Until the last few decades the failure of the disabled individuals to find paid employment or to attain higher degrees of upward mobility used to be explained basically in terms of lack of personal capability. Functional ’incapacity’ has been used as a basis for a wider classification as (an) invalid. Once the persons with impairments have been categorised in this way, the ’disability’ has become their defining characteristic and their incapacity has been generalised. This forms the basis of a ’personal tragedy’ approach, where the individual is regarded as a victim, and as someone who is in need of ’care and attention’and dependent on others – a perspective which has been at the heart of the contemporary social welfare policies designed to help disabled people to cope with ’their disability’ (Oliver 1990, 1996).
The personal tragedy approach was organically linked with the medical model, which claimed that disability is a medical condition for which medical expertise (educational, psychological and social) is the answer. Consequently, disability existed within a framework of state, legal, economic and biomedical insititutions. As the result of this process of institutionalisation, national legislations provided the impairment with an existence and a consistency it never had before: definition, criteria, and degrees of severity (Ingstad & Whyte 1995 p. 179).
This has been the dominant scientific and policy trend concerning disability until the late 1960s, when under the influence of a new interpretation of the concept of equality and of a new type of human rights centred approach characteristic to the emerging “welfare state”, a first change of paradigm occured. The key words to this new discourse came to be integration and normalisation: integration meaning that disabled people should participate in society on their own premises and on an equal basis, normalisation meaning the various measures that would enable them to participate in normal work and social life (Ingstad & Whyte 1995, p. 179). The proponents of this model shared the view that the roots of the marginal situation of disabled people are laying in the negative social attitudes towards them, rather than in their physical incapacity or medical condition.
According to this model, it is still the disabled person’s problem that requires explanation, but the explanatory structure is no longer linked to the individual; rather, answers are sought in the belief-system of the whole society (Finkelstein & French, 2004 p. 31) However, the main problem faced by the adepts of the “normalisation’ model was how to make the notion of equal rights for the disabled operational. In practice, the implementation of rights generally depends not just on the existence of certain constitutional and legal norms, and on people’s attitudes towards disability, but it is also contingent in large extent of the available means and opportunities to exercising those rights in practice. In the case of persons who have special physical and sensorial characteristics, certain rights are simply meaningless in the absence of special technical solutions necessary for their implementation (Barnes et al. 1999 p. 5).
On the other hand, the inherent assumption of the normalisation discourse is that disabled people want to be other than they are, even though this would mean a rejection of identity (Swain &French 2004 p. 31). To this, one should add that the emphasis on ’normality’ tends to obscure the need for change. In a society organized around the needs of a ’non-disabled’ majority, disabled people are consequently viewed as ’abnormal’. Moreover, ’if disabled people are viewed as ’normal’, than there is little need for policies to bring about a society free of disablism (Barnes 1992 p. 38).
These are the main reasons, why beginning with the end of the eighties a new shift of paradigm took place and the so called social model, sometimes also referred to as the inclusive model, which argues that “disability is a social state” (Oliver 1990), is gradually gaining ground. In order to have a clearer understanding of what marginality means in case of the disabled people and how it is caused, it is necessary to shift the analysis from the individual and micro levels to the societal level. One should look to the way power and resources are distributed between social
groups having competing interests.Social disadvantage and discrimination of the disabled should be analysed in this wider context (Flora 2001).
According to the schemes of explanation connected to the social model, the explanation for disabled persons’ marginality requires a careful research and assessment of the marginalising factors and exclusionary effects connected to the characteristics of the larger social environment. If, for instance, the overall rate of unemployment for disabled people is much higher than the population average, this suggests a structural discrimination in the sphere of the employment against disabled people, in possible connection with other disabling barriers (Barnes et al. 1999 p. 13).
This paper methodologically grounded in the analysis and interpretation of nine structural interviews within recent university graduates in Oradea, living with various kinds of physical disability, is epistemologically built around the main explanatory schemes enounced in the social model of disability. In the same time, in analysing the outcome of the interviews, one of my research tasks has been to investigate the degree of the influence of each of the three presented models of disability in shaping the perceptions and attitudes of the students with disabilities. I started from the supposition that “social life is possible because of communication and shared meanings, and the central task is to understand how people present themselves and negotiate social situations” (Barnes 1999 p. 32). I aimed therefore “to hear the story” from the point of view of each of the students being studied.
PERSONALIDENTITYAND ‘NORMALITY’
The first key question to be discussed in analysing the interview results is that of the personal identity. People with disabilities can be characterised with a distinct peculiarity, as they have a double self-image: as injured beings and as citizens/workers like everyone else (Stiker 1982 p. 149). In this regard, my study aims to reveal, on the one hand, the kind of combination of the two facets occuring in the way students define themselves and on the other hand, the extent to which the main explanatory models of disability, already outlined above, are influencing the self- perception and the identity of the disabled students.
The first important finding is that the graduates clearly reject the personal tragedy model, emphasising, in contrast, normality in their life and their aspiration to be – and to be treated – like anyone else. That is why they are, by all means, stressing the aspects of normality in their personal history:
“I had a normal childhood, I did not attend a special kindergarten and I didn’t need special aid.I have the same memories as any healthy children, and my parents educated me in this spirit, despite my impairment.” (F.K.)
“In school I was rather an active child, I liked very much my lady teacher, because she treated all children on an equal footing. My schoolmates also behaved normally towards me, I was not excluded from the community. In spite of the fact that my situation would have required less physical effort, I attended physical education classes like all the others, although I had the right to be exempted. I don’t have much negative memories from my school years. I was treated as all the other children.” (K.F.)
“I would characterise my childhood as a healthy one. I didn’t feel, at least I don’t remember any occasion when I suffered a disadvantage, I didn’t feel being treated unfairly, my parents and grandparents took always care that no such things would ever happen.” (K.H.)
Normality is viewed by graduates first of all as the absence of negative discrimination. What they particularly appreciate is, on the one hand, the opportunity to live in a stigma-free environment and, on the other hand, to receive, in all occasions, a non-discriminatory treatment, “without regard to otherness.”
“I had a teacher, at the university, who realised my impairement only after graduating, when we, former students and our former professors went together on a trip. We played basketball and I ’refused’ to catch the ball with my both hands. Shouldn’t it be easier with two hands? – my professor asked me. I replied that indeed it would be easier; just it didn’t work in my case. In that moment he understood. So, I think that my disability caused no additional difficulty during my university studies.” (A.D.)
“The teachers always had a positive attitude to me, I never had any problem with anyone, they all liked me and respected me very much, no one made me to feel my otherness.” (F.K.) This discourse of ’normality’ is so pervasive in configuring students’ self image, that they not only reject negative discrimination, but also tend to view critically those past occurences of positive discrimination connected to their medical condition (impairement) which they perceive as having an offending connototation, making them to feel themselves “less valuable” than others.
“One of my most disappointing experiences was when my teacher of physical education did not want to let me play basketball, when my classmates engaged in a game. I left with the unpleasant impression that he considered I would have destroyed the chances of my team to win if I had been allowed to play.” (H.K.)
“At a later stage of my childhood I observed that my parents are assigning more tasks to my sister, just to <spare> me. I didn’t like this and my sister didn’t appreciate it either.” (K.H.) “The lady educators in the kindergarten offered me special treatment, they offered me exagerated fondness, for which, looking back now, I do not feel very grateful.” (D.A.) While acknowledgeing their impairement as a fact which cannot be changed, the students are inclined to reject any potential “undeserved” advantages which they might obtain on the ground of their “special situation.” In contrast, what they are emphasizing more are their personal qualities not linked to disability.
“What would have happened if...? That’s the way it is, I always had an impairement and this cannot ever be changed.” (T.P.)
“During my life as a disabled person I learned that it would be simple to hide behind my disability, but it would not be rewarding. The external appearence is really not that important.” (A.D.)
It should be mentioned, on the other hand, that some graduate opinions are going even beyond the standard self-image of a “normal human being like anyone else”, towards a perception where “normality” is combined with the acknowledgement and positive valuation of the alterity, viewed as a culturally enriching difference.
“I saw myself at the university as any other student, only a little bit different, more interesting in appearence, limping, always running, always in a hurry.” (P.T.)