The chosen article from Shades of Noir collection is : Disabled People , the voice of many.
it is a comprehensive and engaging booklet with great information on different academic theories tackling and addressing dyabilities. It has come under the topic of evolution of disability modules which does include:
Models of Disability:
The religious model : a pre-modern model that considers disability an act of God and intertwined with Sin and guilt.
The Moral Model : refers to attitude that people are morally responsible for their disability. The Moral/ Religious models are the oldest models towards disability.
The Eugenics Model : the model is reflected on todays and modern understanding of disability. It assumes people or either fit or unfit.
The Medical Model : views disability occurs due to disease, trauma, or other health conditions, which therefore requires sustained medical care provided in the form of individual treatment.
The Charity Model : depicts disabled person as victims of circumstances who are deserving of pity. This along with medical model are the ones used more frequently by non-disabled people to define and explain disability.
The Economic Model : Disability is linked by person’s inability to participate in work. Mostly linked to Charity model.
The Social Model : Sees disability as a socially created problem and a matter of full integration of individual into society.
The Affirmation Model: Have a non-tragic view of disability and impairment, which encompasses positive social identities for disabled people.
The Diversity Model: views disability as human variation. Under this model the diversity of disability must be acknowledged as well as of the barriers of people with disability facing.
The empowering Model: Allows the person with disability to decide the course of their treatment and what service they wish to benefit from.
The relational Model : Emphasizing the support of inclusivity in the society and embedding social justice norms in wider society.
The New racial Model: The new frontier which builds out of the political identity of Social Model and argues that we should not distinguish between impairment and disability.
To look into the above theoretical evolution in disability and inclusivity in social norms is fascinating. Although the thermotical realm seem to demonstrate their progress and categorization of definition and comprehension of the term, this is not necessarily translate into societal action to deal with the issue. In particular when it comes to matter of race and gender equality/ identity.
The below statistics are demonstrating few more facts:
Around15% of global population, over a billion people , live with some form of disability, of whom, 2-4% experience significant difficulties in functioning
Women are more likely to experience disability then men and older people more than young;
Lower and middle income countries have higher level of disabilities than high income countries.
In recent years, the understanding of disability has moved away from physical or medical perspective to one that takes into consideration a persons physical, social and political context.
How could you Apply the resources to your own practice?
By understanding the issue perhaps it could help us lecturers to be more conscious of the following issues:
Attainment gap;
Making sure we look beyond date of attainment and we give more empathy and listen to student voice.
Student experience differential:
Making sure we record a just voice of students and be impartial and more sensitive towards hidden dyabilities along the visible ones.
White-washed curriculum:
Perhaps creating a forum for students to share their resources to for learning as we go along. To challenge them to think of an alternative source of information and knowledge in teaching materials.
Inclusive Pedagogy:
Actively engage and dedicate your teaching from further materials from communities of intersectional created resources.
Co-create with students who have vested interest in intersectional topics both in encouraging them to pick a research topic on the area/ include new and alternative resources.
Can you Cite an example of your own practice?
Through years I have encouraged my postgraduate and final year undergraduate students to incorporate more alternative resources in their research. As well some of the research topics for postgraduate students have included:
Disability and shopping experience in retail.
Fashion has inclusivity issues: The Representation of Black models in Fashion Industry.
The PGCERT and the Unit has made me even more conscious of most important social issues we are facing with intersectional issues in disability and for sure I would like explore any of these topics in my own personal research that can include:
Representation of disabled women minority in fashion industry;
Disabled women as influencers.
I would like to finalise my thoughts by sharing the following inspirational video of Aaron Philips.