The Trend of Disability Studies : a Review of "Disability & Society"

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Other Title
  • 障害学の動向 : Disability & Societyを手がかりに
  • ショウガイガク ノ ドウコウ Disability Society ヲ テガカリニ
  • ショウガイガク ノ ドウコウ Disability Society オ テガカリ ニ

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Abstract

Disability Studies have their roots in the social movement started by disabled people throughout the world from the late 1960s and until the 1970s. By 1990s Disability Studies was also introduced to Japan. The purpose of this paper is to find the trends of Disability Studies by reviewing the papers published in Disability & Society – a prominent British Journal of the field. We believe this review will be especially of interest in Japan, where Disability Studies are strongly influenced by research conducted in UK. As our primary source we have used the papers with abstracts published in "Disability＆Society", starting from the inaugural issue of year 1986 and finishing with the volume 23 number 4 of year 2008. We have categorized the papers by subject and analyzed the tendencies. We have found that number of types of impairments appearing in "Disability＆Society" grows increasingly year by year and that until the middle 90s many papers theorize disabilities through their connection with the social context. This tendency shows that during that period the Social Model of Disability – the key concept of Disability Studies – was increasingly used to produce more and more detailed understanding of the social phenomena of disabilities. From the second part of 90s the Social Model renews and starts to cover increasingly wider range of objects. Disability Studies gain more and more power, and papers on new types of impairments based on research in more and more countries and regions appear. We conclude that in future objects of inquiry should include disabled people from ethnic minorities and also disabled women, and that the ever growing number of types of impairments also needs theoretical innovations in the field.

Journal

  • 年報人間科学

    年報人間科学 30 33-53, 2009

    Sociology, Anthropology and Philosophy, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University

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