Unit 9: Social Model of Disability

Grades

• 9-10
• 11-12

Subjects

• Civics
• History
• Social Studies

Overview of Lesson Plan

• For decades, organizations such as the Easter Seals, March of Dimes, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association have been raising money to cure disabilities and diseases and to support programs to treat disabilities and diseases.  

  Although these and other charities aim to support individuals with disabilities, some of them have offended and frustrated members of the very population they purport to help.  Some of these organizations’ fund-raising tactics have been criticized by people with disabilities because of the patronizing and stigmatizing representations used in advertising and fund-raising campaigns.

  People with disabilities claim that some of the tactics used to raise money, such as telethons and charity drives, send the message that being disabled is not alright and that people should get what they need through charity, not as a matter of right.  When charity provides people with what they need, society shirks its collective social responsibility for assuring the rights of people with disabilities.  Some have also claimed that charities discourage those in society from accepting disability and difference.  For example, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, known for the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, is viewed by many people with disabilities as harmful because it focuses on people with disabilities as “brokenâ€� and needy.

  Many people with disabilities want to replace this “charity model� of disability with a model that is based on civil rights and justice.

Standards

• 1. Analyze and explain the ways groups, societies, and cultures address human needs and concerns.
  2. Analyze the role of perceptions, attitudes, values, and beliefs in the development of identity.
  3. Compare and evaluate the impact of stereotyping, conformity, and acts of altruism on individuals and groups.
  4. Analyze influences on people, events, and elements of culture in historical and contemporary settings.
  5. Identify, analyze, interpret, and evaluate sources and examples of citizens’ rights.

Objectives

• 1. To understand some of the history of charities in the United States.
  2. To understand and be able to define the charity model and medical model of disability and contrast it with a social model or rights-based model of disability.
  3. To understand how the emergence of American charities shaped perceptions of individuals with disabilities.

Questions to Consider

• 1. What might explain the rise of charity campaigns, telethons, and other fund-raising efforts for people with disabilities?
• 2. What are the relationships between charity campaigns and cultural beliefs and values?
• 3. If charity drives are not the way to raise money to meet the needs of people with disabilities, what should be done?
• 4. What are the relationships between media images of people with disabilities and the social experiences of people with disabilities?

Resources and Materials

• 1. Johnny Cant Play No More (Advertisement, 1938).  The Presidents Birthday Magazine.
  2. Are You Polio Conscious? (Woodin, 1931).  The Polio Chronicle.
     
  3. Condemned (June, 1933). The Polio Chronicle & Photograph from the article Condemned (June, 1933).  The Polio Chronicle.
  4. Paula Kluth, Toward a Social Model of Disability.

Activities and Procedures

• 1. Group Discussion: In pairs, have students read and examine all four historical documents featured in this lesson plan (Johnny Cant Play No More, Are You Polio Conscious?, and Condemned photo and article).  Each pair should answer the following questions regarding these documents.
• a) What do these documents and images tell you about life in the United States at the time they were published?
• b) What do these documents and images tell you about the lives of people with disabilities at the time they were published?
• c) Images such as these are intended to persuade the viewer or reader to respond in certain ways; to feel and act in certain ways.  What feelings are the images trying to evoke?  What actions could the images inspire?
• d) Considering the historical period in which these images were produced, what assumptions about people with disabilities are depicted in these images?
• 2. Class Discussion: Ask students to come together as a whole class to share the answers to these questions.  Have them consider why people with disabilities may be offended by these documents and by the intentions behind the documents.  If students cannot think of why people might be offended, read the following excerpt from Condemned? as a class and again ask students to explore the attitudes and positions expressed in the documents and how they might be harmful and hurtful:

  The withering thrust of paralysis may leave him life, but too often only helpless, hopeless, wheelchair life.  And you, as you see him go rolling by, may say, `But for the Grace of God, there go I.

• 3. Class Discussion: Have students read the essay, Toward a Social Model of Disability, and discuss it as a class.  Ask these questions:
• a) Can you think of examples of how a charity model or medical model of disability is used by organizations today?
• b) Can you think of examples of how a social or rights-based model of disability is used by organizations today?
• c) People with disabilities have objected to the use of pity, benevolence, and fear in fundraising campaigns for years.  Why, then, do you think some organizations continue to use this approach?
• d) What changes might some groups need to make in fundraising strategies and marketing?
• 4. Small Group Activity: Choose from the following concluding activities: In pairs, students should be asked to create a dialogue between a person with a disability who subscribes to the social model of disability and the author or producer of one of the images or documents in this lesson.
  
  The students might discuss the authors use of language, the portrayal of individuals with disabilities in the documents, and the assumptions made about disability in the images and documents.  Conclude the activity by having students read their dialogue scripts for the class.
  They should consider the following:
• a) Are there issues on which the two might agree?  If so, what are they?
• b) On what issues would they disagree?
• c) How might the individual with a disability persuade the author to adopt a more respectful orientation?
• 5. Outreach Activity: Students could contact the local center for independent living or another group that advocates a social model of disability.  (Care should be taken when choosing an organization.  Typically, organizations that are run by and for people with disabilities are more likely to operate with a social model of disability.)  Students could interview employees or others associated with the organization and find out how the organization operates.  They could request copies of the organizations written materials.  Students could then compare and contrast that operation with fund-raising campaigns that use a charity model by discussing the following questions:
• a) Specifically, what does the social model based organization do to advocate for and support the needs of the people with disabilities that it serves?
• b) How are these functions different from charity drives?
• c) Who is in charge of the organization?
• d) How do the written materials and media images compare to the materials and images from charity drives?

Eras

• 1921-1960
• 1961-1980

Disability

• Developmental Disabilities
• Physical Disabilities

Topics

• Charity Campaigns
• Disability Rights
• Models of Disability

Copyright

• ©Syracuse University, 2006.  All rights reserved.

Author(s)

• Paula Kluth, Ph.D.

Evaluate this lesson

Lesson for printing

Lesson as PDF