Week 1-3 Disability Studies

Linton Reading “DS/Not DS”

Disability as social, political, cultural phenomenons

Core Problems with Traditional Approaches:

1. Individualization of Disability: Disability seen as a personal or family issue rather than societal.

2. Medicalization: Frames disability as a biological issue requiring intervention.

3. Objectification: Excludes disabled voices, relying on third-person narratives.

4. Stereotyping: Reduces disabled experiences to deficits or problems.

5. Neglect of Subjectivity: Lacks input from disabled individuals as active agents.

6. Exclusion from Liberal Arts: Minimal integration of disability perspectives in humanities.

Proposed Solutions:

• Establish DS as a liberal arts field, separate from interventionist applied disciplines.

• Emphasize disabled people's leadership in both academic and applied domains.

• Foster intersectional approaches that challenge deterministic and essentialist views.

• Introduce creative and humanities-based explorations of disability, including its cultural and personal dimensions.

Roher Reading “Perspectives on Disability Studies”

Biomedical, functional, environmental, rights outcome, classification systems, every day language

Mallet Reading “Approaching disability”

Key Models of Disability:

• Individual Model: Focus on personal deficits.

• Medical Model: Disability as a medical/biological issue.

• Legal Definitions: Rights-based (e.g., Equality Act 2010, UNCRPD).

• Social Model: Disability caused by societal barriers, not impairments.

Criticisms of the Social Model:

1. Limited practical implementation.

2. Seen as dismissive of medicine.

3. Ignores cultural biases and personal experiences.

4. Lacks intersectionality (e.g., race, gender, age).

5. Excludes some groups (e.g., children, cognitive impairments)

Key Contributions of the Social Model:

• Shifted focus to societal changes (e.g., barrier removal).

• Empowered disabled people through activism.

• Influenced anti-discrimination laws (e.g., UK Equality Act 2010).

Social Model (Society fixing perspective)

“The problem is the disabling world”

• Society fixing

• Disablement is a process

• Socially constructed meanings of disability make impairments worse

• Value diversity

• Social barriers cause disability

Medical Model/Person fixing perspective

“The problem is the disabled person”

• Person fixing, individual

• Biological impairment

• Deficit, loss, gap (needs to be fixed, treated, prevented)

• Professionals dominate decision making (disabled people’s voices are ignored)

• Internal differences cause disability (need help via charity)

Biomedical Approach (individual)

• Aim is to decrease prevalence of disability

• Treatment, cure, prevention

Ex. Prenatal screenings (foetus is deficient), gene research, surgery

Functional Approach (individual)

• Deficit is from an underlying issue

• Functional incapacity; need to make the person socially functional

Ex. Rehab therapy, behaviour modification

Environmental Approach

Ordinary environments don’t suit the needs of everyone (Barrier free designs)

The Rights Outcome Approach

• Environments keep people out/impossible to participate 

Ex. Teachers have lots of training but little for disabled learners

• Disabilities are inevitable

• Human rights + economic inequalities

• Assumes the needs for supports

Impairment

• Any loss/abnormality of function & structure (via psychological, anatomical, physiological)

• Ex. low vision

• Structural: internal/external

• Functional: complete/partial restriction of a body part

Handicap

• Disadvantage stemming from impairment that prevents & limits role that is normal

• Social & economic marginalisation

Disability

Any restriction or lack (resulting from impairment) or ability to perform an activity in the manner/range that would be considered normal for a human