I am working to implement our blueprint for disabled people's issues and to seek the proper introduction of the
social model of disability across all the council's services.
Furthermore, the distinction between 'disability' and 'chronic illness' is necessarily challenged when analysis moves beyond a primary focus on materiality (the core of the
social model of disability) to include an understanding of bodies as discursive, as well as material, sites constituted within particular geographies, cultures and historical moments.
The
social model of disability, which distinguishes between the physically based 'impairment' and the socially created 'disability', has provided both theorists and activists with an effective starting point from which to argue for increased access to social resources, the right to live independently and autonomously in mainstream communities, and the possibility for creating more positive identities.
I have been asked a number of times recently to explain, once again, just what I mean when I refer to the
social model of disability in my articles.
(2000) 'Disabled people, health professionals and the
social model of disability: Can there be a research relationship?', Disability and Society, 15(5), 781-793.
We can only hope the government finally comes to its senses and use the
Social Model of Disability as a guide, and give us the right to live our lives as independently as non-disabled people do.
Underlying Irvin's personal narrative is the concept of the
social model of disability, which Irvin never names, but adeptly describes as: "it is not the disability itself that handicaps us," but the people that "do not see us as capable (p.
An emphasis solely on a student's limitations without a corresponding emphasis on societal barriers is the type of discrimination that adherents of the
social model of disability decry (Oliver, 1990).
* fail to adhere to a
social model of disability and accommodate the individual circumstances of persons with disabilities.
The
Social Model of Disability charter calls for organisations to accept that it is attitudes and the environment that disables people - not a person's impairment.
In contrast, the minority or
social model of disability attributes the concept of disability to the lack of environmental accommodation and negative societal reaction to individuals with disabilities.
(18) Paul Darke, The Cinematic Construction of Physical Disability as Identified Through the Application of the
Social Model of Disability to Six Indicative Films Made since 1970, PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 1999.