Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities2012, Vol. 37, No. 2, 70-80

copyright 2012 byTASH

Disability Studies: What Is It andWhat Difference Does It Make?

Philip M. FergusonChapman University

Emily NusbaumColorado University Colorado Springs

The academic field of disability studies has expandedrapidly over the last two decades or so. With that expansionhas also come some growing ambiguity about exactly whatis meant by the term "disability studies." This article re-views the history and evolution of disability studies asan interdisciplinary approach to research and scholarship.While acknowledging the broad range of interests and ap-proaches that can fall under the umbrella of the "disabilitystudies" label, we argue that it may be useful to present aset of core themes or beliefs that seem central to disabilitystudies as a field if it is to fulfill its promise as a trulydifferent way of exploring the meanings of disability insociety. Finally, we argue that disability studies should beof special interest to members of TASH and others withparticular interest in the lives of people with significantintellectual and developmental disabilities.

DESCRIPTORS: disability studies, social model ofdisability, inclusion, value-based research

Over the last decade or so, the term "disability studies"has become a familiar usage throughout all areas ofinqtiiry and scholarship involved in the study of issuesaffecting people with disabilities. Yet, the question arisesas to whether the writing and research emerging fromthis still new and evolving area of study have any specialrelevance to those whose strongest interests are improv-ing the lives of individuals with the most significant intel-lectual and developmental disabilities and their families.This article—as well as the others in this special issue—tries to demonstrate why that question should be answeredin the affirmative. The purpose, then, of this article is three-fold. First, we provide a brief history of the emergence andevolution of the broad range of scholarship and inquirythat falls under the field called "disability studies." Second,we identify and briefly discuss what we see as at leastsome of the core concepts that underlie the relativelynew field of study. Finally, we argue that, as a field ofstudy, disability studies has particular salience for thoseinterested in the development of research and policy insupport of people with significant intellectual and devel-opmental disabilities.

Address all correspondence and reprint requests to PhilipFerguson, College of Educational Studies, Chapman University,One University Drive, Orange, CA 92866. E-mail: pferguson®chapman.edu

Certainly, if one goes simply by frequency of usage,the practice of "disability studies" has gained ample cur-rency within academic settings of the humanities andsocial sciences (Cushing & Stnith, 2009; Taylor & Zubal-Ruggieri, 2009). In such a context, disability studies isoften compared with similar approaches to human differ-ence that have a somewhat longer history, such as GenderStudies and Race/Ethnicity Studies. In its broadest terms,then, disability studies might initially portray itself asthe interdisciplinary study and representation of the con-cepts, cultures, and personal experiences of disability inall its variations. Equally important, of course, is the im-plication that just as we have come to understand raceand gender as complicated and shifting mixtures of thephysical and the cultural—the personal and the public—so must we place disability and impairment within a socialand historical context.

Yet, at the same time that the term "disability studies"has come into more and more cotnmon usage, it hasalso become less clear as to what exactly the term refers.As the introduction to this special issue outlines, themeaning of "disability studies" seems to many to havebecome more diffuse just as the term's adoption hasbecome more popular. Others may feel confident thatthey understand well enough what the term means butthat it ultimately has little relevance to the more urgentquestions of reforming policies and improving practicesin all of the contexts that affect the lives of people withintellectual disabilities and their families. This analysisexplores both of these issues. We describe our under-standing of what is, admittedly, a diverse and changingfield. More importantiy, we argue that the teaching andresearch emerging from this field do, indeed, have im-portant implications for people with the most significantdisabilities and the professionals trying to provide themwith support.

Some History

It is probably impossible to pinpoint an exact datefor the beginning of disability studies as a distinct fieldof academic scholarship.^ The Society for Disability

' In the United Kingdom, some of the key early writing camefrom Vic Fmkelstein, Mike Oliver, and others as part of a growingadvocacy movement in the 1970s (Shakespeare, 2006). However,our focus here is on developments in the North American context.

70

Disability Studies: What Is It? 71

Studies—the oldest academic organization explicitly de-dicated to this area—traces its beginning to 1982 (see thebrief account at http;//www.disstudies.org/about/history).However, even before that date, there were isolated ex-amples of individual researchers or even entire programsthat helped create the foundations of this radically dif-ferent approach to the study of both the concepts and theexperiences of disability. Perhaps the simplest way tothink of this emergence is to identify disability studiesas the academic side of the disability rights movement.The political theorist Michael Walzer has succinctly char-acterized "social criticism" as "the educated cousin of thecommon complaint" (Walzer, 1987, p. 65) to make hisargument that effective social theory must never movetoo far from the very real problems faced by everydaypeople. So, it should be with disability studies. Born of theprotests and growing self-advocacy of ordinary people inthe 1970s (Shapiro, 1993), disability studies reflected theefforts of scholars with disabilities (and some nondisabledcolleagues) to conceptualize and interpret the commoncomplaints of people with disabilities and their fatnilies.What had been the sporadic and often unconnected workof isolated researchers and theorists began to coalescearound a set of core ideas and shared experiences.

Fields within the social sciences were perhaps the ear-liest disciplines in the United States to present researchthat seemed to capture some of these new assumptionsabout the cultural meatiing of disability. As early as the1960s, sociologists such as Erving Goffman (1961, 1963)and anthropologists such as Robert Edgerton (1967)were using the social construct of stigma to explore thephenomenological and cultural experience of disability.In the 1970s and 80s, the medical sociologist Irving Zolaillustrated how the study of disability could usefully em-ploy the methods and concepts of the social sciences toplace the personal experience of physical disability withina social context (Zala, 1982a, 1982b). In 1980, Zola beganpublishing a newsletter that was to become what is nowthe Disability Studies Quarterly, the oldest academic jour-nal devoted specifically to works representing "the fullrange of methods, epistemologies, perspectives, and con-tent" embraced by this interdisciplinary field of study. AtSyracuse University, Burton Blatt recruited social scien-tists and policy analysts (e.g., Robert Bogdan, StevenTaylor, and Douglas Biklen) to blend vigorous advocacywith scholarly rigor in exposing the institutional abusesthat were the daily experience of hundreds of thousandsof people with intellectual disabilities (Biklen & Bogdan,1977; Bogdan & Biklen, 1977; Bogdan & Taylor, 1976;Taylor, 2006). In 1982, four young sociologists^ from vari-ous parts of the country came together at a conference ofthe Western Social Science Association to form a special

^The four founders of the Society for Disability Studies wereDarryl Evans, Gary Kiger, Stephen Hey, and John Seidel. Theyquickly joined forces with Irving Zola to gain both visibility andcredibility for the new organization.

section for the "Study of Chronic IUness, Impairment, andDisability." By 1986, the group became a separate orgatii-zation called the Society for Disability Studies (SDS), soonhaving separate conferences and publishing proceedings(e.g., Kiger & Hey, 1989).

As noted before, since these early rumblings in the late1970s and 1980s, disability studies has grown exponen-tially At least in its North American context, disabilitystudies has moved well beyond its origins in the socialsciences, developing entire subcategories of work in his-tory (e.g., Baynton, 2001; Carey, 2009; Kudlick, 2003;Longmore & Umansky, 2001), humanities (Davis, 2010;Garland-Thomson, 2009; MitcheU & Snyder, 2000; Siebers,2008; Snyder, Bmeggemann, & Garland-Thomson, 2002),and the arts (Cmtchfield & Epstein, 2000; Hevey, 1992;Lubet, 2010; Sandahl & Auslander, 2005). In both NorthAmerica and Etirope, work has emerged in interdisciplin-ary fields such as feminism (Hillyer, 1993; Thomas, 1999),bioethics (Kittay & Carlson, 2010), and Queer Studies(McRuer, 2006). Powerful memoirs reflecting on the mean-ings and experiences of disability from a personal perspec-tive served as critical testimony to the generations of voicesthat had been largely silenced or ignored both in the sci-ences and the humanities (e.g., Ferguson & Asch, 1988;Finger, 2006; Fries, 1997; Johnson, 2005; Linton, 2006;Sherry, 2006). Equally important for our purposes here,groups of researchers within the traditional fields relatedto disability began to identify their work as part of disabil-ity studies. The label of "disability studies in education"became used by sotne to denote a newly critical stancetoward the traditional assumptions of the more familiar"special education" (Connor, Gabel, Gallagher, & Morton,2008; Danforth & Gabel, 2006; Gabel, 2005). Psychologistswere challenged to reconsider "the relationship betweendisability studies and psychology in ways that contributeto the emancipation - rather than the exclusion - of dis-abled people" (Goodley & Lawthom, 2006, p. xvü). Policyanalysts and human service professionals began to talkabout how a newly theorized understanding of disabil-ity could change approaches to both policy and practice(Devlieger, Rusch, & Pfeiffer, 2003; O'Brien & Sullivan,2005; Schriner, 2001).

Out of all of this diverse scholarship, the description ofdisability studies adopted by the Society for DisabilityStudies comes perhaps as close as anything to an "offi-cial" definition of this new, interdisciplinary field of study:

Disability studies recognizes that disability is a key as-pect of human experience, and that disability has im-portant political, social, and economic implications forsociety as a whole, including both disabled and non-disabled people. Through research, artistic produc-tion, teaching and activism, disability studies seeks toaugment understanding of disability in all cultures andhistorical periods, to promote greater awareness ofthe experiences of disabled people, and to advocatefor sodal change. (Society for Disability Studies, n.d.)

72 Ferguson and Nusbaum

Still, despite such attempts at official definitions, it isprobably not surprising that a certain messiness came tocharacterize the usage of the term "disability studies."It became somewhat unclear whether disability studiescould be framed as a coherent and definable, if mulfidis-ciplinary, field of academic endeavor. As more and moreacademic programs began to spring up using the label ofdisability studies, disagreements began to emerge aboutwho could and could not make legitimate use of the term.

A growing list of questions came to accompany almostany introductory discussion of this new approach. Did"real" disability studies have to be based in a nonclinicalor applied setting (e.g., in the humanities or social sci-ences) or could certain programs in the rehabilitationsciences or in special education also lay claim to theterm as well? Could it be used in a medical or healthcare setting of any kind or was that a contradictoryjuxtaposition of the medical and social models used toapproach disability is drastically different ways? Was itan approach that worked for certain disability categoriessuch as physical disabilities or deafness but not for otherssuch as significant intellectual disabuifies (Anastasiou &Kauffman, 2011)? Did the field have any connection toactually improving the lives of children and adults withdisabilities or was it just an over-theorized distracfionfrom the types of applied science needed to find out whatworks and what does not in the prevention, cure, orremediation of disabilities of all kinds? What was the roleof people without disabilities in the doing of disabilitystudies? The fact that these quesfions of use and defi-nition arose, of course, was a marker of success andmaturation of the field itself. The term "disability studies"became contested precisely because of the power andinsight found in the growing body of research and com-mentary that popularized the term.

What disability studies is notIn her influential introduction to disability studies

(Linton, 1998), Simi Linton has a chapter titled "Dis-ability Studies/Not Disability Studies." In the chapter,she makes an extended argument for "setting off dis-ability studies as a socio-political-cultural examination ofdisability from the interventionist approaches that char-acterize the dominant traditions in the study of disability"(p. 132). For Linton, it is important to have boundariesabout how and where legitimate disabuity studies couldbe done. Despite that argument, as we have noted, theuse of the term "disability studies" to characterize manynew or restructured academic programs and research ini-tiatives based within those "dominant traditions" (e.g.special educafion, health care, and human services) hasconfinued to grow over the last decade or so. While weworry that some uses of the term have more to do withimage than substance, we also are reluctant to restrict theterm to certain areas of knowledge and inquiry. A livelydebate over definitions and appropriate usage can be ahealthy activity that energizes the field.

Nonetheless, it is easier in many ways to begin our dis-cussion of where we locate the core of disabuity studiesby making some broad comments about what disabilitystudies is not—or at least should not be—rather than whatit is. It should be clear from what we have said so farthat the term "disability studies" should not be allowedto become little more than a synonym for special edu-cafion or rehabilitation sciences. Nor should the termbecome interchangeable with research into communitysupport and inclusive education (even though mostscholars in disability studies would probably agree ingeneral with these orientations). Finally, disability studiesis not the same as disability rights, although again thetwo are closely related. Disability studies may be manythings to many people, but if its full potenfial to reshapethe way that society understands people with disabilities isto be realized, then it must avoid being seen as simply anew bottle for old wine.

Some Core Concepts of Disability StudiesIf there are some elements or characteris:ics that we

can say are arguably not part of what most scholars inthe area would identify as central to disability studies asa field, then it is equally true that that there are otherfeatures that we would regard as core concepts. Theseare themes or contentions that we find so basic to thetheory and practice of disability studies as to be at theheart of any discussions about its relevance for anyspecific program or content area. Our argument hereagain is not to set up some sort of purity test for whatis—and should be—a messy, interdisciplinary field. How-ever, the following five concepts strike us as a minimalset of arguments with which to put some flesh on tothe bare bones of rhetoric about what is different andimportant about disability studies.

Concept 1: The study of disability must be socialJust as gender is more than chromosomes and race is

more than skin color, disability is more than an individ-ual impairment. This simple statement is one version ofwhat is, perhaps, the one concept closely associated withdisability studies that has gained the greatest familiarityand even acceptance within the academy: the so-called"social model" of disability. Usually contrasted with some-thing called the "medical" or "deficit" model, the socialmodel has become one of those umbrella terms—indeed,much like the term "disability studies" itself—that has abroad recognifion and tmderstanding, while also beingconstantly debated by those who find one or another ofits usages problemafic (Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2011).Our purpose here is not to settle—or even enter into—those debates. Rather, it is to point to the concept as thesingle idea that most people would cite as one of themost iniluenfial contributions to the theorefical study ofdisability in the last 40 years. Even the World HealthOrganization (WHO) in its current version of the Interna-tional Classification of Functioning, Disability and Disease

Disability Studies: What Is It? 73

(WHO, 2001) acknowledges the importance of this ideaand tries to "merge" it witb the more traditional medicalmodel. The WHO definition of this concept summarizesthe most common understanding of the social model:

Disability is not an attribute of an individual, butrather a complex collection of conditions, many ofwbicb are created by the social environment. Hencethe management of the problem requires social ac-tion, and it is the collective responsibility of societyat large to make tbe changes necessary for full par-ticipation of people with disabilities in all areas ofsocial Ufe. (WHO, 2001, p. 28)

What the WHO definition leaves implied but unstatedis tbat tbe concept of the social model requires notmerely social "action" but social analysis as well. Theimportance of the social model as a core concept ofdisability studies is not only that disability is more thanindividual pathology and deficit but also that its mean-ing is more than a personal problem. Disability mustbe studied in its social, cultural, and historical contextas much as tbe personal conditions of impairment andfunctioning must be studied in their medical and educa-tional contexts.

This does not have to be an either-or proposition.Most scholars in disability studies readily acknowledgetbe personal reality of impairments. Studying tbe socialbistory of intellectual disability does not mean thatthe personal experience is irrelevant. Indeed, much re-cent writing has urged renewed attention to the "em-bodiment" of disability (Finger, 2006; Shakespeare,2006; Siebers, 2008). Nor does the emphasis on the so-cial model negate the importance of medical and educa-tional research on diagnostics, assessments, treatments,and interventions. Even with these more traditional ap-proaches to the health and education of individuals withspecific impairments, however, disability studies cancontribute a social perspective from which to view andinterpret scienfific findings. Indeed, for most disabilitystudies scholars, this is not really a choice. All research,all knowledge exists unavoidably in a cultural and his-torical context. The only choice is in how openly thatcontext is acknowledged and explored.

Concept 2: The study of disability mustbe foundational

It is certainly the case that scholars in disability studiesargue that their approach to disability and impairmentis fundamental to deepening our understanding of howthat status is experienced in society. However, disabilitystudies also makes the argument tbat perhaps the mostimportant reason to explore the meaning(s) of disabilityis not to understand disability itself but to understandother categories of human difference. In other words,tbe study of disability (and the concept of "disability")is at the foundation of our understanding of the social

construction of race, gender, class, and other ways inwhich we differentiate ourselves from one another. It isessential, in short, to our understanding of how we seeourselves as same and different (Devlieger et al., 2003).

It would be difficult to find professional preparationprograms these days in special education or rehabilita-tion sciences that did not pay some attention in theircurriculum to issues of race, class, gender, and other socialcategories. Tbe issue of disproportional representationof racial minorities within at least some categories ofspecial education has certainly received growing atten-tion over the last several decades (Arfiles, 2003; Harry &Klingner, 2006; Losen & Orfield, 2002). Virtually everyfuture special education teacher, rehabilitation therapist,or adult services professional at least learns the rhetoric—if not always the deeper convictions—of culture compe-tence and reciprocity. However, the difference betweenthis welcome growth of attention to cultural issues withinapplied disciplines and the concept of disability as foun-dational that is brought forth by disability studies remainsimportant. Disability studies is arguing that the issue ismore than the distortion of science by social intrusionsof systemic injustices sucb as racism, sexism, and poverty.

Throughout history, the label of "disability" has func-tioned as an accusation more often than an assessment.In a review of how discriminafion against African Ameri-cans and women has been justified at various times inAmerican history, the historian Douglas Baynton makesthis claim overt: "Not only has it been considered jusfi-fiable to treat disabled people unequally, but the conceptof disability has been used to justify discriminafion againstother groups by attributing disability to them" (Baynton,2001, p. 33). In the opposition to suffrage and women'srights in tbe early part of the 20th century, male politi-cians and others would cite the feebleness and instabilityof women generally as reasons to "protect" them fromthe responsibilities of voting, running for political office,or learning a profession (Baynton, 2001, p. 42). The medi-calized racism of the same era was used to bolster the riseof Jim Crow laws and policies in the South and anti-Mexican laws in the West (Molina, 2006). Tbe imagery ofdisabuity has always been used to symbolize the dan-gerous and inferior. The concept of disability is used tohide what scares us, to remove what repulses us, and tomedicalize what shocks us. The logic was irrefutable. Dis-ability was the ulfimate "other" (Kudlick, 2003).

In many ways, disability continues, by definition, to bea lesser state of being that justifies paternalism at bestand extermination at worst. To apply that label to theLGBT community, to the homeless poor, and to thosewho do not speak English is to justify the practices ofexclusion and neglect that are still tacitly understood asa legitimate corollary of the disability status. In opposi-tion, tbose being labeled often challenge the accuracyof the attribution but seldom challenge the logic behindthe accusation. In discussions of current social issuessuch as the overrepresentation of certain racial groups

74 Ferguson and Nusbaum

in special education, the problem is analyzed primarilyas an instance of systemic racism without an equal re-view of the negative assumptions about disability thatmake the concept understandable as source of exclu-sion. Disability—and the concept of disability—must bepart of the very foundation of attempts to understandwhat is different as well as what is normal.

Concept 3: The study of disability mustbe interdisciplinary

If disability is social and foundational, then our effortsto understand the experience and concepts behind thatstatus must cut across traditional academic disciplines.Disability studies demands that the study of disability beas broad as culture itself. We must draw upon the toolsand traditions of all our ways of knowing about the world.Again, in many ways, the best analogy here is to similarinterdisciplinary fields such as women's studies or race andethnic studies. Just as these more established fields havedrawn upon the history and sociology of women and theconcept of femininity or the cultural and literary repre-sentation of African Americans, so does disability studieslook for ways to explore the meanings of disability as itemerges in aU of our in academic departments.

In its early days, this core feature of disability studieswas focused on the need to bring the study of disabilityinto the arts and humanities, and areas of the social sci-ences other than psychology. In making that case, theimpression was sometimes given that disability studiescould only exist within these non-applied disciplines.Efforts to legitimize the study of disability outside ofapplied fields such as special education and social work,sometimes led to attempts to delegitimize the practiceof disability studies within those same traditional fields.In part, this was an understandable response to thetraditional domination of those traditional fields in thestudy of disability. Special education and rehabilitationsciences had been seen by many as "owning" the topic ofdisability in a way that disability studies scholars wantedto challenge. At the same time, many academics withinthe applied sciences associated with disability would oftensee calls for interdisciplinarity as meaning that generaleducation experts should interact with special educa-tion experts. History, literature, philosophy, art, and otherfields within the humanities are seen as supplemental in-terests to the main goal of learning how to teach andhow to support individuals with disabilities. The worry,then, by some within the humanities and social scienceswas that allowing the mantle of disability studies to beassumed by these same professional schools would co-opt the truly reformative potential of this newly criticalapproach. Those worries remain, and the disciplinary ten-sions that accompany those concerns wiU also continue.At this point, we believe that truly interdisciplinary (andnot just multidisciplinary) disability studies can only flour-ish if the orientation and insights it makes possible areavailable to all parts of the academy.

Concept 4: The study of disability mustbe participatory

This concept is one that is probably famuiar and en-dorsed by virtually all members of TASH and other pro-gressive disability research and advocacy organizations.Still, the call for increased participation and influence bypeople with disabilities and their families with what istaught and explored about disability is one that disabil-ity studies has greatly emphasized, if not originated. Thecall for participation, of course, is not just about whatquestions get asked, but about who gets to ask the ques-tions (Ferguson, Ferguson, & Taylor, 1992). The pointis not just to have new types of research and teachingabout disability but that scholars with those disabilitiesshould be prominent among those doing that researchand teaching.

However, this concept becomes somewhat more con-tentious when taken beyond superficial rhetoric. Whatdoes "participation" truly mean in terms of scholar-ship? More specifically what might participation meanfor people with intellectual disabilities (Docherty et al.,2005)? Should disability studies research always beaction-oriented (as with Participatory Action Research)or can it sometimes be primarily analytical or historicalin focus? Is "participation" enough, or does disabilitystudies research have an obligation to be "emancipa-tory" in effect (Mercer, 2002; Seelman, 2001)? In part,this touches on one of the central tensions in disabilitystudies scholarship: What is or should be the role ofthe non-disabled researcher/teacher within the field ofdisability studies (Barton, 1996)? Just as it would beodd if women's studies programs were led primarily bymen or European Americans were the most prominentfaces in African American scholarship, so it would besurprising only if those within disability studies took nonotice of the disability status of those whose voices weremost prominent. At the same time, the brief history ofdisability studies is full of examples of scholars without(visible) disabilities making significant contributions tothe field. The principle of participation raises as manyquestions as it answers, but as long as people with dis-abilities remain underrepresented in our colleges, uni-versities, and research institutions, then the issue mustremain central to the field.

Concept 5: The study of disability must be values-basedThis principle is also one that is familiar to the mem-

bers of TASH. One of the changes that has occurredwithin the various domains of teaching and research isthat the notion of values-based research has becomewidely accepted, even within the hardest of sciences. Itis now standard practice to use and report social validitymeasures within traditionally quantitative and behav-ioral research (Wolf, 1978). Within disability studies,there have come more dramatic claims for advocacyas inseparable from progressive scholarship of any kind(Oliver, 1992, 1993). At either end of this spectrum

Disability Studies: What Is It? 75

of research practice, the legitimacy of some consid-eration of ethical implications within all approaches toknowledge about people with disabilities is accepted bymost scholars.

As with the principle of participation, however, theemphasis on values-based research quickly becomes com-plicated. For many within disability studies, the overt val-ues base takes the form of significant critical analysis oftraditional disability-oriented programs and professions.If "special education" and "rehabilitation" are not exactly"four-letter words," they are at least viewed skepticallyby some as signifiers of a formal service system that isknown mainly for its oppression and pathologization ofchildren and adults with disabilities (Heshusius, 2004;Ware, 2005). For those living their professional Uves inthe midst of these systems, critical of the failures whilestriving for reform, such a blanket dismissal of the helpingprofessions can seem dismissive of the real needs of realindividuals for the sake of ideological purity. At thesame time, the history of failed reforms and continueddisempowerment of people with disabilities and theirfamilies by the health and education systems makes theprospects of decades more of such incremental changesomewhat disheartening for many within disability studies.

What Difference Does It Make?Learning how and why to "imagine

disability otherwise"We use this phrase, borrowed from Ware (2003), be-

cause it represents the possibility of what the range ofwork in disabilities studies can offer us: a way to "imaginedisability otherwise." In her piece. Ware documents hercollaborative work with a group of high school teacherswho used writing from humanities-based disability stud-ies to reflect on and expand their knowledge about dis-ability, and—perhaps more importantiy—how to carrythis knowledge into their own teaching practice. Ware'suse of the phrase intended to make the point that therange of analyses and representations in disability stud-ies scholarship offers "ways of knowing" and theoreticalinsights with which disability service providers can exam-ine individual and societal attitudes, beliefs, and assump-tions. It is this kind of critical reflection. Ware argues, thatis required to shift the dominant narrative of disabilityin society that is reflected in person-fixing practices inthe helping professions.

Historically, the difference associated with disabilitywas seen as something that could be "remediated away"or fixed. Interventions in the applied fields have oftenresponded to the "problem" of disability and disabil-ity's interaction with classroom environments, commutiityliving, and work places. However, work in disability stud-ies approaches the construct that is labeled "disability" asmultifaceted and complex. Interdisciplinary work in thefield thus can allow us to develop a deeper and muchbroader understanding of disabuity as a part of ourshared, human experience, as well as position disability

as a difference that is a potential source of interest andintrigue. These new and re-conceptualizations frame dis-ability as a social construction and seek to address thesocial, cultural, historical, and material aspects of disabil-ity while at the same time acknowledging the physiolog-ical aspects of impaired function (Baglieri, Valle, Connor,& Gallagher, 2010). The shift in focus—to the limitationsof attitudes, environments, contexts, and practices (fromthat of individuals)—allows disability-related profession-als to actually reposition and redefine the "problem"traditionally associated with disability (see Biklen, 2007;Biklen & Burke, 2006; Nusbaum & Rodriguez, 2010) andsupport an understanding of disability as a natural part ofthe htiman experience.

Creating a cultural context for inclusive educationand community support

Changing how societies (and ourselves!) think aboutand respond to disability can create the cultural space inwhich inclusive approaches to education, employment,living, and commutiity can flourish. Inclusive contextsare not going to flourish if we do not actively strive tosupport the individuals with and for whom we work tolive the best lives of their choosing (something the TASHcommunity is very familiar with), as well as do this withina framework that views the label or demarcation ofdisabuity in very different ways. Therefore, inclusion andcommunity support catinot be based solely on "whatto do on Monday" and are not jtist a program or set ofpractices. The project of societal inclusion requires allinvolved to engage in (rather than avoid) difficult ques-tions about the nature of disability and the practicessurrounding the phenomenon of disability as well as toidentify and challenge the sites of exclusion for individ-uals with disabilities within our schools, workplaces, andcommunities (Allan, 2008; Brantlinger, 1997; Mintz, 2009;Slee, 2001; Slee & Allan, 2001).

Scholars in disability studies, whose work is situatedin education, use the analytic tool of deconstruction toexpose exclusionary forces that exist within "inclusive"practices and programs. Through deconstruction (e.g.,Slee & Allan, 2001), scholars argue that the dialoguenecessary to ask critical questions about the nature of"inclusive" practices is created. In their 2001 article, Sleeand Allan ask if a "theory of activism" (p. 185) couldfacilitate new types of research and knowledge produc-tion. Their question opens a dialogue in which the rolesof researchers without disabilities, activists, and indi-viduals with disabilities are examined and the politicalnature of inclusion can be more fully explored. This typeof dialogue is directly relevant to the TASH commu-nity, whose constituents cohere around a disability rightsagenda, which is inherently political. Furthermore, dis-ability studies scholars working in education (e.g., Allan,2008; Graham & Slee, 2008; Slee, 1997; Slee & Allan,2001, among others) conclude that the creation of in-clusive contexts is dependent on, first, deconstruction

76 Ferguson and Nusbaum

and, then, reconstruction of inclusive practice so thatnew ways of understanding disability can inform theoryand research—and thus create the cultural contexts forinclusive and community-based practice.

An example of such work is Mintz's (2009) unpub-lished doctoral dissertation, which used methods consis-tent with critical ethnography to uncover how teachers atan inclusive elementary school conceptualized "inclusiveeducation." Mintz found that participating teachers' con-ceptualizations of inclusive education were largely linkedto the technical implementation of a set of practices. Fur-thermore, teachers' ideas about inclusivity allowed themto situate the educational segregation of some studentsat their school within their ideas about what inclusiveeducation "was" (the site of data collection had been in-clusive for over 10 years, but was required by districtmandate to create a separate classroom to serve somestudents with disabilities in the year of data collection).Mintz concluded that inclusive education needs to betaught as both an ideological commitment, as well asunderstood in terms of the technical implementationof research-based practices. Finally, a general educatorteaching in an inclusive classroom in the documentary"Including Samuel" eloquently supports our point aboutinclusive communities by stating: "Inclusion doesn't createcommunity. Not having inclusion takes away from com-munity" (Habib, 2008).

Infusing the curriculum with disability studiesScholarship in disability studies provides a vehicle to

examine social attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions aboutdisability as well as understand disability as a socialand political category versus something to diagnose,identify, and label in individuals. Importantly, as Connor(2010, 2011) articulates, this scholarship interrogates con-ceptions of "normal" and in doing so "seeks to engageeveryone-teachers, practitioners, policymakers, scholarsand researchers.. .to rethink our perceptions of differenceand response to those differences" (p. 31). Thus, work inthe field not only broadens the knowledge base about dis-ability but also expands the epistemological boundariesof how this knowledge is produced. Situating the studyof disability within and across a range of curricular areasand including the lived-experience of disability allowsdisability-related practitioners to engage with others inways that go beyond acceptance or tolerance and thatcan foster critical reflection and understanding of the dis-ability experience and the social phenomena of disability.

In teacher education, disability is situated in programsspecifically designed to respond to disability (such ascommunication disorders or special education credentiai-ing programs). General education teacher preparationprograms often address disability in a course using a"disability-of-the-week" approach. This assumes that thecategorical markers and characteristics of various disabil-ity labels are the most salient ways of knowing aboutstudent disability in schools versus understanding struc-

tural, institutional, pedagogical, and attitudinal con-straints that prohibit students from accessing social andacademic experiences in schools (Young & Mintz, 2008).Brantlinger (2006) critiqued "the big glossies" (her termfor the mainstream textbooks used in the kinds of coursespreviously described) and the reliance on a standard, cate-gorical approach in most of these texts. Both textbooksand teacher education courses that focus on disabilitycategories, characteristics, and labels potentially reinforcenotions of disability as disorder or deficit and reinforcetraditional educational practices that respond to thesemarkers of difference by trying to fix them so that stu-dents with disabilities may become more like their non-disabled peers (Young & Mintz, 2008). They are foundedon the belief that these categories and characteristicsare the most salient features of the disability experienceand the most meaningful way to understand the positionof disability in schools. Brantlinger instead argues thatteacher education should adopt texts that address studentdifference in multidimensional, interdisciplinary, personal,and critical ways.

In contrast, Connor (2009) used narrative analysis repre-sented in political cartoons to convey the self-realizationsabout academics, social, and personal demands of threestudents labeled as leaming disabled in their transitionto coUege. Ferguson (2009) and Valle (2009) both situ-ate the perspectives and experiences of parents of chil-dren with disabilities within a historical context to morethoroughly understand the experience of families withthe special education system and professionals in thefield. Both authors discuss the power of professional andinstitutional discourse in the identity shaping of studentswith disabilities and the tensions and suspicions onboth sides of the professional/family relationship. Inher 2001 piece. Ware asks the question, "Dare we doDisability Studies?" In this work she describes her effortsusing humanities-based scholarly work in disability stud-ies with high school teachers to support their dialogueand critical reflection and begin to explore status quoassumptions about disability that underpin the educa-tional system. Collins (2003) and Smith (2007) are exam-ples of critical investigations into institutional structuresand pedagogical techniques that can either support orinhibit "ways of knowing" about student disability anddifference that sit in contrast to those found in main-stream texts.

Employing a disability studies perspective also offerstremendous richness in K-12 curriculum and creates mul-tiple avenues to trouble the normal-abnormal binary,which is central to problematizing the status of disabilityin many societal contexts. Addressing disability as curric-ulum and infusing disability into existing curricular areasis central to the task of "imagining disability otherwise"(Ware, 2003). The Center on Human Policy at SyracuseUniversity (http://www.disabilitystudiesforteachers.org/) of-fers a number of resotirces for teachers seeking disabilitystudies curriculum. Examples of how this might happen

Disability Studies: What Is It? 77

include (a) the disability rights movement as a part ofteaching in the social sciences about the civil rights move-ment; (b) the role of American and German eugenicsin disability history, and (c) disability as a meaningful andpowerful analysis tool in literature and art courses. TheCenter on Human Policy's Web site offers lesson plansand curricular resources that connect disability to stan-dards in various academic content areas as well as includelesson objectives, questions, resources, and other mate-rials. In their guide for teachers and teacher educators.Valle and Connor (2011) address the quesfion "how do Italk about disability in my classroom?" and encourageeducators to actively and specific challenge normalcy bymaking disability and its representafion a specific topic ofconversafion in K-12 classrooms. The authors talk aboutthe power of silence around the topic of disability andoffer some challenging questions to prompt educators toaddress disabuity, itself (rather than only the pedagogicalpracfices one should use to respond to it). VaUe andConnor argue that by addressing "the elephant in theroom" (p. 190), conversafions about disability have thepotenfial to dispel discomfort and shift the perspectiveabout disability from deficit or disorder to part of natural,human variafion and the foundation of a truly inclusiveschool community. Situafing disability within and acrossK-12 and higher education curriculum can further supportthe contribufion of multidisciplinary work from disabilitystudies to the efforts of inclusion across social contexts—specifically classrooms and educafion communifies wherestudents with and without disabilifies learn together.

Creating critical and reflective helping professionalsBaglieri et al. (2010) revisited a 2000 article in Reme-

dial and Special Education that idenfified five key dif-ferences between tradifional special education scholarsand those who saw special education as needing "substan-tial reconceptualizafion" (Andrews et al., 2000, p. 258).The fifth of the key differences between these two groupsin the original arficle identified the need for more self-reflective teachers who used ethical decision-makingin their work as being a key step in improving specialeducafion. The kind of crifical and reflective pracficeencouraged by those seeking to "reconceptualize" tradi-fional special education and, by extension, other applied,disability-related professions goes beyond consideringquesfions like "did the lesson I taught go well?" Rather,becoming a critical and reflective pracfitioner requiresthat we ask ourselves hard questions that attempt to getto the social meaning and social consequences of ourwork with individuals with disabilifies. Ware (2003) char-acterizes this kind of reflection as "belief in action," whichrequires that first we understand/know our beliefs aboutdisability and thus can begin to explore how our individ-ually held ideas are carried out in unconscious ways inour work with individuals with disabilities. This also re-quires that we (those of us who idenfify as nondisabled)willingly examine our nondisabled privilege and power

and acfively ufilize strategies to release the power givento us because of our "expert" and/or nondisabled statusto undo the ableism that is pervasive in the applied,disability-related fields. Finally, Ware (2001) offers threequestions for disability-related practifioners that can beginthe process of critical reflection:

What can I understand about the identity of others whoappear different from myself?

What can I learn about my own identity through under-standing the identities of others?

Can disability ever represent anything other than a nega-tive image? (p. 114)

Scholarly, interdisciplinary work in disabuity studies pro-vides many vehicles with which practifioners and scholarscan begin to develop new meanings about disability andcrifically examine issues of access, employment, educa-tion, sexuality, and representation as well as to ufilizestrategies for disability empowerment and acfivism. By in-fusing both professional and K-12 curriculum with thesenew and re-conceptualizafions of disabuity representedin disability studies, questions such as those posed byWare might begin to be answered.

Disability studies needs the TASH communityThus far, much of our focus has been on the contri-

bufions that disability studies can make to efforts to rec-onceptualize policy and pracfice within traditional fieldsof special educafion and human services. We strongly be-lieve that progressive organizafions such as TASH needto incorporate the new generation of scholarship that isemerging from interdisciplinary research and conceptualanalysis in disability studies. TASH needs disabuity stud-ies. However, we also strongly believe that disability stud-ies needs TASH. Or, at least, the inquiry within disabuitystudies needs to be confronted with the issues and experi-ences of an organizafion with a specific interest in peoplewith significant intellectual disabilities.

While the situation has improved over the last decadeor so, it is still true that certain types of disability iden-tifies are less commonly the focus of disability studiesresearch. Among those categories of impairment less wellrepresented within the disability studies literature is intel-lectual disability generally, and significant intellectual dis-ability more specifically. The reasons for this imbalanceare multiple and debated. Simplisfic descripfions of socialconstruction both inside and outside disability studieshave made it seem somehow less applicable to people withthe most significant cognifive impairments. People withphysical or sensory impairments led the way in early de-mands for recogniüon and inclusion in all branches of re-search on the experience and meaning of their disabilifies(Fine & Asch, 1988; Oliver, 1992, 1993). Crifics of socialconstrucfion (Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2011), on the otherhand, often use the seemingly overwhelming impairmentsof significant inteüectual disability as the best example

78 Ferguson and Nusbaum

of an objective reality trumping whatever cultural contin-gencies might contribute to the meaning of less pervasivedisabilities. Disability studies, ftom such perspectives, maybave something to contribute to the exploration of otherdisabilities, but not to those where the limitations are soclearly individual rather than social.

Members of TASH know better. It is essential thattheir familiarity with the experiences and contributionsof people with significant intellectual disabilities to ourdeeper understanding of buman differences be broughtto a larger audience of disability studies scholars whohave little contact witb such individuals. The processhas already begun. Parent narratives by scbolars withinthe humanities have started to illustrate how their lifeexperiences can make valuable contributions to the dis-ability studies literature (Berubé, 1996; Gabbard, 2011;Kittay, 1999; Savarese, 2007). Beyond sucb accounts,however, disabuity studies needs to learn more aboutthe possibilities of inclusive policies for those with eventhe most significant disabilities. Notions of supportedemployment, self-directed services, natural settings, andinformal supports need to be shared with an approachto policy analysis that concentrates on concepts of in-dependent living and personal attendant care. TASHneeds to help disability studies as a field to expand andinvigorate its conceptual purview beyond its earliestinterests and concerns.

Teaching the TensionsWe would like to conclude tbis paper with a brief dis-

cussion of tbe complications tbat are created wben adisability studies perspective is introduced into disability-related applied fields, such as special education or reha-bilitation. We argue that this space—tbe place where thecomplications and tensions lie—is the place where itbecomes possible for disability to acbieve truly full in-clusion into our society. For example, contrasting dis-ability studies with theory and practice in traditionaldisability-related fields allows us to understand the ten-sion between giving students tbe services they need,while not subscribing these students to a future of socialand economic dependence (Young & Mintz, 2008).This place of tension between tbe goals of traditional,disabuity-related fields allows us to ask questions:

Is it possible to minimize impairment by focusing on abil-ity and celebrating disability?

Can we acbieve both full inclusion in all aspects of life, andat tbe same time foster a positive disability identity?

Disability studies and the enormous range of work in thefield—historical, literary, artistic, philosophical, sociolog-ical, and beyond—attempts to make visible tbe aspectsand nuances of disability that remain largely invisiblewithin tbe applied professions, in their focus on reduc-ing evidence of disability within an individual student or

client. The tensions exposed by disability studies helpus shift the conversation ftom being "about" an indi-vidual's impairment to an understanding of disabilitythrough the range of lenses tbat exist in such a multi-disciplinary field.

Finally and importantly, scholars in disability studiesbelieve strongly that the voice of individuals with dis-abilities is a necessity in the production of research andscholarly work and is central to the epistemology ofdisability. As a field, disability studies recognizes andprivileges the knowledge derived from the lived expe-riences of people with disabilities. Whenever possible,scholarly work in the field conducted by nondisabledresearcbers adberes to an emancipatory stance, meaningthat researchers work with participants as coresearchers("participant-researchers" rather than "subjects"; Connor,2009). Young and Mintz (2008) point to one of tbe ten-sions; then, inherent in employing a disability studiesperspective on researcb about disability in the appliedfields by asking, is it possible to respect the knowledgegained by expertise wbile at the same time critiquingthe way expert knowledge is used on a day-to-day basis(p. 500)?

We end with an articulation of tbese tensions—questions that are not easily answered and that perhapsare best left open for revisiting tbrough our work. Howcan the principles and perspectives of constructivismand behaviorism interact with each otber in the supportof children and adults with significant intellectual dis-abilities for sbared goals of social justice and inclusivecommunities? Can pluralistic approaches to researchacknowledge and appreciate the different traditions ofinquiry while sharing goals of rigor and merit to eval-uate our varied claims to generate knowledge? Can anintellectual home be found (or created) where abstrac-tions and theoretical analysis are juxtaposed with policyand practice without either claiming priority of placeover the other?

It is our belief tbat TASH is uniquely positioned toprovide a constructive context witbin wbicb to explorethese questions. It can be a professional context witbinwbicb different perspectives can rub elbows ratber tbanbang heads. That, to us, is the ultimate promise of dis-ability studies to people witb significant disabilities andtheir families.

References

Allan,! (2008). Rethinking inclusive education: The philosophersof difference in practice. The Netherlands: Springer.

Anastasiou, D., & Kauffman, J. M. (2011). A social construc-tionist approach to disability: Implications for special educa-tion. Exceptional Children, 77, 367-384.

Andrews, J. E., Camine, D. W., Coutinho, M. J., Edgar, E. B.,Fomess, S. R., Fuchs, L. S., et al. (2000). Bridging the specialeducation divide. Remedial and Special Education, 21,258-260.

Artiles, A. J. (2003). Special education's changing identity: Para-doxes and dilemmas in view of culture and space. HarvardEducational Review, 73, 164-202.

Disability Studies: What Is It? 79

Baglieri, S., Valle, J. W., Connor, D. X, & Gallagher, D. J. (2010).Disability studies in education: The need for a plurality of per-spectives on disability. Remedial and Special Education. Pub-lished online March 5,2010. DOI: 10.1177/0741932510362200

Barton, L. (1996). Sociology and disability: Some emergingissues. In L. Barton (Ed.), Disability and society: Emergingissues and insights (pp. 3-17). New York, NY: Longman.

Baynton, D. C. (2001). Disability and the justification ofinequality in American history. In P. K. Longmore &L. Umansky (Eds.), The new disabilily history: Americanperspectives (pp. 33—57). New York, NY: New York Univer-sity Press.

Berubé, M. (1996). Life as we know it: A father, a family, andan exceptional child. New York, NY: Pantheoti.

Biklen, D. (2007). A disability studies frame for inclusion edu-cation. Paper presented at Second City Conference on Dis-ability Studies in Education, Chicago, IL.

Biklen, D , & Bogdan, R. (1977). Media portrayals of disabledpeople: A study in stereotypes. Interracial Books for ChildrenBulletin, 8, 6-7.

Biklen, D , & Burke, J. (2006). Presuming competence. Equityand Excellence in Education, 39, 166-175.

Bogdan, R., & Biklen, D. (1977). Handicapism. Social Policy, 7,14-19.

Bogdan, R., & Taylor, S. (1976). The judged, not the judges: Aninsider's view of mental retardation. American Psychologist,31, 47-52.

Brantlinger, E. A. (1997). Using ideology: Cases of nonrecogni-tion of the politics of research and practice in special education.Review of Educational Research, 67, 425-459. Retrieved fromhttp://www.jstor.org.

Brantlinger, E. A. (2006). Who benefits from special education?Remediating (fixing) other people's children. Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Carey, A. C. (2009). On the margins of citizenship: Intellectualdisability and civil rights in twentieth-century America. Phila-delphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Collins, K. M. (2003). Ability profiling and school failure: One child'sstruggle to be seen as competent. New York, NY: Routledge.

Connor, D. J. (2009). Creating cartoons as representation:Visual narratives of college students with disabilities. Educa-tional Media International, 46, 185-205.

Connor, D. J. (2010, April). Diversifying "diversity": Contem-plating dis/ability at the table(s) of social justice and multicul-tural education. Paper presented at the American EducationalResearch Association, Denver, CO.

Connor, D. J. (2011). Questioning "normal": Seeing children firstand labels second. School Talk: Between the Ideal and the RealWorld of Teaching, 16, 1-3.

Connor, D. X, Gabel, S. L., GaUagher, D. X, & Morton, M. (2008).Disability studies and inclusive education—Implications fortheory, research, and practice. International Journal of Inclu-sive Education, 12, 441^57.

Crutchfield, S., & Epstein, M. (Eds.) (2000). Points of contact:Disability, art, and culture. Ann Arbor, MI: University ofMichigan Press.

Cushing, P., & Smith, T. (2009). A multinational review of English-language disability studies degrees and courses. Disability Stud-ies Quarterly, 29. Retrieved Augtist 9, 2009, from http://www.dsq-sds.org/issue/view/41.

Danforth, S., &. Gabel, S. L. (Eds.) (2006). Vital questions facingdisability studies in education. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Davis, L. (Ed.) (2010). The disability studies reader (3rd ed.).New York, NY: Routledge.

Devlieger, P, Rusch, F., & Pfeiffer, D. (Eds.) (2003). Rethinkingdisability: The emergence of new definitions, concepts and com-munities. Philadelphia, PA: Garant Press.

Docherty, D , Hughes, R., Phillips, P., Corbett, D , Regan, B.,Barber, A., & Izzidien, S. (2005). This is what we think. In

D. Goodley & G. Van Hove (Eds.), Another disability studiesreader? (pp. 29-49). Philadelphia, PA: Garant.

Edgerton, R. B. (1967). The cloak of competence: Stigma in thelives of the mentally retarded. Berkeley, CA: University ofCalifornia Press.

Ferguson, P. M. (2009). The doubting dance: Contributionsto a history of parent/professional interactions in early 20thcentury America. Research and Practice for Persons with SevereDisabilities, 33,48-58.

Ferguson, P M., & Asch, A. (1988). Lessons from life: Personaland parental perspectives on school, childhood, and disability.In D. P. Biklen, D. L. Ferguson, & A. Ford (Eds.), Schoolingand disability: Eighty-eighth yearbook of the National Societyfor the Study of Education, part II (pp. 108-140). Chicago, IL:University of Chicago Press.

Ferguson, P M., Ferguson, D. L., & Taylor, S. X (1992). Con-clusion: The future of interpretivism in disability studies. InP. M. Ferguson, D. L. Ferguson, & S. X Taylor (Eds.), Inter-preting disability: A qualitative reader (pp. 295-302). New York,NY: Teachers College Press.

Fine, M., & Asch, A. (Eds.) (1988). Women with disabilities:Essays in psychology, culture, and politics. Philadelphia, PA:Temple University Press.

Finger, A. (2006). Elegy for a disease: A personal and culturalhistory of polio. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.

Fries, K. (Ed.) (1997). Staring back: The disability experiencefrom the inside out. New York, NY: Plume Books.

Gabbard, C. (2011). Odd quirks. In M. R. Marotte, P. M.Reynolds, & R. X Savarese (Eds.), Papa PhD: Essays onfatherhood by men in the academy (pp. 217-223). NewBrunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Gabel, S. L. (Ed.) (2005). Disability studies in education: Read-ings in theory and method. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Garland-Thomson, R. (2009). Staring: How we look. New York,NY: Oxford University Press.

Goffmati, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation ofmental patients and other inmates. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiledidentity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Goodley, D., & Lawthom, R. (2006). Preface. In D. Goodley& R. Lawthom (Eds.), Disability and psychology: Criticalintroductions and reflections (pp. xv-xvii). New York, NY:Palgrave Macmillan.

Graham, L. X, & Slee, R. (2008). Inclusion? In S. L. Gabel &S. Danforth (Eds.), Disability and the politics of education: Aninternational reader (pp. 81-100). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Habib, D. (2008). Including Samuel [DVD]. Available fromhttp://www.includingsamuel.com.

Harry, B., & Klingner, X (2006). Why are so many minoritystudents in special education?: Understanding race and disabil-ity in schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Heshusius, L. (2004). The Newtonian mechanistic paradigm,special education, and contours of alternatives: An overview.In D. Gallagher, L. Heshusius, R. P Iano, & T. M. Skrtic (Eds.),Challenging orthodoxy in special education: Dissenting voices(pp. 29-59). Denver, CO: Love Publishing.

Hevey, D. (1992). The creatures time forgot: Photography anddisability imagery. London, UK: Routledge.

Hillyer, B. (1993). Feminism and disability. Norman, OK: Univer-sity of Oklahoma Press.

Johnson, H. M. (2005). Too late to die young: Nearly true talesfrom a life. New York, NY: Henry Holt.

Kiger, G, & Hey, S. C. (Eds.) (1989). Emerging issues in im-pairment and disability studies. Salem, OR: The Society forDisability Studies and Willamette University.

Kittay, E. F (1999). Love's labor: Essays in women, equality anddependency. New York, NY: Routledge.

Kittay, E. F, & Carlson, L. (Eds.) (2010). Cognitive disability and itschallenge to moral philosophy. Maldon, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

80 Ferguson and Nusbaum

Kudlick, C. J. (2003). Disability history: Why we need another"other." American Historical Review, 108, 763-793.

Linton, S. (1998). Claiming disability: Knowledge and identity.New York, NY: New York University Press.

Linton, S. (2006). My body politic: A memoir. Ann Arbor, MI:University of Michigan Press.

Longmore, P. K., & Umansky, L. (Eds.) (2001). The new disabil-ity history: American perspectives. New York, NY: New YorkUniversity Press.

Losen, D. J., & Orfield, G. (Eds.) (2002). Racial inequity in specialeducation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lubet, A. (2010). Music, disability, and society. Philadelphia,PA: Temple University Press.

McRuer, R. (2006). Crip theory: Cultural signs ofqueerness anddisability. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Mercer, G. (2002). Emancipatory disabuity research. In C Barnes,M. Oliver, & L. Barton (Eds.), Disability studies today(pp. 228-249). Maiden, MA: Blackwell.

Mintz (Nusbaum), E. (2009). Vulnerable to exclusion: A dis-ability studies perspective on practices in an inclusive school(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California,Berkeley.

Mitchell, D. T., & Snyder, S. L. (2000). Narrative prosthesis:Disability and the dependencies of discourse. Ann Arbor, MI:University of Michigan Press.

Molina, N. (2006). MedicaUzing the Mexican: Immigration, race,and disability in the early-twentieth-century United States.Radical History Review, 94, 22-37.

Nusbaum, E., & Rodriguez, J. (2010, March). Using a capacity-building perspective to redefine student "problems." Paperpresented at the meeting of the Califomia Chapter of TASH,Burlingame, CA.

O'Brien, P, & Sullivan, M. (Eds.) (2005). Allies in emancipation:Shifting from providing service to being of support. SouthMelbourne, Australia: Thomson Dunmore Press.

Oliver, M. (1992). Changing the social relations of researchproduction. Disability, Handicap & Society, 7, 101-114.

Oliver, M. (1993). Re-defining disability: A challenge to re-search. In J. Swain, V. Finkelstein, S. French, & M. Oliver(Eds.), Disabling barriers—enabling environments (pp. 61-67).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Sandahl, C, & Auslander, P. (2005). Bodies in commotion:Disability and performance. Ann Arbor, MI: University ofMichigan Press.

Savarese, R. (2007). Reasonable people: A memoir of autismand adoption. New York, NY: Other Press.

Schriner, K. (2001). A disability studies perspective on employ-ment issues and policies for disabled people. In G. L. Albrecht,K D. Seelman, & M. Bury (Eds.), Handbook of disabilitystudies (pp. 642-662). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Seelman, K. D. (2001). Science and technology: Is disability amissing factor? In G. L. Albrecht, K. D. Seelman, & M. Bury(Eds.), Handbook of disability studies (pp. 663-692). ThousandOaks, CA: Sage.

Shakespeare, T. (2006). Disability rights and wrongs. New York,NY: Routledge.

Shapiro, J. P. (1993). No pity: People with disabilities forging anew civil rights movement. New York, NY: Times Books.

Sherry, M. (2006). If only I had a brain: Deconstructing braininjury. New York, NY: Routledge.

Siebers, T. (2008). Disability theory. Ann Arbor, MI: Universityof Michigan Press.

Slee, R. (1997). Imported or important theory? Sociologicalinterrogations of disablement and special education. British

Journal of Sociology of Education, 18, 407-419. Retrievedfrom http://www.istor.org.

Slee, R. (2001). Social justice and the changing directions ineducational research: The case of inclusive education. Inter-nationalJournal of Inclusive Education, 5, 173-191.

Slee, R., & Allan, J. (2001). Excluding the included: A reconsid-eration of inclusive education. International Studies in Sociologyof Education, 11,173-191.

Smith, T. J. (2007). Teaching the children we fear: Stories fromthe front. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc.

Snyder, S. L , Brueggemann, B. J., & Garland-Thomson, R. (Eds.)(2002). Disability studies: Enabling the humanities. New York,NY: Modem Language Association of America.

Society for Disability Studies, (n.d.). SDS mission. Retrievedfrom http://www.disstudies.org/about/niission.

Taylor, S. J. (2006). Before it had a name: Exploring the his-torical roots of disability studies in education. In S. Danforth& S. L. Gabel (Eds.), Vital questions facing disability studiesin education (pp. xiii-xxiii). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Taylor, S. J., & Zubal-Ruggieri, R. (2009). Academic programsin disability studies. Syracuse, NY: Center on Human Policy,Syracuse University. Retrieved from http://disabilitystudies.syr.edta/resources/programsinds.aspx.

Thomas, C. (1999). Female forms: Experiencing and understand-ing disability. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.

Valle, J. W. (2009). What mothers say about special educa-tion from the 196O's to the present. New York, NY: PalgraveMacmillan.

Valle, J. W., & Connor, D. J. (2011). Rethinking disability: A dis-ability studies approach to inclusive practices. New York, NY:McGraw HUl.

Walzer, M. (1987). Interpretation and social criticism. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

Ware, L. (2001). Writing, identity and the other: Dare wedo disability studies? Journal of Teacher Education, 52,107-123.

Ware, L. (2003). Working past pity: What we make of disabilityin schools. In J. Allan (Ed.), Inclusion, participation, anddemocracy: What is the purpose? (pp. 117-137).

Ware, L. (2005). Many possible futures, man different direc-tions: Merging critical special education and disability studies.In S. L. Gabel (Ed.), Disability studies in education: Read-ings in theory and method (pp. 103-124). New York, NY:Peter Lang.

Wolf, M. M. (1978). Social validity: The case for subjectivemeasurement or how applied behavioral analysis is find-ing its heart. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 11,203-214.

World Health Organization. (2001). International classificationof functioning, disability and health: Short version. Geneva,Switzerland: World Health Organization.

Young, K. S., & Mintz, E. A. (2008). A comparison: Difference,dependency, and stigmatization in special education and dis-ability studies. In S. Gabel & S. Danforth (Eds.), Disabilityand the politics of education (pp. 499-515). New York, NY:Peter Lang.

Zola, I. K. (1982a). Missing pieces: A chronicle of living with adisability. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Zola, I. (Ed.) (1982b). Ordinary lives: Voices of disability anddisease. Cambridge, MA: Applewood Press.

Received: December 8, 2011Final Acceptance: January 20, 2012Editor in Charge: John McDonnell

Copyright of Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities is the property of TASH and its content

may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express

written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.