750-1000 word response

SUMMARY

In this essay, Tom Shakespeare outlines how the social model of disability differs from the over-

medicalized or individualistic accounts of disability that preceded it. The social model requires

understanding some key dichotomies, the first of which is that an individual impairment differs from the

social construction of disability that might surround that impairment. The earlier medical models

tended to focus ondisability as an individual deficit to be cured, but the socialmodel identifies disability

as a culturally and historically specific phenomenon. Additionally, the social model distinguishes

between disabled people as an oppressed group and the non-disabled people that are the causes or

contributors to that oppression.

Shakespeare highlights some political strengths of the social model, including its ability to unite

disabled people for political action and its practicality in identifying public barriers to justice The social

model shifts the blame away from disabled individuals and to society. But critics have also pointed out

some of the model’s weaknesses, as the social model’s simplicity limits its viability as an academic

account of disability. The social model also neglects impairment as part of many disabled people’s lived

experiences, and it is difficult to separate impairment fromdisability in researchingeveryday life.Because

the social model conceives of disability as oppression, it becomes logically impossible to find disabled

people who are not oppressed. And although the social model is useful for identifying barriers in the built

environment, it also implicitly aims for a barrier-free utopia that is impossible to realize. Although

Shakespeare compares disability activism to other identity groups, he points out that the comparisons are

limited. There is nothing intrinsically problematic about being awoman, for example, but disabled people

face intrinsic limitations. If disabled people are to be emancipated, society needs to provide resources to

overcome these limitations rather than merely limiting discrimination. For these reasons and more,

Shakespeare calls for more sophisticated and complex ways of theorizing disability while also

acknowledging the social model as ‘‘indispensable.’’

INTRODUCTION

In many countries of the world, disabled people and their allies have organised over the last three decades to challenge the historical oppression and exclusion of disabled people (Driedger, 1989; Campbell and Oliver, 1996; Charlton, 1998). Key to

these struggles has been the challenge to over-medicalised and individualist accounts of disability. While the problems of disabled people have been explained historically in terms of divine punishment, karma, or moral failing, and post-Enlight- enment in terms of biological deficit, the disability movement has focused attention

CHAPTER 13

The Social Model of Disability Tom Shakespeare

onto social oppression, cultural discourse, and environmental barriers.

The global politics of disability rights and deinstitutionalisation has launched a family of social explanations of disability. In North America, these have usually been framed using the terminology of minority groups and civil rights (Hahn, 1988). In the Nordic countries, the dominant conceptu- alisation has been the relational model (Gustavssonet al., 2005). Inmanycountries, the idea of normalisation and social role valorisationhasbeen inspirational, particu- larly amongst those working with people with learning difficulties (Wolfensberger, 1972). In Britain, it has been the social model of disability which has provided the structural analysis of disabled people’s social exclusion (Hasler, 1993).

The social model emerged from the intellectual and political arguments of the Union of Physically Impaired Against Seg- regation (UPIAS). This network had been formedafter PaulHunt, a former resident of the Lee Court Cheshire Home, wrote to The Guardian newspaper in 1971, proposing the creation of a consumer group of dis- abled residents of institutions. In forming the organisation and developing its ideol- ogy, Hunt worked closely with Vic Finkel- stein, a South African psychologist, who had come to Britain in 1968 after being expelled for his anti-apartheid activities. UPIAS was a small, hardcore group of dis- abled people, inspired by Marxism, who rejected the liberal and reformist cam- paigns of more mainstream disability organisations such as the Disablement Income Group and the Disability Alliance. According to their policy statement (adopted December 1974), the aim of UPIAS was to replace segregated facilities with opportunities for people with impair- ments to participate fully in society, to live independently, to undertake pro- ductive work, and to have full control over their own lives. The policy statement

defined disabled people as an oppressed group and highlighted barriers:

We find ourselves isolated and excluded by such things as flights of steps, inadequate public and personal transport, unsuitable housing, rigid work routines in factories and offices, and a lack of up-to-date aids and equipment.

(UPIAS Aims paragraph 1)

Even inBritain, the socialmodel of disability wasnot theonlypolitical ideologyonoffer to the first generation of activists (Campbell andOliver, 1996).Otherdisabled-ledactivist groups had emerged, including the Liber- ation Network of People with Disabilities. Their draft Liberation Policy, published in 1981, argued that while the basis of social divisions in society was economic, these divisions were sustained by psychological beliefs in inherent superiority or inferiority. Crucially, the Liberation Network argued that people with disabilities, unlike other groups, suffered inherent problemsbecause of their disabilities. Their strategy for liberation included:developingconnections with other disabled people and creating an inclusive disability community for mutual support; exploring social conditioning and positive self-awareness; the abolition of all segregation; seeking control over media representation;working out a just economic policy; encouraging the formation of groups of people with disabilities.

However, the organisation which domi- nated and set the tone for the subsequent development of the British disability move- ment, and of disability studies in Britain, was UPIAS. Where the Liberation Network was dialogic, inclusive, and feminist, UPIAS was hard-line, male-dominated, and deter- mined. The British Council of Organisations of Disabled People (BCODP), set up as a coalition of disabled-led groups in 1981, adopted the UPIAS approach to disability. Vic Finkelstein and the other BCODP

196 | TOM SHAKESPEARE

delegates to the first Disabled People’s International World Congress in Singapore later that year, worked hard to have their definitionsofdisabilityadoptedontheglobal stage (Driedger, 1989). At the same time, Vic Finkelstein, John Swain, and others were working with the Open University to create an academic course which would promote and develop disability politics (Finkelstein, 1998). Joining the teamwasMikeOliver,who quickly adopted the structural approach to understandingdisability, andwas to coin the term ‘‘social model of disability’’ in 1983.

WHAT IS THE SOCIAL MODEL OF DISABILITY?

While the first UPIAS Statement of Aimshad talked of social problems as an added burden faced by people with impairment, the Fundamental Principles of Disability discussion document, recording their dis- agreements with the reformist Disability Alliance, went further:

In our view, it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impair- ments, by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full partici- pation in society. Disabled people are therefore an oppressed group in society.

(UPIAS, 1975)

Here and in the later development of UPIAS thinking are the key elements of the social model: the distinction between disability (social exclusion) and impair- ment (physical limitation) and the claim that disabled people are an oppressed group. Disability is now defined, not in functional terms, but as

the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organis- ation which takes little or no account of people who have physical impairments and

thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities.

(UPIAS, 1975)

This redefinition of disability itself is what sets the British social model apart from all other socio-political approaches to disabil- ity, and what paradoxically gives the social model both its strengths and itsweaknesses.

Key to socialmodel thinking is a series of dichotomies:

1. Impairment is distinguished from dis- ability. The former is individual and private, the latter is structural and public. While doctors and professions allied to medicine seek to remedy impairment, the real priority is to accept impairment and to remove disability. Here there is an analogywith fem- inism,and thedistinctionbetweenbiological sex (male and female) and social gender (masculine and feminine) (Oakley, 1972). Like gender, disability is a culturally and historically specific phenomenon, not a uni- versal and unchanging essence.

2. The social model is distinguished from the medical or individual model. Whereas the former defines disability as a social cre- ation—a relationship between people with impairment and a disabling society—the lat- ter defines disability in terms of individual deficit. Mike Oliver writes:

Models are ways of translating ideas into practice and the idea underpinning the indi- vidual model was that of personal tragedy, while the idea underpinning the social model was that of externally imposed restriction.

(Oliver, 2004, 19)

Medical model thinking is enshrined in the liberal term ‘‘peoplewith disabilities,’’ and in approacheswhichseek tocount thenumbers of people with impairment, or which reduce the complex problems of disabled people to issues of medical prevention, cure, or rehabilitation. Social model thinking man- dates barrier removal, anti-discrimination

THE SOCIAL MODEL OF DISABILITY | 197

legislation, independent living, and other responses to social oppression. From a disability rights perspective, social model approaches are progressive, medical model approaches are reactionary.

3. Disabled people are distinguished from non-disabledpeople.Disabledpeople are an oppressed group, and often non-disabled people and organisations—such as pro- fessionals and charities—are the causes or contributors to that oppression. Civil rights, rather than charity or pity, are the way to solve the disability problem. Organisations and services controlled and run by disabled people provide the most appropriate sol- utions. Research accountable to, and prefer- ably done by, disabled people offers the best insights.

For more than ten years, a debate has raged in Britain about the value and applicability of the social model (Morris, 1991; Crow, 1992; French, 1993; Williams, 1999; Shakespeare and Watson 2002). In response to critiques, academics and acti- vistsmaintain that the socialmodel has been misunderstood,misapplied, or evenwrongly viewed as a social theory. Many leading advocates of the social model approach maintain that the essential insights devel- oped by UPIAS in the 1970s still remain accurate and valid three decades later.

STRENGTHS OF THE SOCIAL MODEL

As demonstrated internationally, disability activism and civil rights are possible without adopting social model ideology. Yet the British social model is arguably the most powerful form which social approaches to disability have taken. The social model is simple, memorable, and effective, each of which is a key requirement of a political slogan or ideology. The benefits of the social model have been shown in threemain areas.

First, the social model, which has been called ‘‘the big idea’’ of the British disability

movement (Hasler, 1993), has beeneffective politically in building the social movement of disabled people. It is easily explained and understood, and it generates a clear agenda for social change. The social model offers a straightforward way of distinguishing allies fromenemies. At itsmost basic, this reduces to the terminology people use: ‘‘disabled people’’ signals a social model approach, whereas ‘‘people with disabilities’’ signals a mainstream approach.

Second, by identifying social barriers which should be removed, the social model has been effective instrumentally in the lib- eration of disabled people. Michael Oliver argues that the social model is a ‘‘practical tool, not a theory, an idea or a concept’’ (2004, 30). The social model demonstrates that the problems disabled people face are the result of socialoppressionandexclusion, not their individual deficits. This places the moral responsibility on society to remove the burdens which have been imposed, and to enable disabledpeople to participate. In Britain, campaigners used the social model philosophy to name the various forms of discrimination which disabled people (Barnes, 1991), and used this evid- ence as the argument by which to achieve the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. In the subsequent decade, services, buildings, and public transport have been required to be accessible to disabled people, and most statutory and voluntary organisations have adopted the social model approach.

Third, the social model has been effective psychologically in improving the self-esteem of disabled people and building a positive sense of collective identity. In traditional accounts of disability, people with impair- ments feel that they are at fault. Language such as ‘‘invalid’’ reinforces a sense of per- sonal deficit and failure. The focus is on the individual, and on her limitations of body and brain. Lack of self-esteem and self-confi- dence is a major obstacle to disabled people participating in society. The socialmodel has

198 | TOM SHAKESPEARE

the power to change the perception of dis- abled people. The problem of disability is relocated from the individual, to the barriers and attitudes which disable her. It is not the disabled person who is to blame, but society. She does not have to change, society does. Rather than feeling self-pity, she can feel anger and pride.

WEAKNESSES OF THE SOCIAL MODEL

The simplicity which is the hallmark of the socialmodel is also its fatal flaw. The social model’s benefits as a slogan and political ideology are its drawbacks as an academic account of disability. Another problem is its authorship by a small group of activists, the majority of whom had spinal injury or other physical impairments and were white heterosexual men. Arguably, had UPIAS included people with learning difficulties, mental health problems, or withmore complex physical impairments, or more representative of different experi- ences, it could not have produced such a narrow understanding of disability. Among the weaknesses of the social

model are:

1. The neglect of impairment as an impor- tant aspect of many disabled people’s lives. Feminists Jenny Morris (1991), Sally French (1993), and Liz Crow (1992)were pioneers in this criticism of the social model neglect of individual experience of impairment:

As individuals, most of us simply cannot pretend with any conviction that our impair- ments are irrelevant because they influence everyaspectofour lives.Wemust findaway to integrate them into our whole experience and identity for the sake of our physical and emotional well-being, and, subsequently, for our capacity to work against Disability.

(Crow, 1992, 7)

The social model so strongly disowns indi- vidual andmedical approaches, that it risks

implying that impairment is not a problem. Whereas other socio-political accounts of disability have developed the important insight that people with impairments are disabled by society as well as by their bodies, the social model suggests that people are disabled by society not by their bodies. Rather than simply opposing med- icalisation, it canbe interpreted as rejecting medical prevention, rehabilitation, or cure of impairment, even if this is not what either UPIAS, Finkelstein, Oliver, or Barnes intended. For individuals with static impairments, which do not degenerate or cause medical complications, it may be possible to regard disability as entirely socially created. For thosewhohave degen- erative conditions which may cause pre- mature death, or any condition which involves pain and discomfort, it is harder to ignore the negative aspects of impair- ment. As Simon Williams has argued, ‘‘endorsement of disability solely as social oppression is really only an option, and an erroneous one at that, for those spared the ravages of chronic illness’’ (1999, 812).

Carol Thomas (1999) has tried to develop the social model to include what she calls ‘‘impairment effects,’’ in order to account for the limitations and difficulties of medical conditions. Subsequently, she suggested that a relational interpretation of the social model enables disabling aspects to be attributed to impairment, as well as social oppression:

once the term ‘‘disability’’ is ring-fenced to mean forms of oppressive social reactions visited upon people with impairments, there is no need to deny that impairment and illness cause some restrictions of activity, or that in many situations both disability and impairment effects interact to place limits on activity.

(Thomas, 2004, 29)

One curious consequence of the ingenious reformulation is that only people with

THE SOCIAL MODEL OF DISABILITY | 199

impairment who face oppression can be called disabled people. This relates to another problem:

2. The social model assumes what it needs to prove: that disabled people are oppressed. The sex/gender distinction defines gender as a social dimension, not as oppression. Feminists claimed that gen- der relations involved oppression, but did not define gender relations as oppres- sion. However, the social model defines disability as oppression. In other words, the question is not whether disabled people are oppressed in a particular situation, but only the extent to which they are oppressed. A circularity enters into disability research: it is logically impossible for a qualitative researcher to find disabled people who are not oppressed.

3. The analogy with feminist debates about sex and gender highlights another problem: the crude distinction between impairment (medical) and disability (social). Any researcher who does qualitat- ive research with disabled people immedi- ately discovers that in everyday life it is very hard to distinguish clearly between the impact of impairment, and the impact of social barriers (see for example Watson, 2002; Sherry, 2002). In practice, it is the interaction of individual bodies and social environments which produces disability. For example, steps only become an obstacle if someone has a mobility impair- ment: each element is necessary but not sufficient for the individual to be disabled. If a person with multiple sclerosis is depressed, how easy is it to make a causal separation between the effect of the impairment itself; her reaction to having an impairment; her reaction to being oppressed and excluded on the basis of having an impairment; other, unrelated reasons for her to bedepressed? Inpractice, social and individual aspects are almost inextricable in the complexity of the lived experience of disability.

Moreover, feminists have now abandoned the sex/gender distinction, because it implies that sex isnot a social concept. Judith Butler (1990) and others show that what we think of as sexual difference is always viewed through the lens of gender. Shelley Tremain (2002) has claimed similarly that the social model treats impairment as an unsocialised and universal concept, whereas, like sex, impairment is always already social.

4. The concept of the barrier-free utopia. The idea of the enabling environment, in which all socially imposed barriers are removed, is usually implicit rather than explicit in social model thinking, although it does form the title of a major academic col- lection (Swain et al., 1993). Vic Finkelstein (1981) alsowrote a simpleparable of a village designed for wheelchair users to illustrate the way that social model thinking turned the problem of disability on its head. Yet despite the value of approaches such as Universal Design, the concept of a world in which people with impairments were free of environmental barriers is hard to operationalise.

For example, many parts of the natural world will remain inaccessible to many disabled people: mountains, bogs, beaches are almost impossible for wheelchair users to traverse, while sunsets, birdsong, and other aspects of nature are difficult for those lacking sight or hearing to experience. In urban settings, many barriers can be mitigated, although historic buildings often cannot easily be adapted. However, accommodations are sometimes incom- patible because people with different impairments may require different sol- utions: blind people prefer steps and defined curbs and indented paving, while wheelchair users need ramps, dropped curbs, and smooth surfaces. Sometimes, people with the same impairment require different solutions: some visually impaired people access text in Braille, others in large print, audio tape or electronic files.

200 | TOM SHAKESPEARE

Practicality and resource constraints make it unfeasible to overcome every barrier: for example, theNewYork subway and London Underground systems would require huge investment to make every line and station accessible to wheelchair users. A copyright library of five million books could never afford to provide all these texts in all the different formats which visually impaired users might potentially require. In these situations, it seems more practical to make other arrangements to overcome the prob- lems: for example, Transport for London have an almost totally accessible fleet of buses, to compensate thosewho cannot use the tube, while libraries increasingly have arrangements to make particular books accessible on demand, given notice. Moreover, physical and sensory impair-

ments are in many senses the easiest to accommodate.Whatwould itmeantocreate a barrier-freeutopia for peoplewith learning difficulties? Reading and writing and other cognitive abilities are required for full par- ticipation in many areas of contemporary life indevelopednations.What aboutpeople on the autistic spectrum, who may find social contact difficult to cope with: a barrier-free utopia might be a place where they did not have to meet, communicate with, or have to interpret other people. With many solutions to thedisabilityproblem, the concept of addressing special needs seems more coherent than the concept of the barrier-free utopia. Barrier-free enclaves are possible, but not a barrier-free world. While environments and services can and

should be adapted wherever possible, there remains disadvantage associated with hav- ing many impairments which no amount of environmental change could entirely elim- inate. People who rely on wheelchairs, or personal assistance, or other provision are more vulnerable and have fewer choices than the majority of able-bodied people. When Michael Oliver claims that ‘‘An aero- plane is a mobility aid for non-flyers in

exactly the same way as a wheelchair is a mobility aid for non-walkers’’ (1996, 108) his suggestion is amusing and thought provok- ing, but cannot be taken seriously. As Michael Bury has argued,

It is difficult to imagine anymodern industrial society (however organised) in which, for example, a severe loss ofmobility or dexterity, or sensory impairments, would not be ‘‘dis- abling’’ in the sense of restricting activity to some degree. The reduction of barriers to participation does not amount to abolishing disability as a whole.

(Bury, 1997, 137)

Drawing together these weaknesses, a final and important distinction needs to be made. The disability movement has often drawn analogies with other forms of iden- tity politics, as I have done in this paper. The disability rights strugglehas evenbeencalled the ‘‘Last Liberation Movement’’ (Driedger, 1989). Yet while disabled people do face discrimination and prejudice, like women, gay and lesbian people, and minority ethnic communities, and while the disability rights movement does resemble in its forms and activities many of these other movements, there is a central and important difference. There is nothing intrinsically problematic about being female or having a different sexual orientation, or a different skin pig- mentation or body shape. These other experiences are about wrongful limitation of negative freedom. Remove the social discrimination, and women and people of colour and gay and lesbian people will be able to flourish and participate. But disabled people face both discrimination and intrinsic limitations. This claim has three implications. First, even if social barriers are removed as far as practically possible, it will remain disadvantageous to have many forms of impairment. Second, it is harder to celebrate disability than it is to celebrate Blackness, or Gay Pride, or being a woman. ‘‘Disability pride’’ is problematic, because

THE SOCIAL MODEL OF DISABILITY | 201

disability is difficult to recuperate as a concept, as it refers either to limitation and incapacity, or else to oppression and exclusion, or else to both dimensions. Third, if disabled people are to be emanci- pated, then society will have to provide extra resources to meet the needs and overcome the disadvantage which arises from impair- ment, not just work to minimise discrimi- nation (Bickenbach et al., 1999).

BEYOND THE SOCIAL MODEL?

In this chapter, I have tried to offer a balanced assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the British social model of disability.While acknowledging the benefits of the social model in launching the disability movement, promoting a positive disability identity, and mandating civil rights legislation and barrier removal, it is my belief that the social model has now become a barrier to further progress.

As a researcher, I find the social model unhelpful in understanding the complex interplay of individual and environmental factors in the lives of disabled people. In policy terms, it seems to me that the social model is a blunt instrument for explaining and combating the social exclusion that disabled people face, and the complexity of our needs. Politically, the social model has generated a form of identity politics which has become inward looking and separatist.

A social approach to disability is indis- pensable. The medicalisation of disability is inappropriate and an obstacle to effective analysis and policy. But the social model is only one of the available options for theorising disability. More sophisticated and complex approaches are needed, per- hapsbuildingon theWHOinitiative to create the International Classification of Function- ing, Disability and Health. One strength of this approach is the recognition that disabil- ity is a complex phenomenon, requiring different levels of analysis and intervention,

ranging from the medical to the socio- political. Another is the insight that disability is not a minority issue, affecting only those people defined as disabled people. As Irving Zola (1989) maintained, disability is a universal experience of humanity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnes, C. (1991) Disabled People in Britain and

Discrimination. London: Hurst and Co.

Bickenbach, J. E., Chatterji, S., Badley, E.M., andUstun,

T. B. (1999) Models of disablement, universalism

and the international classification of impairments,

disabilities and handicaps. Social Science and

Medicine 48: 1173–1187.

Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the

Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.

Bury, M. (1997) Health and Illness in a Changing

Society. London: Routledge.

Campbell, J. and Oliver, M. (1996) Disability Politics:

Understanding Our Past, Changing Our Future.

London: Routledge.

Charlton, J. (1998) Nothing About Us Without Us: Dis-

ability, Oppression and Empowerment. Berkeley:

University of California Press.

Crow, L. (1992) Renewing the socialmodel of disability.

Coalition July: 5–9.

Driedger, D. (1989) The Last Civil Rights Movement.

London: Hurst.

Finkelstein, V. (1981) To deny or not to deny disability.

In A. Brechin et al. (eds) Handicap in a Social

World. Sevenoaks: Open University/Hodder and

Stoughton.

Finkelstein, V. (1998) Emancipating disability studies.

In T. Shakespeare (ed.) The Disability Reader:

Social Science Perspectives. London: Cassell.

French, S. (1993) Disability, impairment or something

in between. In J. Swain et al. (eds)Disabling Barriers,

Enabling Environments. London: Sage, 17–25.

Gustavsson, A., Sandvin, J., Traustadóttir, R., and

Tossebrø, J. (2005)Resistance, ReflectionandChange:

Nordic Disability Research. Lund, Sweden: Studen-

tlitteratur.

Hahn, H. (1988) The politics of physical differences:

disability and discrimination. Journal of Social

Issues 44 (1): 39–47.

Hasler, F. (1993)Developments in the disabled people’s

movement. In J. Swain et al. (eds) Disabling

Barriers, Enabling Environments. London: Sage.

Morris, J. (1991) Pride Against Prejudice. London:

Women’s Press.

Oakley, A. (1972) Sex, Gender and Society, London:

Maurice Temple Smith.

202 | TOM SHAKESPEARE

Oliver, M. (1996)Understanding Disability: From The-

ory to Practice. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Oliver, M. (2004) The social model in action: if I had a

hammer. In C. Barnes and G. Mercer (eds) Imple-

menting the Social Model of Disability: Theory and

Research. Leeds: The Disability Press.

Shakespeare, T. and Watson, N. (2001) The social

model of disability: an outdated ideology? In S.

Barnarrt and B. M. Altman (eds) Exploring

Theories and Expanding Methodologies: Where

Are We and Where Do We Need to Go? Research

in Social Science and Disability volume 2. Am-

sterdam: JAI.

Sherry, M. (2002) If only I had a brain. Unpublished

PhD dissertation, University of Queensland.

Swain, J., Finkelstein, V., French, S., and Oliver, M.

(eds) (1993) Disabling Barriers, Enabling Environ-

ments. London: Sage.

Thomas, C. (1999) Female Forms. Buckingham: Open

University Press.

Thomas, C. (2004) Developing the social relational

in the social model of disability: a theoretical

agenda. In C. Barnes and G. Mercer (eds) Imple-

menting the Social Model of Disability: Theory and

Research. Leeds: The Disability Press.

Tremain, S. (2002) On the subject of impairment.

In M. Corker and T. Shakespeare (eds) Disability/

Postmodernity: Embodying Disability Theory.

London: Continuum, 32–47.

Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation

(UPIAS) (1974/5) Policy Statement, www.leeds.

ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/archframe.htm

(consulted August 10, 2005).

Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation

(UPIAS) (1975) Fundamental Principles, www.

leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/archframe.

htm (consulted August 10, 2005).

Watson, N. (2002) Well, I know this is going to sound

very strange to you, but I don’t see myself as a

disabled person: identity and disability. Disability

and Society 17 (5): 509–528

Williams, S. J. (1999) Is anybody there? Critical real-

ism, chronic illness, and the disability debate.

Sociology of Health and Illness 21 (6): 797–819.

Wolfensberger, W. (1972) The Principle of Normaliza-

tion in Human Services. Toronto: National Insti-

tute on Mental Retardation.

Zola, I. K. (1989) Towards the necessary universalizing

of a disability policy.MilbankQuarterly 67, suppl. 2,

Pt. 2: 401–428.

THE SOCIAL MODEL OF DISABILITY | 203