Understanding Abelism: Disability as a Social Construct

The purpose of this activity is to provide participants with an opportunity to consider the impact that the social and physical environments have on living with a disability. This activity will help participants to explore the social and physical environments create disability or make an impairment more disabling. Directions: Ask participants to name elements of their physical and social environments that make their daily activities easier to perform. As they name these elements, write them down on the chalkboard, power point, etc. Examples of these elements include the following: Computers Tutors Cell phones Traffic signs Lighting in homes, classrooms, offices Microwave ovens Drive through banks or food beverages or stores Restaurant home delivery services Eyeglasses or contact lens Alarm clocks Timers on coffee pots Books written in a language they can read Vacations, coffee breaks, weekends, and 9-5 work schedules Having a car to drive Child care of elder care Having friends and family who support and care for you Having a secretary, administrative assistant, or teaching assistant

Next, ask participants to imagine going through a day without these resources. How would their lives be different? What difficulties would they encounter in getting through their average day? Invite participants to think about these resources, which we often take for granted, as accommodations thata enable us to get through our day successfully. If we did not have access to these resources, we would become disabled by our environment. We would not be able to carry out our daily activities as easily. Introduce the concept of social construction: taken for granted assumptions about the world, knowledge, and ourselves assumed to be universal rather than historically and culturally specific ideas created through social processes and interactions. Invite participants to think about how disability can be created by the social and physical environment in the same way that temporarily able bodied people would be able disabled if they did not have access to the kinds of resources in the brainstormed list. People with disabilities are disabled when needed physical and social resources in their environment

are absent. Define the social construction of disability as the interaction of the biological and the social. People with disabilities have impairments that place their ability to perform daily activities out of the norm for people who do not have disabilities. The impairments in and of themselves are not necessarily disabling. Disability is socially constructed through the failure of unwillingness to create social and physical environments that meet the needs of people who do not fit the physical and mental profile of normal. On newsprint or a chalkboard, list some of the following examples of how social and cultural factors contribute to the construction of disability: violent crime, poverty, war, stigmatization of people with disabilities. Invite participants to name others. Provide a more extensive list to participants, and discuss any examples about which they have questions

Ask participants to gather in groups of three to discuss the following questions: 1. What is your reaction to the idea that disability is socially constructed? 2. Are there any items on this list that are particularly interesting or surprising to you? 3. How does the idea that disability is a social construction change your thinking about disability? Bring participants attention back to the whole group, Invite them to think about disability from this new perspective: looking at the social and physical environments as the sources of the problem and the solution, rather than seeing the problem in the condition of individuals. Preventing disability requires providing the help necessary to create, wherever possible, the ability to participate in all major aspects of life in a society: work, social, political, cultural, personal, religious, and recreational.

Facilitation Issues Many participants think about having a disability as a tragedy or as a fate worse than death. They are accustomed to feeling pity toward the people who have disabilities. Refocusing attention on the social and physical environments as disabling is a way to help participants see disability in a different light and being to identify ways that the environment can be changed to eliminate the obstacles that people with disabilities face in their everyday lives. This also helps some participants to understand how abelism is a social justice issue rather than an issue of charity or misfortune. They begin to understand how abelism is perpetuated through individual attitudes and actions as well as through institutional and cultural forces. The concepts of the social construction of disability and this discussion comes from Susan Wendells (1996) book, The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections of Disability. Please note that this activity can be found on p. 349 in the text, Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice by Maurianne Adams, Le Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin.