Shifting beliefs about disability
This section outlines how beliefs about disability have changed over time from a paternalistic to a rights-based approach. We provide you with some key points to think about when considering disability issues.
Shifting beliefs and attitudes
Current thinking on disability centres on disabled people having the same rights of citizenship as non-disabled people – the opportunity to participate in society and to lead an ordinary life. However, disabled people face barriers to achieving these aspirations that are quite different to those facing non-disabled people.
This approach challenges the protective, segregational and paternalistic approach of the past, which led to disabled children going to ‘special schools’ (as an only option for education) and people with intellectual disabilities living in residential institutions (rather than in communities like everyone else).
Diagram A: Shifts in thinking about disability
| Shifts in thinking about disability | ||
|---|---|---|
| FROM | TO | |
| Disability is an individual problem |  |
Disability is a problem in society |
| Differences in abilities are inadequacies | |
Differences in abilities are assets |
| Seeing deficits | |
Seeing strengths |
| Us and them: exclusion - tolerance | |
All of us: inclusion - valuing |
| Society choosing for ‘them’ | |
Disabled people choosing for themselves |
| Professionals know best | |
People have different kinds of knowledge |
| Charity based | |
Rights based |
| Patient | |
Citizen |
| Institutional orientated | |
Community orientated |
| Medical model of disability - control or cure | |
Social model of disability - change environment and attitudes |
Human rights based approach
The human rights based approach to disability gets its inspiration from the human rights movement. To honour the rights of disabled people, society must strengthen its capacity to include and meet the needs of people with impairments.
All people are entitled to be treated fairly and to enjoy rights of citizenship. However, many disabled people are unable to reach their potential or participate fully in the community because of the barriers they face in doing things. The barriers range from the purely physical, to the attitudinal. As a consequence, disabled people have not always been able to exercise their human rights.
Social model
People who experience disability have adopted a social model of disability. This perspective says that society disables people when its infrastructure and systems cannot accommodate the diverse abilities and needs of all citizens: ‘Disability is in society, not me’.
Society (including government) needs to design systems that make room for all its citizens, not just the majority. Disabled people are entitled to the same rights of citizenship as non-disabled people.
Disabled people
People of all ages and ethnicities have impairments - intellectual, psychiatric, physical, neurological, or sensory impairments. These may be temporary, intermittent, or ongoing.
Society disables people with impairments by excluding them from participation or independence because service design, communication channels, buildings and attitudes make aspects of society inaccessible to them. ‘Disabled people’ is the term used to reflect this disabling process.
Individual people may refer to themselves differently, and may even not identify as being disabled. For example, they may identify as a person with an intellectual disability, as a person with experience of mental illness, as Blind, or as Deaf.
Service developments and a challenge
The way services are delivered to disabled people has undergone dramatic change in recent decades. This is particularly noticeable in the public sector where the government has been shifting health and disability support services ‘into the community’. This is known as ‘mainstreaming’.
Mainstreaming involves providing services for disabled people in the same places as services for non-disabled people. Moreover, disabled people can often choose whether they access these services in a general or specialised setting.
Government policies on ‘mainstreaming’ are based on evidence about outcomes. They align with international trends and have been supported by successive New Zealand governments. Most importantly, they honour individual human rights.
Education offers a good example of ‘mainstreaming’ in New Zealand. Students with impairments are supported to attend ‘normal’ schools in classes with non-disabled students. At the same time they can access specialised support. For example, blind students learning Braille together, or deaf students being in a group learning New Zealand Sign Language.
However, old beliefs and attitudes persist. The challenge is for government services and regulations to respond to evolving philosophical approaches to disability issues while pragmatically dealing with the legacy of an institutional approach. Attempts to organise policy development around traditional frameworks (involving protection, segregation and paternalism) may compromise the conceptual base of the New Zealand Disability Strategy (centred on independence, equal treatment, and full participation).
Thinking points
- Look ahead - what went before is often not a good guide for incorporating a disability perspective.
- Focus on population - think of disabled people as a population group, such as women or an ethnic minority, which has experienced past discrimination and faced barriers to participation in society.
- Think diversity - when considering disabled people, remember their diversity of needs and cultures, as well as their common issues.
- Prevent inadvertent discrimination - keep challenging yourself to think outside your own experience. Initiatives need to be reflective of and useful to all people. Integrating diverse perspectives and experiences into an initiative helps ensure equity, fosters partnerships, and builds support.