I explained that I wanted to remove the severe and gratuitous social handicaps inflicted on disabled people, and often on their families and friends, not just by their exclusion from town and county halls, art galleries, libraries and many of the universities, but even from pubs, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and other places of entertainment ...
Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society.
[14][15] Oliver's seminal 1990 book The Politics of Disablement[16] is widely cited as a major moment in the adoption of this model.
[17][18] The social model has become a key tool in the analysis of the cultural representation of disability; from literature, to radio, to charity-imagery to cinema.
Key theorists include Paul Darke (cinema), Lois Keith[19] (literature), Leonard Davis (Deaf culture), Jenny Sealey[20] (theatre) and Mary-Pat O'Malley[21] (radio).
Equal rights are said to empower people with the "ability" to make decisions and the opportunity to live life to the fullest.
[9] This model was conceived of as a tool that could be used to improve the lives of disabled people, rather than a complete explanation for every experience and circumstance.
[7] A primary criticism of the social model is its centring of the experiences of individuals with physical impairments, which has resulted in overlooking other forms of disability, such as mental health conditions.
[9][7] That is, the focus on how the social environment can cause disablement may ignore the fact that impairments "can be restrictive, painful and unpleasant".
Thus, some needs are not met on the basis of not having an impairment significant enough to receive aid, which can be a negative application of the social model within government policy.
[36] [37] The social model itself implies that neurodivergent people are living behind barriers that inhibit participation in everyday life.
The effect of this is a depersonalization, a sweeping dismissal of our individuality, and a denial of our right to be seen as people with our own uniqueness, rather than as the anonymous constituents of a category or group.
A three-pronged approach was suggested: "incentives to work via the tax and benefit system, for example through the Disabled Person's Tax Credit; helping people back into work, for example via the New Deal for Disabled People; and tackling discrimination in the workplace via anti-discrimination policy.
"[40] Canada and the United States have operated under the premise that social assistance benefits should not exceed the amount of money earned through labour in order to give citizens an incentive to search for and maintain employment.
Poverty is the most debilitating circumstance disabled people face, resulting in the inability to afford proper medical, technological and other assistance necessary to participate in society.
But the requirement of employers and service providers to make "reasonable adjustments" to their policies or practices, or physical aspects of their premises, follows the social model.
The law was modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal.
In 2007, the European Court of Justice in the Chacón Navas v Eurest Colectividades SA court case, defined disability narrowly according to a medical definition that excluded temporary illness, when considering the Directive establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation (Council Directive 2000/78/EC).
[citation needed] Over the last several decades, technology has transformed networks, services, and communication by promoting the rise of telecommunications, computer use, etc.
This Digital Revolution has changed how people work, learn, and interact, moving these basic human activities to technological platforms.
In Disability and New Media, Katie Ellis and Mike Kent state that "technology is often presented as a source of liberation; however, developments associated with Web 2.0 show that this is not always the case".
[24] Ideas surrounding disability stem from societal attitudes, often connected to who is deserving or undeserving, and deemed productive to society at any given time.
For example, with the medical model of disability, the goal may be to help a child acquire typical abilities and to reduce impairment.
[3] It has been suggested that disability education tries to restore the idea of a moral community, one in which the members question what constitutes a good life, reimagine education, see physical and mental conditions as part of a range of abilities, consider that different talents are distributed in different ways, and understand that all talents should be recognized.
In this system, all students would be included in the educational network instead of being set apart as special cases, and it would be acknowledged that all humans have individual needs.