Disability studies

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Disability studies is an interdisciplinary field of study, which is focused on the contributions, experiences, history, and culture of people with disabilities. The field of teaching and research in the area of disability studies is growing worldwide.

The scope of disability studies differs in different countries. In the UK, for instance, it is seen as the province of disabled people, whereas in the USA a much wider range of professions concerned with disabilities and disabled people is involved.

Disability studies is based on the premise that the disadvantage typically experienced by those who are disabled reflects primarily the way society defines and responds to certain types of 'difference'.[1]

In 1993 an official definition of disability studies was adopted by the Society for Disability Studies, a professional organization of academics from around the world.

The Society for Disability Studies offers the following working guidelines for any program that describes itself as 'Disability Studies':[2]

  • It should be interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary. Disability sits at the center of many overlapping disciplines in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Programs in Disability Studies should encourage a curriculum that allows students, activists, teachers, artists, practitioners, and researchers to engage the subject matter from various disciplinary perspectives.
  • It should challenge the view of disability as an individual deficit or defect that can be remedied solely through medical intervention or rehabilitation by "experts" and other service providers. Rather, a program in disability studies should explore models and theories that examine social, political, cultural, and economic factors that define disability and help determine personal and collective responses to difference. At the same time, Disability Studies should work to de-stigmatize disease, illness, and impairment, including those that cannot be measured or explained by biological science. Finally, while acknowledging that medical research and intervention can be useful, Disability Studies should interrogate the connections between medical practice and stigmatizing disability.
  • It should study national and international perspectives, policies, literature, culture, and history with an aim of placing current ideas of disability within their broadest possible context. Since attitudes toward disability have not been the same across times and places, much can be gained by learning from these other experiences.
  • It should actively encourage participation by disabled students and faculty, and should ensure physical and intellectual access.
  • It should make it a priority to have leadership positions held by disabled people; at the same time it is important to create an environment where contributions from anyone who shares the above goals are welcome.

Disability studies is not without its critics.[3]. It has been suggested that the dominant social model, which developed in the 1970s and has served its purpose well since then, has now been outgrown, and needs major developments.

One major area of contention is the exclusion of the personal experience of impairment and illness. The social model of disability separates physical impairment from social disability, and in its most rigid form does not accept that impairment can cause disability at all. It is being increasingly recognised that the effects of impairment form a central part of many disabled people's experience, and that these effects must be included for the social model to be a valid reflection of that experience. The feminist slogan "the personal is political" has been particularly influential in these developments.

Disability studies has also been criticised for its failure to engage with multiple forms of oppression, such as racism, sexism or homophobia. As a relatively new discipline, it is true that as yet disability studies has seen little progress in this area: publications are now beginning to emerge though, and in time it is hoped that this issue will be fully engaged.

[edit] Literature

  • David Johnstone, An Introduction to Disability Studies, David Fulton Publishers Ltd 2001
  • Lennard Davis (ed.), Disability Studies Reader, Routledge 1997
  • Gary L. Albrecht, (ed.), Encyclopedia of Disability. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif. 2006, 5 v., ill
  • Simi Linton, Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity, in series 'Cultural Front', Michael Berube (ed.), New York University Press 1998

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