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Subject Psychology

Paper No and Title Paper No 3: Qualitative Methods

Module No and Title Module No 32: Considerations in the Study of Disability

Module Tag PSY_P3_M32

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Learning Outcomes
2. Introduction
3. Defining Disability
3.1 Challenges and Issues
4. Filling the lacunae though Qualitative Understanding
4.1 The lived Reality
4.2 Playing around empathy
4.3 The transformative research
4.4 Seeing beyond the social labels
5. Essential Skills
6. Limitations
7. References

Psychology Paper no.3: Qualitative Methods

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1. Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you shall be able to

 Conceptualize disability
 Learn about the challenges to discuss disability
 Appreciate qualitative method as an effective research tool for people with disability
 Comment on the need to emphasize social justice
 Illustrate obstacles researchers might face to maximize involvement of people with
disabilities in research
 Limitations of qualitative methods on disability research.

2. Introduction
“How a society treats its disabled is the true measure of a civilization”
-Chen Guangchen
The world indeed has come a long way in its interpretation of the ‘disabled’. On the third day of
December, every year millions of people come together and stand united to encourage better
understanding of people with disability, raise awareness about the rights, dignity and welfare of
the disabled and to promote a holistic inclusion and integration of disabled persons in to every
aspect of life raging from economic, political, and social to cultural. This day is marked as the
International Day for People with Disability.

According to WHO, roughly about 15 percent of the world population accounts for people with
disability. In numbers this turns out to an enormously large group of around 1 billion people.
Henceforth, also called as the world’s largest minority. About 80 percent of these live in the
developing countries. The World Bank estimates that the 20 percent of the poorest people in the
world suffer from some kind of disability and often are the most disadvantaged group of their
own communities.
Disability coupled with gender (women and girls) has a manifold increase in disadvantage and
social exclusion. Women and girls with disabilities are often abused. In a small 2004 survey
research in Orissa, India carried out by the organization Disabled World suggests, “Virtually all
of the women and girls with disabilities were beaten at home. 25 percent of women with
intellectual disabilities had been raped and 6 percent of women with disabilities had been forcibly
sterilized.” The UNICEF estimates around 30 percent of the street youths have some for disability
or the other.
The quality of life with disability is adversely affected. About 90 percent of children with
disability in developing countries are deprived of primary school education let alone enrolment in
higher studies (UNESCO). According to UNDP, the global literacy rates in adults with

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disabilities are as low as 3 percent for men and around 1 percent for
women with disabilities (according to 1998 UNDP study).
Unemployment is another area where persons with disability are hugely disadvantaged and are
often unable to hold a stable economic foundation. This results from a mentality that disabled
people are unequipped or cannot work. According to International Labour Organization 80
percent of disabled people in the developing countries are unemployed. In India, where around 6
percent of the population is ‘disabled’, employment rates a extremely low and financial needs are
unmet. According to a survey carried out by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for
Disabled People, in spite of 3 percent reservation in government jobs granted by the People with
Disabilities Act, only a handful have managed to grab this opportunity. Figuratively, of 70
million persons with disability in India only 100, 000 are working as government employees.
While the above statistics gives us a glimpse into the challenges of the disabled world, defining
disability in itself is a herculean task. The next section discusses the concept of disability and the
challenges to conceptualize it.

3. Defining Disability
During the Middle Ages Disability was conceptualized in meta-physical terms. People had a
remarkable different lens to view people who were “incomplete” or in some “demonic
possession”. The physical and behavioral differences were often subjected to inhuman treatment
and social exclusion so much so that there are records where exorcism (….) was employed to turn
the person back to ‘normal’.

A major paradigmatic shift was observed to understand disability when there was a quest for
knowing underlying biological causes for physical and mental differences. This gave rise to the
modern conceptualizations of the term “disability”. The era of European enlightenment
emphasized on knowledge derived from reason and much value was placed findings of the natural
sciences. This gave impetus to the one of the most prevalent discourse on disability that is the
clinical or medical model of disability. The WHO in 1980 described a framework for disability
using three terms:
 Impairment
 Handicap
 Disability
Impairment refers to any physical deformities oss or abnormality of physical bodily structure or
function, of logic-psychic origin, or physiological or anatomical origin
Handicap refers to the disadvantaged condition deriving from impairment or disability limiting a
person performing a role considered normal in respect of their age, sex and social and cultural
factors
Disability refers to any limitation or function loss deriving from impairment that prevents the
performance of an activity in the time-lapse considered normal for a human being.

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The Medical Model of Disability

Drawing from the above according to WHO ““Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering
impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in
body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in
executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an
individual in involvement in life situations.“
The emphasis of the above thus lays on the intrinsic locality of disability. However, with growing
emphasis on the environmental factors, it is rather debatable if disability is within or without. The
social dialogue highlights the barriers present in the disabled person’s environment.

Locating disability with out: The social model of disability

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According to Grant Carson (2009) the social model of disability discusses the barriers created for
the disabled people as they have restricted access to the social resources. Also it discusses the
negative attitudes and discrimination that the non-disabled people have towards the disabled. The
two combined together aggregates the handicap and discomfort experienced by these individuals.

Disability is therefore just not a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon that reflects
interaction between physically different features of a person’s body and features of the society in
which he or she exists.

International symbol of access

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Disability: A shadow of ability?

Be it the medical or the social model of disability, one of the essential foundations of our
understanding of the term disability is its constant comparison to the ‘norm’. The term ‘Dis’-
Ability in itself encompasses that what is ‘abled’. Something that is ‘normal’ in all its
‘proportionalities’ and ‘completeness’. Henceforth, to construct disabled there are dire needs to
build physical and social norms.
Much of the understanding that we have today originates from the plethora of positivist empirical
researches that have been done on the disabled individuals. The quantitative paradigm is well
equipped to address the dichotomy of what is normal and abnormal or abled and disabled.
Following are the advantages of using quantitative methods in disability research
 Helps in creation of categories
 Empirical estimation of number of people affected
 Development of wide-scale interventions

Normal Curve depicting levels of intellectual ability/disability

However the quantitative paradigm often fails to address the challenges to define disability as it
differs from culture to culture also from one individual to the other. With a generalized viewpoint
on disability, little light is reflected on the lived experiences of people with disability. The
following section addresses the challenges and obstacles to define and conceptualize disability.

3.1 Challenges to define disability

Disability is difficult to define as it is not merely absence of abilities or skills but represents a
multi-dimensional concept with both objective and subjective characteristics. When interpreted
as an illness or impairment, disability is seen as fixed in an individual’s body or mind. When
interpreted as a social construct, disability is seen in terms of the socio-economic, cultural and
political disadvantages resulting from an individual’s exclusion.
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One of the major challenges to define disability is the diverse and

different connotation it holds form one culture to the other. “In an international context,
discourse on cultural beliefs and values about disability have influenced services available to
people with disabilities across countries and localities” (Mallory et al., 1993; Mutua & Dimitrov,
2001; Teferra, 1993). What might be a norm in one society can be looked down upon in other.

4. Filling the lacunae through Qualitative understanding

Qualitative methods in contrast to quantitative researches are interested in knowing how of things
that mere the cause-effect relationship. This paradigm of research believes in the fact that there is
no one single truth but in existence of different realties. Each defined by the experiences of the
experiencer. Thus the focal point of the qualitative researches is realities as they lived by the
individuals- the lived experiences. This philosophical viewpoint challenges the viewpoint of
positivist socially oriented data and “demands an alternative set of methods for exploring
people’s perception, one that is contextually and culturally related. It therefore, seeks to find the
answer to questions about the meaning and individual interpretation of life. It is used to answer
open questions relating to peoples' attitudes and beliefs, in a given contextual setting. “(Hartley
and Muhit 2003)
The five traditions of qualitative methods namely narrative, phenomenological, grounded, case
study and ethnography aid a researcher to inquire in depth and enable him to build insight bridges
to various facets of disability.

Advantages of qualitative research methods

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4.1 The Lived reality

Qualitative methods ‘interact’. They appreciate and highlight subjectivity just as the in which we
experience reality. Every individual has his own version of reality that can be radically different
from what the other might be experiencing. The Positivist approach finds subjectivity as
erroneous and emphasize on the value-free objective understanding of phenomenon. In contrast
the lives of individuals are highly value-driven and thus it would not be a good idea to address
humans devoid of values in a experimentally created vacuum.
Human race is diverse and so are the disabled communities. Unifying our understanding of
disability under one category would only present the tip of the icebergs. Addressing lived realities
where an individual’s beliefs and actions intersect with culture can thus fathom the challenges
of culturally conceptualizing disability. Something, which the two models discussed above failed
to do. Disability research must challenge oppression, but it is not easy to engage with such lofty
obligations in the political world of everyday research.

4.2 The Transformative Research

According to Mertens, Sullivan and Stace (2011) qualitative methods can promote transformative
research for social justice. They quote an excerpt from New Zealand Ministry of Health (2001)
that emphasizes the need to conceptualize disability. According to them :
“Disability is not something people have. What people have are impairments. They may be
physical, sensory, neurological, psychiatric intellectual and other impairments. Disability is
process which happens when one group of people create barriers by designing a world only
for their way of living, taking no account of impairments other people have”

The above notion leads to many psychological and social presumptions that may adversely affect
people who do not fit with the majority. As simple as, roadside constructions are usually abled-
friendly instead of including the disabled as part of the whole.
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The qualitative methods by their virtue of highlighting that, which cannot

be generalized can bring forth the realities of hardships and struggle experienced by the disabled
communities. This can prove as transformative and emancipatory as the investigators can
negotiate within and among disability groups to establish appropriate processes to consider
and determine criteria for deciding how to meet cultural imperatives, social needs and priorities.
Being aware of critical diversities researchers can identify challenges that the majority groups can
face while dealing with people with disability This is important as it can provide us with perilous
insights while policy making.
According to Mertens (2011) disability communities are also threatened by eugenic potential of
developments in genetics and other technology. This can neuro-type and genetically homogenize
our understanding of disorders and disabilities. Thus, rejecting the eccentrically diverse and
creative experiences of people.
Collaborating with disabled people also lead to feelings of self-worth and esteem. Qualitative
methods thus enable researchers and participants to fully realize human rights and social justice.
However, according Mertens, Sullivan and Stace (2011) the transformative paradigm of
qualitative methods provides a better way to develop training and therapeutic programs.

4.4 Seeing beyond the social labels

The quantitative paradigm firmly believes in creating labels that at times can be existentially and
emotionally demeaning. Especially the term disability refers to the incomplete and inferior self as
compared to others. The emotional loadings of such labels can thus further reduce the efficiency
and may also result in social exclusion. On the other hand, as the qualitative methods look for
subjective perceptions of people and their lived realities, one can appreciate differences in a better
manner. Appreciating diversity again is emancipatory and transformative. The research methods
such as the ethnography or case study interviews not only enable a researcher to look at
participants as they are rooted in context but critically comment on the social-ills and handicaps
as they are culturally constructed.
Hence, adopting a qualitative lens can turn a disabled to a differently abled person with his
unique qualities. This reconceptualization is ethically and morally more appropriate than the
former as it looks beyond the stereotypes.

5. Empathy: Feeling their stories

Qualitative studies allow the researchers to have an empathetic stance. An empathic stance in
interviewing seeks vicarious understanding without judgment (neutrality) by showing openness,
sensitivity, respect, aware- ness, and responsiveness; in observation it means being fully present
(mindfulness). (Patton, 2010)

Empathy can be defined as feeling and knowing as the other feels and knows. In disability
researches empathy can help build the relationship and trust between the researcher and the
participant. Thus bridging the gap left by the quantitative studies.

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Also feeling the stories as they narrate their lived experiences can be
therapeutic, further increasing the authenticity with which research can be carried out.

6. Limitations of Qualitative methods in disability research

The qualitative paradigm offers a lucrative package over holding a positivist viewpoint on
disability. Nonetheless, one should not be restricted by the utopian outlook and should be able to
critique and address the challenges that come to the forth on adopting a method for the research.
By and large qualitative methods highlight the subjectivities and provide us with a deeper
understanding of the lived realities of people who are physically, mentally or socially different
from the majority. However, the five traditions of the qualitative research that is the narrative,
grounded, phenomenological, case study and ethnography highlight and depend heavily on the
oral descriptions by the participants. Language thus plays an essential role in carrying out these
researches. A researcher might experience or encounter situations where communications are
neither easy nor effective. Therefore, subjects who are more articulate in their narrative
descriptions have an added advantage putting forth their stories. On the other hand people with
disabilities especially those with speech and hearing impairments may fall short on this.
Furthermore, persons with mental deficits such as severe mental retardation or autism again may
not be as articulate and as good an orator as compared to people with normal mental functioning.
Hence, ambiguities in the languages need to be addressed carefully.

7. Summary
 According to WHO, roughly about 15 percent of the world population accounts for
people with disability.
 During the Middle Ages Disability was conceptualized in meta-physical terms. People
had a remarkable different lens to view people who were “incomplete” or in some
“demonic possession”.
 A major paradigmatic shift was observed to understand disability when there was a quest
for knowing underlying biological causes for physical and mental differences.
 Disability is difficult to define as it is not merely absence of abilities or skills but
represents a multi-dimensional concept with both objective and subjective
characteristics. When interpreted as an illness or impairment, disability is seen as fixed in
an individual’s body or mind.
 Qualitative methods in contrast to quantitative researches are interested in knowing how
of things that mere the cause-effect relationship. This paradigm of research believes in
the fact that there is no one single truth but in existence of different realties.
 Human race is diverse and so are the disabled communities. Unifying our understanding
of disability under one category would only present the tip of the icebergs.
 According to Mertens (2011) disability communities are also threatened by eugenic
potential of developments in genetics and other technology. This can neuro-type and
genetically homogenize our understanding of disorders and disabilities.
 Qualitative studies allow the researchers to have an empathetic stance. An empathic
stance in interviewing seeks vicarious understanding without judgment (neutrality) by

Psychology Paper no.3: Qualitative Methods

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showing openness, sensitivity, respect, aware- ness, and

responsiveness; in observation it means being fully present (mindfulness). (Patton, 2010)

Psychology Paper no.3: Qualitative Methods

MODULE No.32:Considerations in the Study of Disability