Monday, March 10, 2008

disability discussion from 2 weeks ago

Hey, a short discussion we had 2 weeks ago is still churning around in my mind. The chapter in Jessor that used the example of the deaf community to make an argument for demonstrating that disability can be seen as socially defined didn't seem, in my mind, to preclude application to more severe disabilities. The three models summarized to one word are deficit, difference, and culture. It was suggested in class essentially that the culture model would break down in the cases of severe disability. My personal take is that any disability can still be seen as culturally defined. It seems like the culture model must also recognize “difference.” If there is no “difference” then it seems that disability is an illusion.

The value of the cultural model is that differences understood in cultural terms (through ethnographic research, of course) can more clearly define the lived experience of individuals with disabilities.

If I were to make my own models based on some of these ideas, there would be two, not three. The first would be difference as deficit; the second would be difference as defined by culture. It seems to me that difference is a given, otherwise it reminds me of the old “colorblind” push which tried to pretend that race is an illusion.

I’d love comments on this, but I know the end of the quarter is on us!!!

Cheers,

-Kyle

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