FDH3005 Models on Disability

PhD student

When working with functional variation issues, the concepts you use are important. Several concepts can be perceived as degrading or even offensive. For this reason some terms are no longer used, such as disabled or invalid. The course will go through different conceptual models that describe and explain disability (eg Medical, Social, Relational, Biopsychosocial, Capacity). It will touch on the differences between concepts such as disability versus impairment, it will also discuss the issues linked to concepts such as disability as power relations and stigma. What concepts are used have also come to be associated with the view of functional variation in society and how the persons concerned should be handled, from institutionalization and assessment that one is incapable of working to being regarded as having the same rights as any other citizen in society.

Course structure

Seminars

Course literature

1. Swain J, French S, Barnes C, Thomas C, editors. Disabling Barriers - Enabling Environments. 3rd edition. Sage; 2014.
2. Thomas C. Theorising disability and chronic illness: Where next for perspectives in medical sociology. Soc Theory Heal. 2012;10:209–28.
3. Oliver M. Understanding Disability, From Theory to Practice. London: Macmillan; 1996.
4. Barnes C. Understanding the Social Model of Disability: Past, precent and future. In: Routledge handbook of disability studies. Routledge; 2013. p. 26–43.
5. Nussbaum MC. Social Justice and Universalism: In Defense of an Aristotelian Account of Human Functioning. Mod Philol. 1993;90:46–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/438424.
6. Nussbaum M. Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice. Fem Econ. 2003;9:33–59.
7. Garland-Thomson R. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. Columbia University Press; 1996

The student is expected to be able to:

• Describe different models of disability from Medical domains, Sociological domains, Technical domains and Disability research
• Be able to account for touching concepts such as disability, disability and disability and know under what conditions which can be used
• Know what the law prescribes about discrimination as a result of impairment