The social and human rights models of disability: towards a complementarity thesis

Abstract

This article aims to reorient thinking about the relationship between the long-standing social model of disability and the rapidly emerging human rights model. In particular, it contests the influential view that the latter develops and improves upon the former (the improvement thesis) and argues instead that the two models are complementary (the complementarity thesis). The article begins with a discursive analysis of relevant documents to investigate how each of the two models has been used in the crafting and monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This highlights the increasing importance of the human rights model in this policy context. It also provides examples of the operation of the two models which inform the remainder of the discussion. We then critique the comparisons between the models which underpin the improvement thesis; and, drawing on Foucault's technologies of power and Beckett and Campbell's 'oppositional device' methodology, deepen and develop this comparative analysis. The result, we argue, is that the two models have different subjects and different functions. In the human rights context, their roles are complementary and supportive.

A Right to be Included: The Best and Worst of Times for Learners with Disabilities

“…To take stock of the arguments we have advanced in this paper, time is imbued with politics (Sharma 2014;Virilio 2008), though it is frequently and speciously mobilised as linear and as a marker of progress (Adam 1995;Chia 2002;Introna 2019). People with disabilities do not easily fit with an unswerving, continuous sense of time progression (Baril 2016;Ljuslinder, Ellis & Vikström 2020;McRuer 2018;Samuels 2017), although in chorus with this disparity, rights-based discourses-the universal right to be included-have developed international appeal (Lawson & Beckett 2020;Series 2020) despite their questionable relevance in Global South contexts (Grech 2012;Meekosha 2011). Commendable though it may be that today, people with disabilities are included as equals in global human rights instruments, violations are not uncommon (Zembylas 2021) and systemic exclusion of people with disabilities from education is persistently reported across the globe (Calderón-Almendros 2018; Hughes, Corcoran & Slee 2016;Isaacs 2020;Slee 2018;Söderström 2016;Titchkosky 2020).…”

Disability Sensitivity and Sensibility: A Nondisabled Lecturer Perspective on Inclusive Lecturing Opportunities

“…The social model of disability (SMD) and human rights model of disability (HRMD) are two complementary models of disability (Lawson & Beckett, 2020) which are useful for positioning one's understanding of disability and subsequently, how one might facilitate it. SMD focuses on the barriers (attitudinal, physical, political and so on) that exist separately from an individual's impairment.…”

Universal Assessment: Reflections on Equitable Evaluations in a Sri Lankan Higher Education Classroom

“…The human rights-based model, with its focus on the inherent dignity of the human being and the individual's right to choice and control of all decisions affecting him/her, likewise locates the main problem in societal factors external to the person with disabilities (Lawson & Beckett, 2020). Clearly then, the social and rights-based approaches to disability and the definition of disability highlighted by the UNCRPD (2006) and by Mendis and Perera (2019) are linked.…”

“…While there would be situations where assessment cannot accommodate all learning needs and EAA would have to be made, using the same assessment for all students whenever possible would, as indicated in the human rights approach to disability, promote a sense of belonging in SWDs. Lawson and Beckett (2020) note that while the solidarity generated by the social model creates a sense of collective belonging amongst people with different types of impairment, the cohesion generated by the human rights model, which is mainly between people with disabilities and others, creates a sense of belonging to the human race as a whole.…”