Social model of disability

Common card · No. 280895

The social model of disability proposes that people are disabled by systemic barriers, negative attitudes, and social exclusion, rather than by their own physical or mental differences. Emerging from the disability rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, this approach challenges the traditional medical model, which views the body as a machine to be "fixed" to fit a perceived norm. The social model of disability seeks to challenge power imbalances within society between disabled people and seeks to redefine what disability means as a diverse expression of human life. The social model of disability is based on a distinction between the terms impairment and disability. In this model, the word impairment is used to refer to the actual attributes (or lack of attributes) that affect a person, such as the inability to walk or breathe independently. It seeks to redefine disability to refer to the restrictions caused by society when it does not give equitable social and structural support according...

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