Disability studies in education

Disability Studies in Education (DSE) is a field of academic study concerned with education research and practice related to disability. DSE scholars promote an understanding of disability from a social model of disability perspective to “challenge social, medical, and psychological models of disability as they relate to education". A DSE perspective situates disability within social and political context and is concerned with the civil and human rights of students with disabilities, including issues of equity, access, and inclusion in educational settings, curricula, and activities. DSE emerged as a part of the broader, interdisciplinary Disability Studies movement and as a critique of special education.

DSE scholarship is based on a social conception of disability that identifies barriers, attitudes, and actions that serve to systematically exclude individuals with disabilities society. It is a reaction to the dominant medical model of disability which positions people with disabilities as having limitations outside of the "normal" or typical boundaries that require remediation and intervention. DSE has its origins in sociological theories of deviance, social stigma and labeling theory as social construction. By 1970, there emerged critiques of labeling in special education, now referred to as ableism.

The social model of disability positions physical, intellectual, psychological, sensory, and emotional variations as natural and therefore requires societal changes in the response to those variations. The problem therefore resides not within the individual with impairments, but in the attitudes toward and treatment of people with disabilities. A DSE perspective is grounded in the belief that a collective social response to disability has resulted in systematic inequality, marginalization, discrimination, and oppression. There is also the recognition that disability is both a form of individuation and group identification. Because individual identities are complex and intersect with other identity categories (i.e. race, gender, social class, sexual orientation), there are varied ways that individuals may identify themselves as disabled.

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