Swedish social disability research: a short version of a long story

Abstract

Over the last decades social and behavioural research about disability in Sweden has expanded considerably. The development over the last 40 years can be described in four phases of the development: early initiatives, getting integrated, getting established and late developments. It describes a journey from an activity separated from the traditional university system and mainly occupied by evaluating reforms sponsored by short-term grants to an established academic activity with a broad range of research topic and with a growing engagement in theoretical questions. During the past years, disability organizations have reacted critically as they found themselves having little influence on research that is done, a reaction that includes dissatisfaction with what is experienced as inability of researchers to make research politically relevant. What started in a society with a centralized structure and ambitious social engineering ideal now has to find its role in a more decentralized structure where reform ambitions and the role of social movements like disability organizations are different. To balance the need for autonomous research with the ambition of being politically relevant without falling for the temptation of being politically correct is one of the challenges social disability research in Sweden will have to deal with in the near future.

Keywords:

• disability research
• research policy
• relative definition
• cross-disciplinary research