I.

INTRODUCTION

Disability is percived in many differnernt ways from time to time and from society to society.
This perception is clearly subjective than any other thing and hence we cannot actually say
which perspective is right or which is wrong. But to solve the multidimesional problems that
disabled people face it becomes a real neccessity to take differnernt perspectives in to account.
These different perspectives are symbolified by the so called models. These models try to give us
some insight about the cause for disability, the misconception about disability, the attitude of
“normal” people towards disabled people, the influence of the society on the disabled group, and
so many more. So without further ado lets look at some of the models.

1. RELIGIOUS MODEL

The religious model of disability, also known as the moral model of disability, perhaps is the
oldest model of disability and is found in a number of religious traditions, including the Judeo-
Christian tradition.The Religious Model views disability as a punishment inflicted upon an
individual or family by an external divine force. It is a pre-modern paradigm that views disability
as an act of a god, usually a punishment for some sin committed by the disabled individual or
their family. In that sense, disability is punitive and tragic in nature.It can be due to
misdemeanours committed by the disabled person, someone in the family or community group.
Birth conditions can be due to actions committed in a previous reincarnation. In some cases, the
disability stigmatises a whole family, lowering their status or even leading to total social
exclusion. Or it can be interpreted as an individual’s inability to conform within a family
structure. Equally, it can be seen as necessary affliction to be suffered before some future
spiritual reward.

This model frames disability as something to be ashamed of and insinuates that disabled people
or their families are guilty of some unknown action that caused their impairment. But that
mentality only serves to stigmatize disability, and the claim that praying heals disability is based
on purely anecdotal evidence. The concept is found in various religious traditions. It was perhaps
the earliest attempt of human beings to understand or define disability.

Some religions, like Hinduism, believe in multiple births. And, disability is explained as a result
of some bad karma or moral transgression of previous birth. Sometimes the possible cause of
disability is considered a sin not committed by the disabled person but by her parents or
ancestors. In religions like Christianity, disability is explained as a result of the collective sin of
humans. The theory of the religious model of disability has been used for ages to preach to the
general population about good behaviors and moral practices. The fear of disability has been
used as a tool to prevent the general mass from deviating from the prevailing moral standards of
the religion and society. But, it also resulted in social exclusion of the person with a disability
(and sometimes their families too) from the local communities.

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Yet another theory of the religious model of disability explains disability as a ‘test of faith’. It is
believed that the person with a disability is chosen specially by God and that the disability is the
chance for them to redeem themselves through their patience, strength and faith towards God.
Disability is also seen as an opportunity given by God for developing characters like patience,
courage and perseverance. This theory projects persons with disabilities as the ‘blessed souls’.

Another theory of the religious model of disability relates disability to mysticism or some kind of
metaphysical blessings. According to this perspective, when God gives one impairment, it is
balanced by heightened functioning of other senses thus making the person a spiritually blessed
one. It is this perspective that works behind the nomenclature like ‘divyangjan’ used in India for
referring to the persons with disabilities.

2. MEDICAL MODEL

The medical model of disability is a model by which illness or disability is the result of a
physical condition, is intrinsic to the individual (it is part of that individual’s own body), may
reduce the individual’s quality of life, and cause clear disadvantages to the individual. Under this
model of disability the focus is on their impairment and how this excludes them from
mainstream society. The medical model of disability tends to categorize an able-bodied person as
comparatively superior to those with a disability. The sole purpose of persons with a disability
according to the theory should be on bringing themselves as much at par with the non-disableds
as possible.

The medical model sees disability as something that is ‘wrong’ with a person’s body or mind.
For example this model might suggest that a disabled person is ‘suffering’ from an illness,
disease, genetic defect or injury that would ideally be “treated and cured.” This way of thinking
often makes people want to help by fixing the problem, maybe using drugs, surgery or other
interventions. Persons with disability are someone who needs to be ‘fixed’. This way of thinking
may also make people want to help by preventing transmission of the problem to other
generations maybe by promoting interventions such as sterilisation or contraception.

The medical model is criticised for seeing the impairment as the most important part of the
person and suggesting the person is helpless to do anything about this. The medical model is said
to be deterministic as it suggests a particular problem will always mean a person cannot be
equal. Consequently this may reduce the life chances and options of a young person. The
medical model also implies that the young person is merely a passive recipient of treatment.
Labelling Theory (Becker 1963) would suggest that society sets up rules, which people follow to
be accepted. These rules can include quite subtle injunctions such as the way someone looks
patterns of behaviour, or how clever they are. The unique person may be subsumed under the
master label of their impairment, for which the medical model provides them with a ready-made
label. Finally, the medical model is essentially disablist because it defines everything in terms of
an able bodied norm, instead of taking a viewpoint from the disabled young person.

This approach can lead policy makers and service managers focussing their work on
compensating people with impairments for what is wrong with their bodies. This could be

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through targeting specific benefits at them or providing segregated services. The medical model
can also affect the way people with a disability think about themselves. The negative message
can convey that all the problems of living with a disability stem from not having ‘normal’
bodies. A disabled person could then think that their impairments automatically exclude them
from participating in social activities. This subversive form of oppression can make people with
an impairment less likely to challenge their exclusion from mainstream society. In the medical
model, management of the disability is aimed at a "cure," or the individual's adjustment and
behavioral change that would lead to an "almost-cure" or effective cure. In the medical model,
medical care is viewed as the main issue, and at the political level, the principal response is that
of modifying or reforming health-care policy.

3. SOCIAL MODEL

The social model of disability sees the issue of "disability" as a socially created problem and a
matter of the full integration of individuals into society. In this model, disability is not an
attribute of an individual, but rather a complex collection of conditions, many of which are
created by the social environment. The social model of disability developed as a reaction to
limitations of the medical model of disability, followed by disability activism in the 1960s and
1970s. This model, also known as the minority model of disability, establishes that it is the
society (majorities of the society) that disables people with impairment. It is argued that
disability is a phenomenon constructed by society. A person with a certain impairment is not
disabled unless the social construct puts the person in a disadvantaged position. It is the society
that puts limitations and excludes people with impairment from the mainstream of social
activities.

The social model is termed as the minority model with the argument that the majorities of society
label themselves as normal and use that normalcy as a scale to measure each individual. One of
the very common examples for this explanation is – spectacles! Corrective eyeglasses are aids
just like braces or crutches. However, people with eyeglasses, unlike people with braces and
crutches, are not automatically labeled as disabled because the number of people wearing glasses
is now a majority.

The social model of disability explains disability as a particular form of ‘social oppression’. The
theorists argue that physical impairment is universal in nature but the extent of disability varies
from society to society. The societies that are more ableists in nature put more barriers to
participation in the lives of people with impairment. The social model of disability has played a
significant role in the development of international policies for the inclusion and integration of
persons with disabilities in the mainstream.

The social model (especially in its strong form) is criticised because of its insistence that
disability can only be addressed through action to change society and does not recognise the real
impact that people’s impairments can have on their lives. To focus only on the wider society may
risk children’s impairments being unrecognised or poorly understood so that children might not
get the individual attention that might make their lives better. The social model suggests that as a
whole society, we do not really want or value disabled children and suggests that people within
society need to examine and change their own attitudes. Disabled children should not be

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expected to ask for charity or pity or to fight for their right to be a full part of their society. The
social model suggest that what is needed is a conceptual shift from seeing disabled children as
problems, to a perspective which recognises they are a minority group identified through their
impairments and oppressed by other people. Activists from a social model perspective aim to
solve the problem of oppression.

Hence, the management of the problem requires social action and is the collective responsibility
of society at large to make the environmental modifications necessary for the full participation of
people with disabilities in all areas of social life. The issue is both cultural and ideological,
requiring individual, community, and large-scale social change. From this perspective, equal
access for someone with an impairment/disability is a human rights issue of major concern.

4. CHARITY MODEL

The tragedy and/or charity model of disability depicts disabled people as victims of circumstance
who are deserving of pity. This, along with the medical model,are the models most used by non-
disabled people to define and explain disability. People in your community assume you will
always need help and pity you. You are considered a burden requiring charitable resources for
support.

The Charity Model is an offshoot of the Medical Model. It is based on the understanding that
disability is something in the body that can and should be cured. It is complementary to, and in
many ways the moralistic extension of, the Medical Model. The Charity Model has been
developed by non-disabled people and it’s both a way of understanding and relating to disability,
as well as an industry around disability. Where the Medical Model sees medical professionals as
experts in disability, the Charity Model sees non-disabled people as the saviours of disability.
Disability is not only something that should be cured, but something that is tragic. It therefore
creates a view of disabled people’s lives as tragic and pitiable.

The Charity approach to disability viewed as being in the ‘best interests’ of disabled people but it
does not consider disabled people’s experiences and knowledge as necessarily valuable or
essential. This approach is about well meaning ‘do-gooders’ acting on our behalf without us.
Because we aren’t in control of the process little good, or even harm, is often the result.

In the past decades, people who follow the charity model have not so much tried to define
disability as they have tried to redefine it. These attempts to redefine or rebrand disability have
largely failed because they have been made by people, while well meaning, who are largely not
disabled and who have a negative and paternalistic view of disability.

The Charity Model requires that those with more resource should help those without. While we
don’t use the same definitions of fit and unfit anymore, the Charity Model bestows those who
would have fallen within the label “fit” with a moral duty to help those who are “unfit”. To
understand why this matters we must reflect back on what we learnt about the reasons that the
Eugenics Model became popular; it was developed alongside growing inequality in the newly
industrialised, capitalist world. It was a theory that allowed elites to justify their wealth, both

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morally and scientifically, while witnessing the expansion of poverty, inequality and their social
impacts.

It would be logical to conclude that it’s a positive thing for disabled people to be considered
deserving and that we should unite around supporting other groups of people to be seen as
deserving too. However, the underlying basis of why disabled people are perceived as deserving
is that disability is seen as a tragedy. Disabled people, therefore, deserve pity and support. Here
we see where the Medical Model pursuit of cure and the Eugenics Model construct of “unfit”
collide. If disability is tragedy, then disabled people are tragic. Disabled people’s lives in the
Charity Model are rarely seen as positive or fully-rounded; but as something to struggle against.
It is the duty of non-disabled people to help disabled people, as part of their civic and moral
obligations.

5. LEGITMACY MODEL

The legitimacy model of disability views disability as a value-based determination about which
explanations for the atypical are legitimate for membership in the disability category. This
viewpoint allows for multiple explanations and models to be considered as purposive and viable.
In the tradition of legitimacy theories, Explanatory Legitimacy Theory seeks to analyze,
detangle, and clarify categorization and response by focusing on the the source of
authentification and valuation of explanations for category membership. Rather than focusing
exclusively on political power as its object and subject, Explanatory Legitimacy Theory is
concerned with the credibility, value, and purposive acceptance of causal theories which parse
and assign humans into groups and then fashion responses to group members. Thus Explanatory
Legitiamcy calls upon pragmistism to locate category placement and response as well as
category creation within a purposvie perimeter.

The Explanatory Legimacy framework clarifies theory types so that each can be compared to
those similar in structure and subject. Explanatory Legitimacy Theory builds on historical and
current diversity analyses and debates as well. Different from locating disability in a singular
domain of the body or the environment, Explanatory Legitimacy analyzes the construct of
disability as a contextually embedded, purposive, dynamic grand category of human diversity.
Thus, who belongs and what policy responses are afforded to category members are based on
differential, changing, and sometimes conflicting judgments about the value of explanations for
diverse atypical human phenomena.

Explanatory Legitimacy Theory makes the distinctions among descriptive, explanatory, and the
axiological or the legitimacy dimensions of the categorization of human diversity, and identifies
the relationships among these elements. Thus, similar to legitimacy-based analyses of other areas
of human diversity, disability that is defined and analyzed through the lens of Explanatory
Legitimacy is comprised of the three interactive elements: description, explanation, and
legitimacy. This tripartite analytic framework provides a potent platform through which to
examine policy responses to members of categorical groups. Let us look at each element now.
Description Description encompasses the full range of human activity (what people do and do
not do and how they do what they do) appearance, and experience. Of particular importance to
an understanding of disability definitions and policy responses is the statistical concept of the

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“norm.” Because the understanding and naming of what is normal and, in contrast, not normal
are value-based, use of terms such as normal and abnormal do not provide the conceptual clarity
sufficient for distinguishing description from axiology. Thus, in applying Explanatory
Legitimacy to disability policy, we use the terms typical and atypical to depict frequently and
infrequently occurring human description respectively. Disability is located in the realm of the
atypical. Explanation The second element of Explanatory Legitimacy is explanation. Applied to
disability, explanation is the set of reasons for the atypical. What is important to highlight with
regard to the link between description and explanation is that explanation is always an inference.
Because of the interpretative nature of explanation, this definitional element lends itself to
debate, differential value judgment and diverse policy responses. As we discuss further in more
detail, the current explanatory debate between two explanatory genres (interior and exterior
causes of disability) is a heated one and has great relevance for policy. Interior causes attribute
atypical phenomena to a medical-diagnostic condition of long term or permanent duration while
the exterior lens identifies an unwelcoming and even discriminatory environment as causal of
disability, in which the atypical is met with barriers and exclusion. Legitimacy The third and
most important definitional element of Explanatory Legitimacy is legitimacy, which we suggest
is comprised of two sub-elements: judgment and response. Judgment refers to value assessments
of competing groups on whether or not what one does throughout life (and thus what one does
not do), how one looks, and the degree to which one’s experiences fit within what is typical,
have valid and acceptable explanations consistent with both explicit and implicit value sets.

6. HUMAN RIGHTS BASED MODEL

From the mid 1980's countries such as Australia enacted legislation which embraced rights-based
discourse rather than custodial discourse and seeks to address the issues of social justice and
discrimination. The legislations embraced the shift from disability being seen as an individual
medical problem to it instead being about community membership and fair access to social
activities such as employment, education and recreation.

The emphasis in the 1980's shifted from dependence to independence as people with disabilities
sought to have a political voice. Disability activism also helped to develop and pass legislation
and entitlements became available to many people. However, while the rights-based model of
disability has helped to develop additional entitlements, it has not changed the way in which the
idea of disability is constructed. The stigma of 'bad genes' or 'abnormality' still goes
unchallenged and the idea of community is still elusive.

Persons with disabilities have long been seen as passive recipients of aid, often reduced to their
impairment-related health needs. A human rights-based approach to disability implies that all
people are active subjects with legal claims and that persons with disabilities need to participate
in all spheres of society on an equal basis with their non-disabled peers. According to the human
rights-based approach to development as defined by the UN, development cooperation
contributes to capacity development of “duty bearers”, i.e. States and their institutions acting
with delegated authority, to meet their obligations, and on the other hand of “rights-holders”, e.g.
persons with disabilities, to claim their rights. Throughout this process, the following core human
rights principles should be applied: Equality and non-discrimination, Participation and
empowerment, Transparency and accountability.

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The human rights model positions disability as an important dimension of human culture, and it
affirms that all human beings irrespective of their disabilities have certain rights which are
inalienable. This model builds upon the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
1948, according to which, ‘all human beings are born free and equal in rights and dignity.’ The
principle of diversity provides the foundation to accept disability as part of human variation.
However, it is a sad reality that in practice our treatment of difference has been rather poor,
especially in the context of disability. The doctrine of differentiation is of particular importance
to PwDs, some of whom may require specialised services or support in order to be materially
equal to others.

7. THE EXPERT/PROFESSIONAL MODEL

The Rehabilitation Model has provided a traditional response to disability issues and can be seen
as an offshoot of the Medical Model. Within its framework, professionals follow a process of
identifying the impairment and its limitations (using the Medical Model), and taking the
necessary action to improve the position of the disabled person. This has tended to produce a
system in which an authoritarian, over-active service provider prescribes and acts for a passive
client.

This relationship has been described as that of fixer (the professional) and fixee (the client), and
clearly contains an inequality that limits collaboration. Although a professional may be caring,
the imposition of solutions can be less than benevolent. If the decisions are made by the "expert",
the client has no choice and is unable to exercise the basic human right of freedom over his or
her own actions. In the extreme, it undermines the client’s dignity by removing the ability to
participate in the simplest, everyday decisions affecting his or her life (e.g. where they should
live, what activities they should do, when underwear needs to be changed or how vegetables are
to be cooked etc).

8. ECLECTIC MODEL

This model combines the different perspectives of the many models of disability.Starting from
the old religious to the new professional view. We have the old religious view that the cause for
a disability is a curse or an external divine force. While this model might be judgemental, it may
strengthen the spiritual mentality of the person. This mentality could bring the person to think
about something else more important than just his/her disability. This in turn can bring a person
to be devoted to something more important. The model also considers that for something that is
lost there is another to be gained. While this might be delusional, it may help to trick the person’s
mentality in to thinking that the person is not actually inferrior but somehow equal. As long as
we are considering a way to help the disabled person to cope with the influence of the society
this might actually help the disabled person.

The seemingly scientific model that depicts that a disability is somehow something that needs to
be fixed may be just a harsh way of telling a person with a disability that there might be a way to
“cure” it. While offensive, it is actually informing a person that some problems that need to be
fixed can actually be fixed. This is a relief to many of those who have faced disability after a

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while in their life. This approach can also lead policy makers and service managers focussing
their work on compensating people with impairments for what is wrong with their bodies.

The social model actually tells us disability is more of a socitial problem than any other. This can
be beneficiary. For a disabled person to be able to live peacefully all that has to be done is to
make the environment comfortable for living. Though, the process actually is very difficult,
because it involves changing the perspectives of the society. Nevertheless, if it pulls off, it would
solve a lot of problems regarding disability. Some developed countries have made it easy for any
individual to access anything in need. The gap between the economic and social status of
disabled people has become very narrow. But in the underdeveloped third world countries
providing people with some basic neccessities is actually a good thing to do. The charity model
exemplifies that being charitable might undermine the capabilities of individuals but it can
actually give a hand for those in need.

Well who are the people that need help, who are those who don’t? To answer these kinds of
inquiries a legal ground has to be provided. This is where the legitmacy model kicks in. this
model gives legal grounds to any kinds of issues related with disability. The human rights-based
approach to disability implies that all people are active subjects with legal claims and that
persons with disabilities need to participate in all spheres of society on an equal basis with their
non-disabled peers. This gives disabled people equal and fair opportunites to participate as well
as have influence in their environment.

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