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Revisiting Disability Studies

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Abstract

This chapter highlights the marked changes in paradigms for defining disability from the individual approach or, more specifically, the medical model to the social approach. This facilitates understanding the diverse expressions and manifestations of disability being perceived predominantly as medical or biological or the social approach theories which were found to be more concerned with structural and material conditions, culture, and representation. Attempt was also made to highlight certain important issues as well as shortcomings existing in the area of research concerning visual impairment thus urging the need for undertaking more in-depth and extensive research.

Caged

I am so lonely, so very lonely.

Nobody really listens to me, no one seems to care.

I am like an animal in a cage,

Kicking and scratching,

Longing to be free of the iron bars

Which lock me in. People smile as they go by,

Admiring my tricks and saying how smart I am

For an animal.

They look in through the bars of my cage

And I turn and look at them.

But no one opens the door.

They are afraid to let me out.

They don’t want to get hurt.

There are those who let me out.

I have grown to love them very much.

The rest of them just turn their head and go to their

Separate ways.

If some of them would only get to know me,

They would see what I can do.

Please unlock my cage!

(Excerpted from Martin and Hoben, 1977, p.61).

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Correspondence to Ranjita Dawn .

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Dawn, R. (2018). Revisiting Disability Studies. In: Educational Achievement and Psychosocial Transition in Visually Impaired Adolescents . SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6644-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6644-3_1

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