Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 7-1-2013
Journal / Book Title
Disability & Society
Abstract
This article attempts to explain why the social constructionist paradigm has failed to replace the medical model in American disability theory. The social movement led by American disability activists attempted to reframe the definition of disability using a minority group model based on the social constructionist paradigm. This paper argues that the disability movement was unable to successfully advance the social constructionist paradigm because the activists accepted the Americans With Disabilities Act (1990) despite its ideological basis in the medical model of disability, and the social constructionist theory does not adequately account for the importance of structural constraints to redefinition
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Donoghue, Christopher, "Challenging the Authority of the Medical Definition of Disability: An analysis of the resistance to the social constructionist paradigm" (2013). Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 1.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/sociology-facpubs/1
Published Citation
Donoghue, C. (2003). Challenging the authority of the medical definition of disability: An analysis of the resistance to the social constructionist paradigm. Disability & Society, 18(2), 199-208.