Culture and Disability

Catalog description

This course is an introduction to disability studies. Researchers working within this sub-field search for understanding of societal and cross-cultural attitudes and policies regarding impairment, illness, and difference, especially those whose physical or behavioral differences have been stigmatized through negative social or medical labels. Among the topics to be considered are the meanings and perceptions of impairment in various cultures and how individuals and their families experience disability, severe injury, stigmatized illnesses, and severe trauma and come to develop new identities through these experiences. We will consider community support systems and government policies that positively or negatively affect traumatized and disabled individuals and their families.