Disability Studies Voice:
The Institute for Disability Studies

JANET M. DUNCAN, DIRECTOR

Social Advocacy and Systems Change is published under the auspices of the Institute for Disability Studies of the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Cortland. The Mission of the SUNY Cortland Institute for Disability Studies is to promote and sustain research and scholarship in Disability Studies.

Similar to other fields of inquiry involving people and social phenomena, such as Women’s Studies, African-American Studies or Latino/a Studies, Disability Studies has emerged in response to the needs and concerns of people with disabilities. For decades people with disabilities have been viewed from a clinical or deficit-based model, which defines persons as needing to be “fixed.” Clinical judgment has informed medicine, rehabilitation, social services, and special education (Biklen, 1988.) The disability rights movement, largely influenced and driven by persons with disabilities, presents an alternative view: that people with disabilities have much to say about their lives, and that there is a fundamental right to define oneself according to capacity, rather than deficit.

Another factor influencing the field is the new generation of students with disabilities who have received an inclusive education as a result of P.L. 94-142 (now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA). They expect to be treated with dignity in society, and accorded the same rights and opportunities as others, which are guaranteed by law according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990). These individuals are empowered to speak for themselves, and to advocate for equal treatment in employment, housing, and transportation, as required by law.

As a result, the academy seeks to learn from these voices and experiences, and to research the capacity of this once neglected group in society. Disability studies is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the richness of the human condition, and to reveal social policies that are incongruent with our knowledge and experiences in social justice and human rights.

Disability Studies as an Academic Field

The field of disability studies has been defined in the various ways for the past two or three decades, and has now generally been accepted as:

“…an emerging interdisciplinary field of scholarship that critically examines issues related to the dynamic interplays between disability and various aspects of culture and society. Disability studies unites critical inquiry and political advocacy by utilizing scholarly approaches from post-positivist social sciences as well as the humanities and the arts. When specifically applied to educational issues, Disability Studies promotes the importance of infusing analyses and interpretations of disability throughout all forms of educational research, teacher education, and graduate studies in education.” (Disability Studies Special Interest Group definition, American Educational Research Association, 1999).

References

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, P.L. 101-336, 2, 104 Stat.328.1991. Biklen, D. (1988). The Myth of Clinical Judgment. Journal of Social Issues, 44(1):127-40. Disability Studies SIG definition (1999). AERA SIG, retrieved March 18, 2008 from http://www,dsesig.aera.org Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997, U.S. Code 20. 1997. S 140.
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