Disability and Social Movements

A critical comparison of welfare states and their relevance to people with an intellectual disability

“…The local terminology in Norway and Sweden recognizes individual functional ability and environmental factors which are integral to the GAP relational model that ‘contains three basic assumptions: disability arises from a disparity between the person and the environment; disability is situational or contextual; and disability is relative’ (Goodley, cited in Carling Jenkins, 2014: 39). The terminology supports an holistic and contextual approach to working with users within the services discussed.…”

“…A mixture of the modern models outlined by Carling Jenkins (2014) can be identified in England and to some extent in Norway and Sweden. Firstly, the economic model that positions people with disabilities as consumers with choice who hold resources can be clearly identified in England but has also been introduced in Sweden.…”

“…She describes both the Scandinavian Gap model in which disability is seen as a consequence of a gap between individual and environmental factors and theory based on identity and complexity as postmodern and liberating people with disabilities from ‘otherness’. This article suggests which general models identified by Carling-Jenkins (2014) are influential in the different countries.…”

“…Different theories or models of disability emerged, some of which maintain a modernist ‘othering’ of people with disabilities in contrast to postmodern theory that addresses the complexity and identity issues of disability. Carling-Jenkins (2014) describes the medical model, the economic model, the normalization and social role valorization (SRV) model, the British social model and the psychosocial International Classification of Function and Disability’s (ICF) model as modern. She describes both the Scandinavian Gap model in which disability is seen as a consequence of a gap between individual and environmental factors and theory based on identity and complexity as postmodern and liberating people with disabilities from ‘otherness’.…”

“…The community care reforms (UK DH, 1990) introduced a market for social services and LAs were required to spend 85% of their budget in the Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI) sectors. This established an ‘economic model’ (Carling-Jenkins, 2014) in which people with disabilities became ‘commodities’ for private companies to extract profit. Services were to be purchased directly by individual ‘consumers’ with the introduction of direct payments (DH, 1996) and the ‘personalisation agenda’ has further developed this process of the ‘individualisation of provision’ (Beadle-Brown et al, 2003: 106).…”