Disability and society /

Question 1

What are the outcomes for those with a disability in the UK?

Answer 1

25% disabled people had a degree as their highest qualification compared with 42% of non-disabled people
13% had no qualifications vs 4% of non-disabled
53% of disabled people were in employment compared to 81% non-disabled

Question 2

What are the protected characteristics?

Answer 2

Age
Disability
Gender reassignment
Marriage and civil partnership
Pregnancy and maternity
Race
Religion and belief
Sex
Sexual orientation

Question 3

What is problematising disability?

Question 4

What are the assumptions about disability?

Answer 4

Disability located in biology
Medical issue, not social
Means needing help/support
When they have a problem ,assumed to be due to an impairment
They are a victim
Central to self concept
Fundamentally negative

Question 5

What is the medical model of disability?

Answer 5

Biological impairment key determinant of disability, deviation from ‘normal’ body functioning has undesirable ‘consequences’
Rehabilitation meant to facilitate ‘normal’ functioning
Associated with otherness
Aims to identify needs of disabled people so they can ‘function’ in wider society
Medicalisation - ‘solution’ lies in curative and rehabilitative medical intervention

Question 6

What are criticisms of the medical model of disability?

Answer 6

• Historically constructed classification systems about individual behaviour, bodily and cognitive functions - socially defined
• Other societies may not accord same importance to functional efficiency e.g. dyslexia in agricultural societies
• Biological reductionism: individual deficit without social context
• Abnormal manifestations in bodies and behaviours may be perceived anomalous, but not stigmatised

Question 7

What is the WHO international classification of impairment and disability?

Answer 7

Impairment refers to any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function
Disability - any restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within range considered normal for a human being

Question 8

What is the social construction of impairment?

Answer 8

Particular impairments are disabling depending on the demands of the environments, economic and cultural systems - expectations of performance

Question 9

What is the social model of disability?

Answer 9

• People with impairments are only disabled by the social system which creates barriers to their participation
• Re-defines disability as social oppression
• Shifted debate about disability from biomedically dominated agendas to politics and citizenship
• Breaks causal link between impairment and disability - the impairment is not the cause of disabled people’s economic and social disadvantage - incompatibility of impairment with social norms and material environments that forms discrimination

Question 10

Summary of medical/individual model of disability

Answer 10

Disability equated with being defective, inferior, less than
Wide spectrum of biological/psychological anomalies and deficits exist
Terminology tends to be very negative
Discussion is about defects/problems/characteristics
Goal is to give advice to patient

Question 11

Summary of social model of disability

Answer 11

Disability is equated with being different, not less than
Only one shared experience: social stigma
Terminology tends to be positive or neutral with person-first emphasised
Discussion is about individual assessment data, personal strengths and weaknesses
Goal to empower individual to assume active role is self-actualisation

Question 12

What are the criticisms of the social model?

Answer 12

Holds that all issues that negatively impact disabled people are found in society
Proposing separation of impairment and disability proposes separation of body and mind
Ignores lived experience of impairment

Question 13

What type of model of disability are people arguing is needed?

Answer 13

Effective and holistic model that integrates the medical and social models
Provide appreciation for how biological aspects of disability interact with social aspects

Question 14

What are eugenics?

Answer 14

Advocates improvement of human genetic traits by promoting and repressing reproduction in line with desired traits , to control human development

Question 15

What are the different types of discrimination against disabled people?

Answer 15

Disableism: discrimination and prejudice against people with disabilities
Social/economic: education and employment
Physical: access to built environment
Cultural: language used/images of disability
Behavioural: hate crime, abuse, staring, lack of friendship/intimacy