A sociology of disability or a disablist sociology?

Abstract

This chapter sets out the relationship between the enterprise of sociology and the emergence of theorising about disability. It provides a framework to audit the state of that relationship and suggest ways in which the relationship might develop in the future. A number of sociologists working in the general area of medical sociology and chronic illness have expressed concern over the growing importance of the ‘social oppression theory’ of disability, its associated research methodologies, and their implications for doing research in the ‘chronic illness and disability fields’. Like mainstream American sociology itself, American sociology of disability has been profoundly influenced by functionalist and interactionist theories. Safilios-Rothschild’s text was a theoretical synthesis of the two traditions and also opened up the sociology of disability towards the conflict approaches which were beginning to emerge in American sociology generally. In order to develop more appropriate sociological accounts of disability, it is necessary to understand that the production of disability is in transition.

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