Recovering the social interpretation of disability

Abstract

The social interpretation of disability (SID) that originated in Britain in the 1970s is a radical attempt to locate the problem of disability in society. SID has been criticised, however, on the grounds that its distinction between impairment and disability cannot be drawn; that it neglects impairment; that it over-emphasises barrier removal; and that it lacks a category for person-level activity. This paper isolates SID’s core claims, uses them to criticise other claims that some of SID’s advocates advance, and defends SID against these criticisms. If SID’s core claims are recovered from misrepresentation, they can be used to expose some limits of using the categories of the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health to think about how society should respond to impairment.

Keywords:

• Disability
• impairment
• ICF
• social model
• UPIAS
• oppression

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 I shall only cite the second edition when it differs from the first.

2 On the origins of some formulations in Fundamental Principles, see Finkelstein (2005).

3 See, also, the ‘Aims’ section of Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (1974/5).