A sociological approach to disability based on the social model: some characteriological sketches

Abstract

This paper proposes the analysis of disability from a sociological perspective similar to that of the Anglo-Saxon social model. It implies a critique of the traditional perspective, according to which disability is understood as an impairment suffered by an individual, abstracting it from the socio-cultural context in which it takes on meaning (the medicalphysiological model). If this context is taken into consideration, we can verify that disability, as a social phenomenon, includes three interconnected areas: daily practices, social identity and social stratification. This analysis implies the development of a theoretical framework that sets disability in terms of «difference» in order to show the reasons by which it turns into marginalization, exclusion and oppression. In addition, that theoretical framework has to be created by developing empirical studies that gather the experience of disabled people themselves.