Disability as Human Variation: Implications for Policy

Richard K. Scotch and Kay Schriner

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1997, vol. 549, issue 1, 148-159

Abstract: The impact of any disability policy depends on the conceptual model of disability upon which that policy rests. For the past quarter century of disability policymaking, culminating in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the dominant paradigm of disability has been a minority group model. That model identifies discrimination as the primary barrier facing people with disabilities in their desire for full social participation, and it proposes civil rights strategies as the proper policy response to that barrier. An alternative model of disability based on the concept of human variation is proposed that implies additional strategies for achieving the goal of integration of people with disabilities. The utility of a human variation model is illustrated by its application to the issue of access to employment.

Date: 1997
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716297549001011 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:549:y:1997:i:1:p:148-159

DOI: 10.1177/0002716297549001011

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().