Impairment – Lacking part or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organ or mechanism in the body.
Disability – The disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes no or little account of people who have a physical impairment and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities.¹

This two-fold definition is referred to in most UK literature as the Social Model of Disability. Tom Shakespeare refers to this as the ‘Strong Social Model’ to differentiate it from associated Social Models, which do not focus on individuals or impairments.² It has been described by the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS), as follows:

It is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments, by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society. Disabled people are therefore an oppressed group.³

The Social Model was deliberately intended to break the link between the individual, who lives with some level of impairment, and their experience of disability, which results from the attitudes and actions towards them by other people, groups, organisations and society.

By way of illustration this model separates my impairment, the inability to walk as a result of the congenital condition spina bifida, from my experience of being disabled. My experiences of disability arise from societal attitudes and actions towards me as a wheelchair user, excluding me from participating fully in society. This contrasts with how my disability is described in terms of the Individual/Medical Model discussed in the related article.

Rather than expecting disabled people to change, be cured or healed in order to be included in all aspects of society, this model emphasises the need for social attitudes towards people living with impairments to change. This results in actions being taken by society that enable disabled people to be included.⁴ These necessary actions range from physical access, for example the provision of physical aids such as wheelchairs and hearing aids, to the social, political and economic changes required for disabled people to actively participate rather than passively observe. This emerges from a separation of the assumed link between impairment and disability. This separation has proved advantageous, but is, however, also one of the model’s major weaknesses.⁵ This is because the understanding of disability can ignore or overlook the real impact of someone’s impairment.

The implications of this understanding of disability for churches are outlined in a related item on this website.

 

 

Barnes, C., & Mercer, G. (2010). Exploring disability: a sociological introduction: Wiley.
Disabled Peoples’ International. (1982). Proceedings of the First World Congress: DPI Singapore.
Goodley, D. (2010). Disability studies: an interdisciplinary introduction (First ed.). London: SAGE.
Goodley, D. (2017). Disability studies: an interdisciplinary introduction (Second ed.). London: Sage.
Johnstone, D. (2001). An introduction to disability studies (2nd ed.). London: David Fulton Publishers.
Oliver, M. (1990). The politics of disablement. London: Macmillan.
Owens, J. (2015). 'Exploring the critiques of the social model of disability: the transformative possibility of Arendt's notion of power'. Sociology of Health & Illness, 37(3), 385-403.
Shakespeare, T. (2013). Disability rights and wrongs revisited. London: Routledge.
Shakespeare, T., & Watson, N. (2002). 'The social model of disability: an outdated ideology? Exploring theories and expanding methodologies: Where we are and where we need to go'. Research in Social Science and Disability, 2, 9-28.
UPIAS. (1976). Fundamental principles of disability: being a summary of the discussion held on 22nd November, 1975 and Containing commentaries from each organisation. London: Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, Disability Alliance.

---