the lack of friendshipfor many people with learning difficulties . I have indicated that the influence ofnormalisation has created a clear assumption that relationships with non-disabledpeople are preferable to those between disabled people. This is rooted in theadoption by advocates of normalisation of interactionist concerns of deviance andstigma without any attempt to ground these in wider social and economic relation-ships .

This neglect and denigration of relationships between disabled people is verydamaging. It may harm people's individual self-esteem . By claiming that disabledpeople stigmatise each other by being together, normalisation suggests to peoplewith learning difficulties that it is other disabled people who represent the problemin their lives. This fails to convey any positive messages to people with learningdifficulties about the benefits of associating with people with whom one sharesimportant experiences . It demonstrates also an important misunderstanding of the

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nature of friendship as a voluntary relationship of mutual affection which is foundedon shared interests and experience .

Furthermore, the emphasis placed on social skills training as the solution toloneliness diverts attention from constraints faced by people with learning difficultieswhen attempting to establish social relationships, such as low income, restrictedaccess to income, lack of autonomy and little control over personal information .Although people with learning difficulties spend much of their daily lives in thecompany of large numbers of people, I have attempted to demonstrate the way thatthe nature of the service setting makes for an isolating environment . Having goodsocial skills will not assist people in establishing friendships if they are denied theopportunities to utilise them . Nor will social skills on their own increase theautonomy of people with learning difficulties over their environments .

Discouraging disabled people from associating together also undermines thesense of commonality which is crucial to political action . It is through political actionthat disabled people challenge on a collective basis the discrimination that they faceand struggle to overturn individualised notions of disability . If these relationships aredevalued, the social isolation of people with learning difficulties can only increase .

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Mike Oliver and Paul Watt for their comments on an earlier draftof this paper .

NOTES

Buckinghamshire College is a College of Brunel University .

In this paper, the term people with learning difficulties refers to those with intellectual or develop-mental impairments. The terms disability/disabled people refer to all intellectual/developmental andphysical impairments and emphasise the social model of disability .

The names of respondents, residential homes and the town where the research was conductedhave been changed to preserve anonymity .

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