[ANSWER]7015HSV Disability Theories and Approaches Assignment 2: Conceptualisation of Disability: Does It Matter?

[ANSWER PREVIEW]The pathological view of disability was dominant from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th centuryConceptualisation of Disability.

The pathological view of disability was dominant from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th centuryConceptualisation of Disability (Retief & Letsoa, 2018). In the 1960s, however, rethinking of the concept of disability started to emerge both among activists and in scholarly literature (Oliver & Barnes, 2012). Critics were concerned about the problematic conceptualisation of disability advanced by the medical model. As this model views disability as a personal tragedy for PWD and their family, it portrays disability in a negative manner (Jackson, 2018).

It represents disability as something that is unwanted or pitiable – something that warrants preventive and curative interventions to eliminate it. What is more, the medical model of disability portrays PWD as individuals who are different from the rest of the population and ignores the impact of the social environment on how PWD experience disability (Bunbury, 2019). This problematic conceptualisation of disability is the reason unethical practices like involuntary sterilisation are often administered on PWD (Retief & Letsoa, 2018).

It is also the reason terms like “handicapped” and “crippled” were commonplace in disability discourses prior to the emergence of non-medical models of disability. Additionally, the stigma and discrimination that PWD continue grappling with are largely attributable to the medical model of disability. The shortcomings of the medical model led to the emergence of a new conceptualisation of disability in the 1960s and 1970s – the social model.

Rooted in sociological theory, the social model of disability represents disability as a socially constructed phenomenon in that disability is caused by the social environment in which people live Conceptualisation of Disability(Retief & Letsoa, 2018). In other words, the social world has factors that shape the experiences of PWD. The implication is that responses to disability fundamentally require adjustments in the social…[Buy Full Answer for Just USD 9: 2855 WORDS]

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