Disability and society

Master’s Level course

Anne Revillard

Think and write (personal notes)

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

? Disability ?

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

How did I end up here?

What do I expect from this course?

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Brainstorming in pairs (in rows)

Introduction (name, pronoun you are comfortable withwithin the context of this class, master’s programme)

Share what you wish to share of what you have written

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Share/Feedback

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

? Disability ?

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Expectations

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Introduction

• The emergence and development of disabilitystudies

• Aims and scope of the course

• Assignments

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

The emergence and developmentof disability studies

• Disability as part of human diversity. Estimated 15,6% of adult population (WHO, 2011)

• Yet disability studies as a field of inquiry in social science = relatively new (1970s-)

• Disability was seen as medical condition paradigmshift was needed (DeJong, 1979)

• Connection to the disability movement

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

The emergence and developmentof disability studies

In the UK (Barnes, Oliver & Barton 2002)

• Fundamental input of UK research: the social model

• Key authors: Vic Finkelstein, Mike Oliver, Paul Abberley, Colin Barnes, Jenny Morris, Carol Thomas, Tom Shakespeare…

• First course: Open University 1975

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

The emergence and developmentof disability studies

In the UK (Barnes, Oliver & Barton 2002)

• First journal: Disability, handicap and society created by Len Barton and Mike Oliver in 1986 (becameDisability and society in 1993)

• Leeds Centre for disability studies

• A milestone: Mike Oliver’s The politics of disablement 1990

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Why can’t this person access the polling station?

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Why can’t this person access the polling station?

Medicalmodel

Social model

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

The emergence and developmentof disability studies

In the US (Barnes et al., 2002)

• Easier acceptance in academic departments: First course 1977 23 courses in the US in 1986

• Key authors: Irving Zola, Gerben DeJong, Harlan Hahn, Lennard Davis, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson…

• 1981 Irving Zola founded the Disability studies quarterlyand co-founded the Society for disability studies

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

The emergence and developmentof disability studies

Common elements in the way disability studiesdeveloped in the US and in the UK:

- Initial connection to social movements

- Paradigm shift

- Interdisciplinarity

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

The emergence and developmentof disability studies

Yet different orientations (Meekosha, 2004):

- UK: a more materialist perspective, dominance of sociology(Barnes & Mercer, 2010; Oliver & Barnes, 2012; Swain, French, Barnes, & Thomas, 2013; Watson, Roulstone, & Thomas, 2012)

- US: more focus on discourse analysis and cultural representations of disability cultural disability studies(Garland-Thomson, 1997; Davis, 2013)

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

GARLAND-THOMSON R., 1997, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature, New York, Columbia University Press.

OLIVER M., 1990, The politics of disablement, Basingstoke, Macmillan.

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

“Disability – similar to race and gender – is a system of representation that marks bodies as subordinate, rather than an essential property of bodies that supposedly have something wrong with them”

(Garland-Thomson, 2005, p.1557-1558)

Disability = “the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisationwhich takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities”

(Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, 1976)

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Compare these 2 definitions of disability: how do they differ? And yet, whatdo they have in common?

The emergence and developmentof disability studies

Main reasons for diverging US/UK orientations in disabilitystudies:

- Different theoretical traditions in social science

- Different disciplines

- Different forms of activism/social movement framing(oppression/identity politics)

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

The emergence and developmentof disability studies

Disability research in French social science (Ville & Ravaud 2007):

- More recent development, but very active field of research

- Institut fédératif de recherches sur le handicap created in 1995

- Programme handicaps et sociétés (PHS), created at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in 2006

- ALTER Association and journal (European journal of disabilityresearch)

- Less connected to activism

- Research less often conducted by disabled researchers

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Thinking about disability beyond disability

studies: the need for disability mainstreaming

What is disability mainstreaming?

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Disability mainstreaming

When, where and how have you heard about

disability in your classrooms so far?

• In course content?

• Disabled teachers/students?

• …

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Disability mainstreaming in social science:

much needed and still lagging

• Need for mainstreaming- Disability as cross-cutting issue- Disability and concept transformation

• Obstacles to mainstreaming in academia: triple stigma of disability in social science• Persistence of the medical model (cf Oliver & Barnes, 2012)• An effect of the stigmatization of disabled people themselves• An effect of the yet marginal presence and visibility of

disabled people in academia (no critical mass effect)• Activist knowledge

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Aims and scope of the course

An interdisciplinary approach: sociology, political science,

history, law, philosophy, cultural studies

Theoretical tools: disability definitions, policy models,

constructionism and embodiement, intersectionality and

diversity of impairments…

Revisit common themes of social science : education,

employment, care, cultural representations…

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Aims and scope of the course

Focus on the everyday experiences of disabled people

Comparative perspective within the western world (US, UK, EU, France…)

The political underpinnings and implications of disability research

Initial connections to activism

Policy implications

Interplay between politics, policy and the production of knowledge

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Course outline

1. Introduction

2. The disability movement

3. The social model and its critiques

4. From disability to disabilities

5. Disability policies at the crossroads

6. Global disability rights

7. Education

8. Employment

9. Care

10. Cultural representations

11. Undoing stigma

12. Conclusion

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

Assignments (check syllabus for details)

• Individual assignments (60% of final grade):

- Reading assignments 30% [DDL Sept. 15th and Sept. 29th ]

- “Takeaway from Disability & Society” note: 30% [DDL 12/09] [DDL Dec. 9th]

• Group assignments (40% of final grade):

- In-class presentation OR online summary [to be sent to teachers 48h before class]: 30%

- In-class discussion of another presentation: 10%

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard

References

Barnes, C. (2007). Disability, Higher Education and the Inclusive Society. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(1), 135–145.Barnes, C. (2012). Rethinking disability, work and welfare. Sociology Compass, 6(6), 472–484.Barnes, C., & Mercer, G. (2005). Disability, work, and welfare: challenging the social exclusion of disabled people. Work, Employment & Society, 19(3), 527–545.Barnes, C., & Mercer, G. (2010). Exploring disability. Cambridge: Polity Press.Barnes, C., Oliver, M., & Barton, L. (2002). Introduction. In C. Barnes, M. Oliver, & L. Barton (Eds.), Disability studies today(pp. 1–17). Cambridge: Polity Press.Davis, L. J. (Ed.). (2013). The Disability Studies Reader. London: Routledge.DeJong, G. (1979). Independent Living: from social movement to analytic paradigm. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, (60), 435–446.GARLAND-THOMSON R., 1997, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature, New York, Columbia University Press.GARLAND-THOMSON R., 2005, « Feminist disability studies », Signs, 30, 2, p. 1557-1587.Meekosha, H. (2004). Drifting down the Gulf Stream: Navigating the cultures of disability studies. Disability & Society, 19(7), 721–733.Oliver, M., & Barnes, C. (2012). The new politics of disablement. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Shakespeare, T. (2013). Disability rights and wrongs revisited. London: Routledge.Swain, J., French, S., Barnes, C., & Thomas, C. (Eds.). (2013). Disabling barriers - Enabling environments. London: Sage.Ville, I., & Ravaud, J.-F. (2007). French Disability Studies: Differences and Similarities. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 9(3-4), 138–145.Watson, N., Roulstone, A., & Thomas, C. (Eds.). (2012). Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies. New York: Routledge.WHO. (2011). World report on disability. Malta: World Health Organization & World Bank.ZOLA I.K., 1982, Missing Pieces: A Chronicle of Living With a Disability, Philadelphia, Temple University Press.

Disability and Society - Anne Revillard