The UNCRPD (The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) defines disability as long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments that, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder full and effective participation in society. People with disabilities are not a homogenous group, and individual experiences are influenced by factors such as impairment type, gender, age, family support, and environment.

Portland State University

The evolution of how every topic regarding disabilities has changed over time throughout the world.

History of Disability Studies

Disability is not defined by a single universal standard; rather, it is conceptualized through multiple frameworks. These include medical definitions that focus on bodily or intellectual impairments, legal frameworks such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that emphasize substantial limitations on major life activities, and social definitions that highlight societal barriers and prejudice.

Definitions of Disability

Linda A. Wray, Caroline S. Blaum, Explaining the Role of Sex on Disability: A Population-Based Study, The Gerontologist, Volume 41, Issue 4, 1 August 2001, Pages 499–510, https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/41.4.499

Explaining the Role of Sex on Disability: A Population-Based Study

The evolution of how the topics within education changed over time for people with disabilities in the United States of America.

History of Education for People with Disabilities in the United States of America

This study observes the effects of navigating a university environment with psychiatric disabilities. It observes students with disabilities and their overall experiences with the faculty and staff that are at universities that they are attending. There was a small group that was being studied, with 14 students being observed in total. The major themes are:

1.	The effects of stigma on the experience of being in university
2.	Impact and effect of the symptoms for students
3.	Strategies for coping with disability in the university environment
4.	Social support roles from staff and other faculty

“It’s all in your head:” Students with Psychiatric Disability Navigating the University Environment

- History of End of Life Treatment in Disability History

History of Bioethics in Disability History

- Important  Books
- Important  Figures
- Important Ideals
- Summarization of Race/Ethics in Disability History

History of Race/Ethnicity in Disability History

Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation was established in 1946 and initially focused on societal views of intellectual disabilities and ways to prevent them. JPK initiated funding for research from a multitude of hospitals and a national plan was ratified. 

History of Intellectual Disabilities, Sports, and Special Olympics


The disability civil rights movement formed as a social response in the 1970’s to the longstanding oppression, stigmatization and social exclusion of people with disabilities. It was the first time in history this marginalized community used their own voices to empower themselves by fighting for policy changes that would allow for social inclusion and a more equitable social structure. 


History of the Disability Civil Rights Movement 


- Disability people during COVID-19 pandemic 
- Risk factors of disabled people in infecting with COVID-19
- Healthcare system of Disability during pandemic
- Recommendations

COVID-19 Pandemic and people with disability

According to evidence from ancient cultures, such as that of the Greeks, attitudes concerning/towards disabled persons was not an attitude of “othering”. The exclusion of disabled persons and the view that they are a burden on society was something that developed with the advent of the Industrial age when a focus on production became paramount.

Ancient View of  Disability and Industrial Perception

In the English language, the concept of “normalcy” applying to humans or ways of being is not particularly old in the grand scheme of language development. Such a usage of “normal” did not enter the English language until about 1840.

The Concept of Normalcy

Sir Francis Galton, cousin to Charles Darwin, was one of the first early statisticians to consider ideas like normalcy or ways of being of the so-called average person. Additionally, Galton was interested in eugenics and inheritance- he actually invented the word eugenics. It is worth mentioning that Galton also developed the idea that fingerprints might be inherited and should be used for identification- pushing the idea that a person’s body and the features inherited from birth are indelibly tied to their identity. 

Sir Francis Galton


In 1883, inventor and scientist Alexander Graham Bell gave a famous ableist speech titled Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race. In said speech, Bell posits that d/Deaf individuals commonly choose other d/Deaf individuals to be their partners, often leading to d/Deaf children. Ultimately the speech warns that this could lead to an entire race of d/Deaf people. This may be seen as a villanization of disabled persons interacting and forming relationships.


Alexander Graham Bell and Eugenics

Karl Pearson was a leading figure in the development of the eugenics movement in the anglophone world. During the Edwardian period, Pearson led the Department of Applied Statistics in England. In his work, Pearson lumped together disabled individuals, the mentally ill, criminals, and violent individuals, villainizing disabilities overtly and proposing that they be removed from society altogether.

Karl Pearson


Charles Davenport was a biologist and leading eugenicist in America. In 1911 he founded the Eugenics Record Office. Davenport theorized that the influx of immigrants in America would increase the cases of crime and would introduce more disabled and mentally ill people.


Charles Davenport

Disability studies resaerch often neglects the presence of an individual's identity which can have major influence over their subjective reality and reinforces oppressive systems. 

Critical Perspective of Disability Studies

A major critique of the current disability studies discipline relates to its essentialist and binary approach to understanding disability and the subjective disability experience. 

Disability Studies and Intersectionality


In the 1970s and 1980s, disability studies was predominantly headed by scholars and researchers employing a political and sociological focus. In the late 1980s and 1990s disability studies was popularized in the humanities and arts after being brought into the academic conversation by those in cultural studies. Around the 90s scholars therefore began looking to literature as a source of cultural commentary concerning disability and normalcy.

Disability Studies in the Arts and Humanities

What Is Disability?

People with disabilities are all different. They have different impairments and come from various places. This affects the medical care they need and how they get it. For example, kids with disabilities need to be identified early and get extra help when they are young. This helps them grow and do things better. Older adults with disabilities often have more than one problem, which makes it hard for them to get healthcare. Women with disabilities may face discrimination based on gender and disability and so have more difficulties accessing services. 

Who Are The People Affected by Disabilities?

This is a book published in 2020 that talks about 10 lessons for people with disabilities to thrive in today's society.

The Power of Disability

The term c/s/x movement is used to encapsulate what has been known as the psychiatric, or mental-health, consumer, survivor and ex-patient movement. This movement is considered to have first emerged in about 1970 with a multi-national history with movement work happening in North America, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, South America, and Australia by the 1980s. The movement is mainly concerned with both the promotion of self-help and peer support models of mental-health care and also a reform of the psychiatric services model.

C/S/X Movement

A disability is medically defined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as any bodily or intellectual impairment that limits a person's activities and participation/interactions with the world at large.

Medical Definition of Disability

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment that places a substantial limit on one or more major life activities. Examples of such major life activities include hearing, walking, and breathing.

Definition of Disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Disability is defined as the expectations and prejudice placed on people by society that causes them to be viewed as a burden and wrong. By this definition, it is not a condition of the individual but something imposed externally. 

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