Disability, Sport and Society

An Introduction

Nigel Thomas, Andy Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134183227
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Learning Disabilities

Disability sport is a relatively recent phenomenon, yet it is also one that, particularly in the context of social inclusion, is attracting increasing political and academic interest. The purpose of this important new text – the first of its kind – is to introduce the reader to key concepts in disability and disability sport and to examine the complex relationships between modern sport, disability and other aspects of wider society.

Drawing upon original data from interviews, surveys and policy documents, the book examines how disability sport has developed and is currently organised, and explores key themes, issues and concepts including:

• 
  
  

• disability theory and policy
• the emergence and development of disability sport
• disability sport development in local authorities
• mainstreaming disability sport
• disability, physical education and school sport
• elite disability sport and the Paralympic Games
• disability sport and the media.

Including chapter summaries, seminar questions and lists of key websites and further reading throughout, Sport, Disability and Society provides both an easy to follow introduction and a critical exploration of the key issues surrounding disability sport in the twenty-first century. This book is an invaluable resource for all students, researchers and professionals working in sport studies, disability studies, physical education, sociology and social policy.

Nigel Thomas is Head of Sport and Exercise at Staffordshire University, UK, where his research focuses on the history, mainstreaming, and media coverage of disability sport. He previously worked for ten years with young disabled people as a sports development officer in local authorities and national governing bodies.

Andy Smith is Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport and Exercise at the University of Chester, UK. He is a co-editor of the International Journal of Sport Policy, and a co-author of Sport Policy and Development: A Sociological Introduction, and An Introduction to Drugs in Sport: Addicted to Winning? Both books are published by Routledge (2009).

1 Disability theory and policy

Objectives

This chapter will:

• examine the medical model or personal tragedy theory of disability;
• examine the social model of disability; and
• outline the emergence and development of disability policy.

Introduction

In order to understand something about the key issues which surround the complex relationships between modern sport, disability and society which we examine in this book, it is helpful to have some appreciation of the various theoretical explanations of disability and to explore some key developments in disability policy. This is important for, as we shall explain elsewhere, the ways in which disabled people have been treated historically by other members of the wider society, as well as how disability and the closely related concept of impairment have been conceptualized, are vital pre-requisites for understanding how disability sport has developed and is understood. In this chapter, therefore, we shall briefly examine: (i) some of the major theoretical explanations of disability; and (ii) the emergence and development of disability policy which has been designed to enhance disabled people’s experiences and lives in the wider society. Before doing so however, it is not possible to examine in great detail, here, either the history and theoretical explanations of disability or the extent to which disability policy has been successful in achieving the desired objectives. Readers who wish to find out more about these issues might usefully consult any of the important works by some of the key authors within the disability studies field, including Colin Barnes, Geof Mercer, Jenny Morris, Mike Oliver and Tom Shakespeare.

Theories of disability

Disability as a personal tragedy

There is now a large and expanding literature which examines the various contested definitions and theories of disability. It is generally accepted by many authors within the field of disability studies, however, that the existing definitions and theories of disability can be grouped into two broad categories: medical or social. The medical model or personal tragedy theory of disability which dominated thinking about disability for most of the twentieth century, particularly in Western societies, embraces those definitions and perceptions which suggest that disability is an impairment that is owned by an individual and which results in a loss or limitation of function or some other ‘defect’. On this view, disability has been traditionally conceptualized in a largely individualized or medicalized way that has its roots in the historical discrimination of disabled people during the rise of industrialism (Barnes, 1997; Barnes and Mercer, 2003; Oliver, 1990). These prevailing views of disability were perhaps most clearly expressed in what has been regarded as the most important definition of disability to be developed during the post-1945 period, namely, the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps (ICIDH) introduced in 1980 by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO definitions of disability, impairment and handicap are often perceived as important in the recent history of disability since they came to be widely used to inform much social and welfare policy and professional practice. One particularly notable example of this was the work conducted by the Office for Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) into disabled people’s welfare needs in Britain during the late 1980s. In the ICIDH the WHO combined their classification of disease with one that considered disability, impairment and handicap together. These terms were defined by the WHO in the following way:

Impairment: Any loss or abnormality of, psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function. (WHO, 1980: 27)

Disability: Any restriction or lack of ability (resulting from impairment) to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being. (WHO, 1980: 28)

Handicap: A disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or disability that limits or prevents the fulfilment of a role (depending on age sex, social and cultural factors) for that individual. (WHO, 1980: 29)

Expressing the dominant views of disability which prevailed during much of the twentieth century, the ICIDH definitions clearly suggest that impairment was considered to be a deviation from a bio-medical norm, whilst disability was conceptualized as the consequence of impairment which focuses attention on parts of the body that are not considered to function properly. The ICIDH classification also focused for the most part on what disabled people can and cannot do as a result of an impairment. In this regard, it is clear that the traditional individualized explanation of disability – and, it should be noted, the treatment of disabled people – has typically been informed by medical ideologies of disability in which practitioners (especially medical professionals and educational psychologists) have sought ‘solutions’ to problems that are believed to be located within the individual without considering the wider societal context in which disabled people live. These ‘solutions’ were often sought by segregating large numbers of disabled people in separate institutions (for example, hospitals and ‘special’ schools) on the assumption that this was for their own benefit and to prevent disabled people from being a burden on others in the wider society (Barnes and Mercer, 2003; Goffman, 1961). As Goffman’s (1961) seminal study of the experiences of patients in mental hospitals – what he termed asylums – and his closely associated work on stigma (Goffman, 1963) clearly indicates, this process of institutionalization helped stereotype those who were considered ‘impaired’ as somehow ‘different’ from other ‘normal’ members of the wider society. The tendency to define disability in largely medical ways helped stigmatize disabled people as possessing ‘undesired differentness’ (Goffman, 1963: 5) to those considered non-disabled and helped construct labels which portray disabled people as ‘deviant’ and ‘abnormal’. In this regard, the segregation of disabled people into separate institutions enables more established groups (such as medical professionals and some non-disabled groups) – by means of their relatively more powerful positions – to encourage less powerful groups such as disabled people to internalize and accept an image of themselves that is based on a ‘minority of the worst’ (Elias and Scotson, 1994). The process of institutionalization also enabled more established groups to encourage disabled people to absorb negative self- and group-images of themselves, whilst reinforcing more positive images of more established groups that are based on a ‘minority of the best’, that is, on the desirable characteristics (for example, able-bodiedness and ‘normality’) associated with those who are non-disabled (Elias and Scotson, 1994). Thus, as Nixon (2000: 423) has put it, particularly in Western societies, disabled people have been

treated as members of a deviant minority group. Deviant status has meant that disabled persons have been relegated to a position outside the mainstream. Minority status has meant that disabled persons as a stereotyped and stigmatised category or group have been accorded degraded status, little power, and few opportunities for economic advancement or success.

A related assumption of the medical definition and explanation of disability, as well as the policies and professional services which it informs, therefore, is that disabled people ought to be ‘physically whole’ or ‘normal’ so that they can fit into a predominantly non-disabled society. An obvious example of this taken for granted assumption about the needs of disabled people becomes clear if we think of the ways in which medical professionals are particularly concerned that mobility impaired patients are able to walk however painful or slow that may be, rather than use a quicker and more comfortable medium of travel such as a wheelchair. Within the sporting context, the Great British Paralympian, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson (2001: 13–14), summarized her experience of how the medical profession sought to manage her experience of spina bifida when a child, when she explained how

doctors were obsessed with me walking. Their attitude was, I must stay on my feet for as long as possible … Everything the doctors did was about keeping me on my feet when it should have been about finding the best way for me to be mobile.

We shall return to the ways in which concern with able-bodiedness, notions of normality and medicalized understandings of disabled people’s lives and experiences have come to be expressed in disability sport when we examine the use of classification systems to organize elite level sport (Chapter 6) as well as the media coverage of disabled athletes participating in the Paralympics (Chapter 7). In the present context, however, it is worth reflecting on how the medicalized or individualized explanations of disability such as those to be found in the ICIDH have been widely criticized for several reasons. First, they are considered to focus exclusively on the personal limitations of disabled people whilst ignoring their other personal and social needs. Second, they present impairment as the sole cause of disability. And third, the ICIDH definitions are said to have further enhanced the already growing power of the medical profession to define what are and are not perceived to be medical problems. In this regard, the definitions of disability, impairment and handicap as used by the WHO are claimed to have encouraged medical professionals to impose their own priorities on the lifestyles of disabled people and to treat them as ‘problems’ to be ‘cured’ only through medical intervention and rehabilitative therapy (Barnes, 1998; Oliver, 1990; Shakespeare and Watson, 1997). It can also properly be said that by focusing on the supposed medical nature of impairment and disability the ICIDH-based definitions ignore the ways in which disability (and other sources of social division such as gender and social class) is socially constructed and ignores the complex ways in which perceptions and experiences of disability change and vary from one society to another society and over time (Barnes and Mercer, 2003; Barnes et al., 1999). Nor, for that matter, do the ICIDH definitions convey much about the ways in which disability and impairment have come to be defined as such by groups including the medical profession and other (non-)disabled groups who, because of their generally more powerful positions relative to other, less powerful groups, have a greater ability to define what ought to constitute as ‘disability’ and ‘impairment’ for which some kind of remedial action is warranted (Barnes and Mercer, 2003).

The social model of disability

In light of the growing dissatisfaction with the dominant medicalized explanation of disability which prevailed during the twentieth century, from the late 1960s this orthodoxy in thinking and practice began to be widely challenged by several political campaigns led by the disabled people’s movement across Europe and North America (Barnes and Mercer, 2003). These campaigns, which were led by disabled activists (especially those who were constrained to live in separate residential care) and organizations led by disabled people, helped challenge the medically-informed assumptions about disability and the perceived status of disabled people as ‘second-class citizens’ by arguing that it should be understood not as a medical or biological problem but as a social construction (Barnes and Mercer, 2003; Oliver, 1986, 1992; Shakespeare and Watson, 1997). While the political campaigns led by disabled people focused initially on the improvement of welfare services through the work of organizations such as the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS), the emphasis of these campaigns shifted towards placing greater importance on disabled people’s rights for ‘independent living’. They also began to redirect attention on the need to change the attitudes of people in the wider society towards those considered disabled and specifically:

the impact of social and environmental barriers, such as inaccessible buildings and transport, discriminatory attitudes and negative cultural stereotypes, in ‘disabling’ people with impairments. (Barnes and Mercer, 2003: 1)

One outcome of the attempts by the disabled people’s movement to challenge the orthodox medicalized view of disability was, therefore, the emergence of what is known as the ‘social model’ or explanation of disability that ‘focuses on the environmental and social barriers which exclude people with perceived impairments from mainstream society’ (Barnes, 1998: 78). This explanation of disability has become increasingly accepted by many within the disabled people’s movement (such as the UK’s Disabled People’s Council) – if not to the same degree by others within the wider society – since it rejects the view of disability as being ‘caused’ by the presence of an impairment but rather as the ‘disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by contemporary social organisation which takes little or no account of people who have physical impairments and excludes them from participation in the mainstream of activities’ (UPIAS, 1976; cited in Barnes et al., 1999: 28). This alternative explanation acknowledges that, based upon a biomedical definition, some individuals could be deemed to have an impairment but that the complex causes of disability – like all sources of social division – have their roots in the differential and unequal power relations between groups in the wider society.

The emphasis which the social explanation places on the social and environmental constraints that are said to explain the experience of disability in Western societies has helped improve the experiences of disabled people and enable them to take control of their own lives to a greater degree than previously (Barnes and Mercer, 2003; Oliver and Barnes, 2008). The shift towards a social understanding of disability and of the social and environmental constraints which are believed to ‘disable’ people has also helped the disabled people’s movement to bring about significant policy change by governments. As we shall explain in more detail later, in Britain one of the more recent examples of the growing power of the disabled peo-ple’s movement in bringing about policy change was expressed when the former British Council of Disabled People (BCODP) (now the UK’s Disabled People’s Council) helped to bring about the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995 by a Conservative government who were at the time very reluctant to adopt such an anti-discrimination piece of legislation (Barnes and Mercer, 2003; Oliver and Barnes, 2008). Notwithstanding the degree to which an understanding of the social construction of disability has helped bring about what are perceived to be ‘positive’ changes in the lives of disabled people, it nevertheless remains the case that many ‘disabled people and their families remain among the most socially and economically disadvantaged citizens in Britain’ (Crowther, 2007: 791) and elsewhere. It is also clear that the ‘economic exclusion of disabled adults is playing a central role in driving child poverty, with one in three children in poverty having a disabled parent’ (Crowther, 2007: 792). And at the time of writing, approximately 40 per cent of those who are unemployed in Britain are also disabled (Crowther, 2007). When set against these and other criteria, it becomes clear that insofar as the campaigning of disabled activists and organizations led by and for disabled people may have been successful in breaking down the social constraints on disabled people’s lives, there remains some considerable way to go before the social divisions between disabled and non-disabled groups begin to be broken down even further.

The need for a new model of disability

As we explained earlier, explanations of disability have tended to fall into two dichotomous categories – medial or social – with the explanations underpinning the social model of disability being among the most widely accepted. Although there has been growing support for the social model of disability since the 1960s because it ‘under-played the importance of impairment in disabled people’s lives, in order to develop a strong argument about social structures and processes’ (Shakespeare and Watson, 1997: 298), it has nevertheless been criticized by some within the disabled people’s movement for failing to provide an understanding of disability which acknowledges the centrality of impairment and experience of disability to disabled people’s lives. The perceived over-emphasis on social and environmental explanations of disability is, according to Shakespeare (1996), perhaps understandable and out of fear that an admission of impairment as a medical ‘condition’ or ‘personal tragedy’ provides further evidence for the view that disability can only be ‘cured’ through medical intervention. Regardless of the veracity of these claims, there have been calls by some within the disabled people’s movement for a new theory of disability that is not grounded in assumptions about disabled people’s lives by those who are non-disabled, but which is informed by disabled people’s experiences of disability and recognizes the social and environmental constraints that help structure those experiences (Barnes, 1997; Crow, 1992; Hughes and Paterson, 1997). It is not possible, here, to consider in detail the complex theoretical debates which surround the adequacy of the social model of disability. That has been done elsewhere (e.g. Barnes and Mercer, 2003; Barnes et al., 1999; Hughes and Paterson, 1997; Shakespeare and Watson, 1997). Nevertheless, it is clear that whilst those who advocated the explanations which underpin the social model of disability never attempted to incorporate the individual experience of impairment and disability into their analyses, it could be argued that if we are to begin to explain disabled people’s experiences in all areas of social life (including sport) then we need to recognize the many complex interdependencies that exist between their experience of impairment and disability. In other words, since disability and impairment are experienced differentially as interdependent aspects of disabled people’s lives that continuously interplay with each other the...