Disability Studies in Education (DSE) is a field of academic study concerned with education research and practice related to disability. DSE scholars promote an understanding of disability from a social model of disability perspective to “challenge social, medical, and psychological models of disability as they relate to education". A DSE perspective situates disability within social and political context and is concerned with the civil and human rights of students with disabilities, including issues of equity, access, and inclusion in educational settings, curricula, and activities. DSE emerged as a part of the broader, interdisciplinary Disability Studies movement and as a critique of special education.
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Foundations
DSE scholarship is based on a social conception of disability that identifies barriers, attitudes, and actions that serve to systematically exclude individuals with disabilities society. It is a reaction to the dominant medical model of disability which positions people with disabilities as having limitations outside of the "normal" or typical boundaries that require remediation and intervention. DSE has its origins in sociological theories of deviance, social stigma and labeling theory as social construction. By 1970, there emerged critiques of labeling in special education, now referred to as ableism.
The social model of disability positions physical, intellectual, psychological, sensory, and emotional variations as natural and therefore requires societal changes in the response to those variations. The problem therefore resides not within the individual with impairments, but in the attitudes toward and treatment of people with disabilities. A DSE perspective is grounded in the belief that a collective social response to disability has resulted in systematic inequality, marginalization, discrimination, and oppression. There is also the recognition that disability is both a form of individuation and group identification. Because individual identities are complex and intersect with other identity categories (i.e. race, gender, social class, sexual orientation), there are varied ways that individuals may identify themselves as disabled.
Issues
DSE is concerned with critical issues concerning the education of people identified as disabled. Central questions of concern to DSE scholars are:
DSE scholars promote academic activism in that they seek to counter the dominant discourse of the disabled student as deficient and abnormal. They criticize special education as an inadequate response to disability which seeks to remediate the individual in order for them to fit in with the norm. They promote a social justice perspective in which the purpose of education is to accept and care for all students.
DSE scholars challenge research methodologies that serves to objectify, marginalize, and oppress disabled people. They promote research that is created by and accountable to disabled people, rather than portraying them as subjects. They recognize the value of interdisciplinary approaches within and outside the educational field and promote interaction among researchers from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
A DSE perspective foregrounds the interests and voices of disabled students in their education. DSE scholars reject deficit models of disability and assume that all children have the right to equitable, full, and meaningful access to educational opportunities. At the same time, DSE scholars understand that special education ≠ inclusive education ≠ disability studies in education.