Enacting the social model of disability in higher education would require that disability be seen as a social identity and thus a component of institutional diversity. Seeing disability as a component of institutional diversity would possibly push academia to go beyond mere legal comp and instead look at creating more of a universal design for disability.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Higher education has historically used the  medical model of disability - systems like accommodations place the blame or site of of disability in the individual student for whom the environment needs to be changed to accomodate rather than locating disability in the system. Accomodations require students to disclose their disability status to recieve accomodations in ways that force them to pathologize their own being.

Models of Disability in Higher Education

Emily's narrative shows how she had not considered the possibility that she is disabled because compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness give us a fixed view of what disability looks like - a view that Emily did not believe she met. In the absence of Emily fitting the societal scripts around disability Emily believed that there was something wrong with her rather than with the class. Emily's professor perceived Emily as a problem to be fixed rather than shifting instruction - which perpetuates the idea that students are flawed if they cannot meet ableist expectations. In this narrative disability is seen as a rigid binaristic category and Emily is not given support for not neatly fitting into the category. 

Rigid View of Disability Shaping Perceptions of Students

Abrams, E. J., Floyd, C. E., & Abes, E. S. (2024). Prioritizing Crip Futures: Applying Crip Theory to Create Accessible Academic Experiences in Higher Education. Disability Studies Quarterly, 43(4). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v43i4.8270

Prioritizing Crip Futures: Applying Crip Theory to Create Accessible Academic Experiences in Higher Education

The social model positions society as the disabling agent, rather than an individual’s impairment. Under the social model, an impairment is not automatically a disability. It is only a disability when society is not structured (physically, socially, or culturally) to include that impairment/variation. For example, in a society where glasses/corrective lenses are accessible and socially accepted, the impairment of having blurry vision without them is not necessarily disabling. The social model seeks to make changes in society, rather than focusing on disabled people to change.

Social Model of Disability

What Would the Social Model of Disability Look Like in Higher Education?

Framing poor performance as being caused by student's being lazy contributes to heightened internalized ableism for students and perpetuates academic ableism. Since conversations about disability are often siloed to disability service offices students can go their entire college career without knowing they could benefit from accommodations - this is especially pernicious when coupled with academic ableism's view that poor performance should be solely understood as the student's fault.

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