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To understand how disability is viewed today, it is helpful to look at the way our understanding of the concept has evolved over time.
Setting aside early history, in which disability may have been thought of in mythological terms (possession by evil spirits, for example), in the modern era it is common to describe this evolution in terms of “models” of disability – different perspectives on what disability means and what it means to live with a disability.
As science, and especially medicine, developed, it become common to think of disability purely in biological or medical terms. The so-called medical model states that disability is some deviation in body function or structure from the normal, caused by an underlying disease or other health condition.
In the 1960s and 1970s, motivated by development of the disabled people’s movement, it was argued that actually disability is not “located” in an individual body at all, but is created by the social response to physical difference – on the one hand stigma and discrimination, and on the other an indifference to the accommodations that people with disabilities may require in order to participate fully in education, employment and other areas of life. The social model of disability insisted that disability is a disadvantage caused by society.
