The Social Construction Of Disability

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The purpose of this essay is to draw on the idea of disability by exploring how the social construction of self and other might impact geographies of inclusion and exclusion. The idea is that social constructionism is a product of men and was created by society as a whole, rather than by individuals, and disability, along with the other concepts such as race and gender, were no longer viewed to be biologically determined (Berger & Luckmann 1966). In order to illustrate this issue, the essay will be broken down into three parts, with each part addressing a different topic in relations to disability. The first part will show what society considers to be a disability, and the expectations of society, which includes the different models that has …show more content…

Likewise, the social construction of disability refers to the idea that society has created the concept of disability with the assumption that all individuals are fully able-bodied, but this idea only leads to the physically and mentally disabled being othered, while the rest are gradually normalized. After all, it has been established that normal is still a fairly recent concept in the English Language (Shogan 1998). It is also interpreted that humans have produced their own environment as a society, along with its own social and psychological constructions, as it is impossible for a single individual to develop themselves in isolation, thus, it is impossible for a single individual to develop a human environment in isolation (Berger & Luckmann 1966). For example, it is believed that depending on an individual’s circumstances, such as the social, economic or political situations which they have placed themselves into, can have a strong effect on the image which they are expected to match (Bulter 1999). This idea of having a certain image to fit a certain situation or cirtcumstance might show the influence of social constructism on society, and how it may have evolved over the years, eventually leading to the inclusion or exclusion of those who does or does not have the desired

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