Critical and Comparative Issues in Disability

Catalog description

Examines the construction of disability as a social, cultural and political phenomenon. Focuses on how disability is defined and represented in society as well as the implications/consequences of such definitions. Hegemonic understandings of disability typically have employed narrow medical and therapeutic explanations. From such deterministic perspectives, the disabled individual often has been defined as deviant, stigmatized, incompetent and marginal. This class rejects the perception of disability as a functional impairment that limits a person's activities. Instead, disability is a construct that finds its meaning and representation within a social and cultural context. Accordingly, examines the ideologies that such representations can conceal in order to crack the hegemonic façade, challenging the ways in which disability is perceived and treated by the dominant society.