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Social construction of disability


The social construction of disability is the idea that society and its institutions have the power to construct disability around social expectations of health.

This idea argues that disability is construction based on several localized social expectations. For example, in the medieval period disability was constructed around a person's moral behavior. Disability was seen as divine punishment or a side effect of a moral failing being physically or biologically different was not enough to be considered disabled. Only until the European Enlightenment did society change its definition of disability to be more related to biology.However these biological definitions of health centered around what is considered to be healthy for most Western Europeans.

Around the year 1970, in North America various groups including sociologists, disabled people, and disabled focused political groups began to pull away from the accepted medical lens of viewing disability.These groups began to discuss things like oppression, civil rights, and accessibility. This change in discourse resulted in conceptualizations of disability that was rooted in social constructions.

Canada and the United States have operated under the premise that social assistance benefits should not exceed the amount of money that can be earned through labor in order to give citizens an incentive to search for and maintain employment. This has led to widespread poverty amongst disabled citizens. In the 1950s, disability pensions were established and included various forms of direct economic assistance; however, these amounts were set at exceedingly low monetary levels. Since the 1970s, both governments have viewed unemployed disabled citizens as excess labor due to continuous high rates of unemployment and have made minimal attempts to increase employment, which keeps disabled people at poverty- level incomes due to the ‘incentive’ principle. Poverty is the most debilitating circumstance handicapped people face, resulting in the inability to afford proper medical, technological and other assistance necessary to participate in society.

Laws have helped to recognize disability as a social construct rather than simply physical impairment. In 1776, the Continental Congress passed the first national law regarding wounded soldiers. Rather than stating attitudes towards disability, the act proposed that how the US viewed disability was closely linked to its views about the worth of the soldiers. This segment of the Act contains a few inferences which relate to disability:

"Whereas, in the course of the present war, some commissioned and non-commissioned officers of the army and navy, as also private soldiers, marines, and seamen, may lose a limb, or be otherwise so disabled as to prevent their serving in the army or navy, or getting their livelihood, and may stand in need of relief[.]"

Although this resolution related disability to “getting a livelihood,” it also implies through the recognition of an additional connection to serving in the military that disability is not just a failure to function properly but rather built systemically through the ability to function in certain settings. Also, this resolution states that disability is not only based upon physical capabilities and societal roles but social aspects as well.


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