*10: Disability and Chronic Illness

Define the three operational metrics used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to classify disability.

1. Impairment: A problem in body function or structure.

2. Activity limitation: A difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action.

3. Participation restriction: A problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations.

What baseline macro-statistical metric does the UN highlight regarding global disability rates?

1.3 billion people (or roughly 16% of the global population) experience disability.

How does the UN define disability?

As those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments that, when interacting with various barriers, stop them from joining society fully and equally

Define the structural functionalist distinctions between Disease, Illness, and Sickness.

• Disease: A biophysical condition diagnosed by a medical practitioner.

• Illness: The subjective, personal experience of ill-health.

• Sickness: The institutionalized social role an individual assumes while sick, governed by specific rights and duties.

Contrast the Individual Pathology (Medical) Model vs. the Social Pathology (Social) Model of disability.

• Individual Pathology: Views disability as an inherent biological defect, tragedy, or cognitive limitation located strictly within the individual's body or mind ("The impairment is the problem").

• Social Pathology: Locates disability within structural organization, viewing it as a failure of social and physical environments to provide appropriate services ("The stairs are the problem").

Distinguish between the Environmental Approach and the Rights-Outcome Approach within the social model.

• Environmental Approach: Focuses on structural architectural barriers (e.g., lack of elevators or wheelchair ramps).

• Rights-Outcome Approach: Focuses on systemic barriers to civic participation (e.g., employment discrimination); frames accommodations as a right, not a privilege.

Contrast George Herbert Mead's concepts of "The I" vs. "The Me".

• The Me: The socialized aspect of the self that has internalized the norms, values, and expectations of others.

• The I: The creative, spontaneous, and proactive response of the individual to the socialized "Me".

Define Charles Horton Cooley's concept of the "Looking-Glass Self" and its 3 components.

• The theory that an individual's self-image is directly constructed through social interactions based on how they believe others perceive them. Its 3 components are:

  1. How you imagine you appear to others.

  2. How you imagine others judge your appearance.

  3. How those imagined judgments make you feel.

Define "Stigma" according to Erving Goffman and list his three distinct types

• A deeply discrediting attribute that spoils an individual's social identity, reducing them from a whole person to a tainted one. The three types are:

  1. Bodily stigmata: Physical deformities or variances.

  2. Moral stigmata: Perceived blemishes of individual character (e.g., addiction).

  3. Tribal stigmata: Social stigma transmitted through group or ancestral association.

Define Kathy Charmaz’s concept of the "Diminished Self."

• The painful loss of a previously valued, functional social identity due to the progression of a chronic illness or physical limitation.

Define "Ableism" and its ideological assumptions.

Systemic discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities. It assumes that people with disabilities are inferior to the non-disabled and defines individuals entirely by their physical or cognitive limitations.

Define "Eugenics" and name the specific Canadian legislation mentioned in your notes.

The practice of attempting to "improve" the human species by selectively breeding desirable traits and eliminating undesirable ones. Example: The Alberta Sterilization Act (1928–1972), which targeted disabled populations through forced sterilization.