Disability and Society

Catalog description

In this course students study sociological understandings of disability and explore the experiences of people with bodily and mental differences. The sociological study of disability examines the commonalities of social life that exist and persist despite the presence of biological differences. Additionally, this course encourages critical evaluation of the influence of social systems, institutions, professional understandings of disability, and our own assumptions about the disability experience on the well being of people with disabilities and members of their families. Students examine disability through understandings of identity (personal and collective), inequalities, social movements, social experience, sexualities, gender, race, class, intersectionalities, and physical and mental variation. Students examine the ways in which people with bodily and mental differences construct personal and collective identities and develop, support, and maintain communities; the effects of stigma on experiences of disability; and how disability is constructed by the cultural and structural demands of global capitalist societies. Students explore the ways in which the experience of disability and disability studies can be used to further sociological understandings and to reexamine and reconceptualize taken-for-granted ideas about social life and experience, the social structure, and sociological theories and methodology. Prerequisite: one of the following: CRIM 115 , SOC 110 , SOC 120 , SOC 225 , RGS/ SOC 150 , ANT 101 , ANT 102 , PSY 100 , or PSY 200 . Offered Annually.