C1 SA - Culture & Identity - Topic 13, Disability & Identity

Question 1

What is disability?

Answer 1

A physical or mental condition that limits a persons movements, senses or activities.

Question 2

Medical model

Answer 2

Disability = medical problem, blames the impairment.
Disabled person defined simply by their disability.
‘Victim - blaming’ mentality

Question 3

Social model

Answer 3

Disability = societal problem and socially constructed.

Social and physical barriers e.g. buildings that deny people with impairments.

Question 4

Study - Shakespeare (1996) - Obstacles in forming positive disabled identity

Answer 4

Lack of role models in the media.
Cannot have a collective identity as they are isolated from each other.
Socialised into thinking they are inferior, reactions of pity and awkwardness.

Question 5

Erving Goffman - Stigma

Answer 5

Prevents a person from being accepted into normal society. A negative label

Question 6

Goffman - Master status

Answer 6

Becomes the defining characteristic by which a person is judged on.

Question 7

Study - Gill (1997) - Self pity

Answer 7

Reconciling with their disability with previously held notions about what being disabled means.

Question 8

Learned helplessness

Answer 8

Belief that they are incapable of changing a situation and therefore fail to help themselves.

Question 9

Study - Barnes (1992) - 8 media representations

Answer 9

In need of pity and charity
Victims 
Villains 
Super-cripples 
Burden 
Sexually abnormal 
Incapable of participating fully in community life
Ordinary and normal - rare representation

Question 10

Workplace and disability

Study - Oppenheim and Harker (1996) - poverty

Answer 10

Receive inadequate benefits and therefore experience poverty also due to higher costs for transport and special diets etc.

Question 11

Study - Alcock (2006) - Social exclusion

Answer 11

Lower quality of life compared to able-bodied people due to certain restrictions
Active discrimination and failure to support their needs causing them to be socially excluded.

Question 12

Disability discrimination act (2005)

Answer 12

Replaced by Equality act (2010) - strengthens laws supported disabled people.

Question 13

Evidence that disabled identities ARE changing

Answer 13

Scope campaign - raises awareness about experiences disabled people have.
62% of disabled people say they are treated differently

Question 14

Paralympic games 2012

Answer 14

Challenged the ideas about what disabled people are capable of.
Transformation in the views of disabled people