identity and disability

identity and disability

1. disability: a physical or mental impairment that prevents a individual from functioning "normally"

2. people with disabilities are less likely to be employed, be in low income jobs, live in poverty and are even more likely to be bullied.

3. disability can be ascribed or achived

4. social construction: the idea that people have created the disabled idenity that that is has caused peoples stereotypes and prejudice

   • self fulfilling prophecy: when you are given a label which could potentially not be true but becomes true
   • labeling theory: if someone was labeled as deviant they would start to engage in deviant behavour
   • when the label of disability is applied to a persons identiy it becomes the master status and overrides everything else that person is. master status is a status that has exceptional importance foe someones social identity, often shaping a persons entire life.

5. case study: Goffman suggests that disabled people have discredited identities because there characteristics are seen as negative. he claims that disabled people have dicredited statuses because able bodied people assume that disabilities stop a person from being self sufficient and are therefore reliant on able bodied people which causes a lot of negative opinions and prejudice from able bodied people.

6. case study: murugami argues that a disabled person has the ability to construct a self idenity that accepts their impairment but is independant of it. so they see themselves as a person first and sees tree disability as one as there characteristics of there personality.

7. mass media: representations of disabled people in the media are negative and they are often portrayed as objects of charity and pity.