Models of Disability

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Models of Disability

• April 8th, 2008

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Review of Last Class

• Language
• Person First Language
• Pride Language
• Basic Concepts
• Ablism
• Overcoming
• Pity
• Super Crip
• Definitions
• Impairment
• Handicap
• Disability

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Models of Disability

• Moral
• Personal Tragedy
• Medical
• Social

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Moral Model

• Two Parts
• Religious and Spiritual origin
• Punishment from God (ie due to displeasure)
• Evil spirits (possessed)
• Witchcraft
• Bad Karma (did something evil in the past)
• Gift from God (cross to bear, angelic)
• Character weakness
• Corruptness
• Immoral-ness
• Examples villains in movies, refrigerator
  mothers, faking, unmotivated

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Moral Model (cont.)

• 2nd part of moral model
• Character weakness
• Corruptness
• Immoral-ness
• Examples villains in movies, refrigerator
  mothers, faking, unmotivated

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Personal Tragedy Model

• Disability is considered a tragedy
• Society needs to take care and protect persons
  with disabilities
• If someone with a disability achieves something
  that a normal person does, then the person with
  a disability is looked at as inspirational (super
  crip)
• This is often mixed with the Moral and Medical
  Models
• Examples inspiration news story, telethons,
  charities

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Medical Model

• An individual with a disability has a physical or
  mental impairment
• The disability is within a person
• Focus is on minimizing or eliminating the
  impairment
• Examples think bell curve, rehabilitation,
  pharmaceuticals

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Social Model

• Instead of disability originates within the
  person, disability originates from society
• Disability results from barriers in society and
  the environment
• Physical barriers
• Attitudinal barriers

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Disability Activists (UK)1976 (UPIAS - Union of
Physically Impaired Against Segregation)

• Disability
• the disadvantage or restriction of activity
  caused by a contemporary social organization
  which takes no or little account of people who
  have physical impairments and thus excludes them
  from the mainstream of social activities
• Changes the focus of disability away from the
  individual to Society. (1st articulation of the
  Social Model of Disability)

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Social Model

• States that inappropriate and discriminatory
• Social Attitudes (Ableism),
• Sociopolitical Structures, and
• Cultural Phenomena
• are the central problem for disabled people

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Social Model Variants

• Social (Creation)- UK
• Social (Construction)- US
• Minority (Political/Cultural)
• Independent Living Model- ILM
• Human Variation
• Post-Modern / Dismodern

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Social Model Variants - Social (Creation)

• UK
• The historical convergence of industrialization
  and capitalism as restricting impaired peoples
  access to material and social goods, which
  results in their economic dependency and creates
  the category of disability
• Marxist and materialist interpretation of the
  world

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Social Model Variants - Social (Construction)

• US
• Assumes that inappropriate and discriminatory
  social attitudes and cultural phenomena are the
  central problem for people with impairments

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Social Model Variants - Minority

• Inappropriate and discriminatory social
  attitudes, sociopolitical structures - cultural
  phenomena are the central problem for disabled
  people
• political based used to counter discrimination
  and advocate for civil rights
• disABILITY identity / Pride / Culture

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Social Model Variants Independent Living
Model (ILM)

• States that current sociopolitical structures
  produce access barriers for and dependency in
  impaired people resulting in disability
• is based on a consumer driven movement that
  fosters autonomy, self-help and the removal of
  societal barriers and disincentives

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Social Model Variants Human Variation

• Universal Design
• re-think The built environment economic,
  social, cultural, and political entities
  including organizations that provide employment,
  education, health care, transportation,
  communication, and the full range of public
  services.

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Social Model Variants Postmodern Theory

• sees disability as constructed via discursive
  practices (Talk / writecreate disability)
• perceives disability identity as fluid and its
  boundaries dependent on context and the dynamic
  interaction of other self-identities
• emphasizes a dialogic relation between impairment
  and disability (not an analytical privileging of
  one over the other)

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"Through framing disability, through
conceptualizing, categorizing, and counting
disability, we create it. Higgins, Paul.
(1992) Pp. 6-7 Making Disability Exploring the
Social Transformation of Human Variation.
Springfield, Il Charles C. Thomas
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Social Model Variants Dismodern Theory

• L. Davis
• Sees imperfection as the norm
• Normal is a fairly new term

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Social Model Variants Summary

• disability is restricted activity (caused by
  social barriers)
• 2. disability is a form of social oppression
• 3. disability is created by categorizing
  bodies/minds as normal or abnormal

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• Initially Social model tries to breaks the
  bio-medical chain of causation
• Impairment Disability
• Why was this strategically important to DRM
  (Disability Rights Movement)?

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While the social model redefines disability, it
stops short of questioning the status of
impairment

• Impairment is a necessary condition for
  disability.
• Impairment is a real entity, a condition of the
  body, which remains the exclusive domain of
  medical interpretation and/or intervention.
• Minimizes the experience of impairments

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Models Summary

• Problem is the Individual
• Moral
• Personal Tragedy
• Medical
• Problem is Society
• Social

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Why should we care?

• How Disability Is Defined Determines What Is
  Measured
• Policy implications
• Allocation of resources

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