disability

Question 1

medical model

Answer 1

disability - personal tragedy - disabled deserve our pity
- inferior - abnormal
- normalisation only through cure

Best - traditionally disability seen in terms of a person’s ability to participate in everyday activities

Question 2

social model

Answer 2

1980s

• view developed by disabled people - biological disability less important than social disability

Oliver - society which disables physically impaired people - excluded from full participation - stereotypical attitudes

Best - society generates discrimination and exclusion - social constructions of prejudice

Question 3

marxist views

Answer 3

difficult for disabled people to construct positive identities - unable to work esp in high-status jobs

finkelstein - negative cultural attitudes product of capitalism’s emphasis on work as a source of identity

pre-industrial - this view didnt exist: able-bodied and disabled should be segregated and treated differently

industrialisation - responsible for dramatic shift in cultural attitudes

Question 4

feminist views

Answer 4

difficult for disabled women to construct positive identities - not viewed as sexually attractive

however - interactionists - marxists and feminist view that disabled are passive - goffman’s third strategy of becoming involved in identity politics suggests disabled people are able to construct resistant identities

Question 5

interactionist views

Answer 5

disability - social construct - label applied to group of people who are identified by society in particular way

goffman - stigmatised identity - derogatory names, media images, different medical treatment, barriers in employment and constructed dependency

scott - study of blind people - internalise expert’s view of themselves - blind personality

stigma management - hide stigma, admit stigma try to relive tension that arises in interactions, protest against stigma

Question 6

postmodernist views

Answer 6

disabled people are free to express themselves in more ways than past due to new technology eg second long

however - structural theorists - postmodernists fail to acknowledge the significant impact of structural inequalities that technology cannot compensate for

Question 7

disability as a social construct

Answer 7

most of uk population have some form of impairment eg glasses
not labelled as disabled because society does not define these as a problem

Question 8

disabled identity and independence

Answer 8

Marsh and Keating - no one is independent - in modern societies we are interdependent

why some social mobility aids eg wheelchairs have negative social reaction

Question 9

learned helplessness

Answer 9

Watson - stereotypical perceptions of disabled people about dependency and helplessness affect how disabled people perceive themselves and abilities - self fulfilling prophecy

scott - looked at interactions between medical professionals and blind people - blind personality and learned helplessness

Question 10

stereotypes and media representations

Answer 10

negative
- longmore - represented as monsters, dependent on others, objects of pity
- cumberbatch and negrine - rarely present them as a person and individual - focus on disability
wood - lack of disabled people employed in media - no one challenging stereotypical views - changing eg BBC bodyguard

positive
- recent changes - Paralympics in london

Question 11

prejudice and discrimination of disabled

Answer 11

master status - dominant label that overrides all other aspects of that person’s identity

• multiple identities - disabled people may not identify through disability
• hard for people to see the real ‘me’
• disabled people find themselves segregated
• prejudice translated into discrimination eg employment
• brown - people with disabilities seen as innocents or perverts

Question 12

disabled identity and resistance

Answer 12

social model - more positive representations of disabled people should be promoted - focusing on independence, choice

Antie - children with disabilities do not qualitatively differ in how they see disabilities compared to children without disabilities

Olney and Kim - disabled people felt more positive about self-image

Question 13

disabled identity in contemporary society

Answer 13

prejudice and discrimination still present
physical and biological factors eg pain can affect experience of social life

societal expectations are becoming less rigid

Question 14

positive

Answer 14

social model
interactionism
media representation changes
socialisation
resisting label

Question 15

negative

Answer 15

medical model
marxism
feminism
interacionism
postmodernism
media representations