Identity: Disability

Question 1

What is disability and identity?

Answer 1

Those living with a disability may often find it is significant to how people see them. The profile of people with disabilities has changed over recent years and become a lot more positive. However, disabled people still feel excluded in society in different ways.

Question 2

Medical model

Answer 2

Sees disability as a medical problem. This approach leads to defining people by their disability or impairment, which can lead to victim blaming, where the problem is seen to lie with the disabled individual, rather than how society has not met their needs.

Question 3

Social model

Answer 3

Looks at social and physical barriers. This leads to the view that disability is socially constructed and it is society that gives this negative label.

Question 4

Shakespeare

Answer 4

Believes disabled people are socialised to see themselves as inferior and often isolated.

Question 5

Interactionists

Answer 5

Believe a ‘master status’ is created by the negative disabled label, which becomes the main characteristic by which an individual is judged. This can lead to a form of ‘learned helplessness’, where disabled people fail to take action to help themselves. This highly structured life can lead to segregation, even if the intentions are to help.