"The point is that disability is not an area that can be simply included into the issues of race, class, and gender - it is already there in complex and invisible ways"
-Lennard Davis, 1995
The deficit model was, at one time, dominant in the study of disability, but not in disability studies. There are three variations of the deficit model: the medical model, the rehabilitation model, and the special education model. But a person with a disability does not have a deficit. Identifying as a person with a disability is an ideological act. There are nine versions of the disability studies paradigm which can be combined into one statement which raises the question of why people with disabilities face oppression. To answer that question the philosophical foundations of Western culture must be examined. When that is done the Greek, Christian, and modern versions of an ontology with an epistemology are found. As we are "socialized" and educated we are given one of these ontologies with its accompanying epistemology. The ontology contains uncritical hypotheses about the world which are stereotypes of all but the power elite. This type of ontology lies at the heart of discrimination based on disability. We must critically examine that ontology and reconstruct it.
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Watch "Introduction to Disability Studies" video lecture by Drew Jones and review the video notes.
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"Social construction" by Andrew Jones. Part of DSDJ's RAW 5-series production analyzing critical issues in Cultural Studies.
Link Length of video (24 minutes) [video thumbnail description: ] |