Combining critical policy analysis with biographical accounts, this book provides a socio-historical account of the changing treatment of disabled people in Britain from the 1940s to the present day. It examines how public policies and institutions influenced the kinds of life choices and chances that were available, while private resources were significant in resisting and challenging policy. Disability and Social Change asks whether life has really changed for disabled people and shows the value of using biographical methods in new and critical ways to examine social and historical change over time. It offers students, researchers and policy makers new ways of understanding historical and contemporary debates in disability studies.