THE STATUS QUO: PWD 1 | Page 10

When it comes to disability, there is always more than meets the eye. In order to better appreciate the various, often less-understood ramification of disability, researchers have come up with a number of conceptual tools to understand various dynamics of disability. Some of them include:

Intersectionality: this simply means that the various overlapping identities of an individual with disability is taken into consideration in understanding the challenges they face and in developing initiatives to support and empower them.

For instance, two people might have identical disability, but if one was a white, Canadian, male and the other is a female, Arab immigrant , their experiences and how to support help them would very different.

This is crucial in identifying layers of marginalization within the disabled group and in targeting initiatives and policies effectively.

Social justice: this means that the imperative of empowering PwD to reach their full potential just like anyone else in society is a matter of equity and fairness.

For instance, a social justice approach might challenge a narrow economic logic of cost-benefit in approaching care for PwD. It would insist that PwD have equal rights with everyone else in society to realizing their full potentials, so that their cost of care must thus be a moral issue of equity and not merely a question of economic efficiency.

Privilege and Oppression: a dual focus on privilege and oppression helps to account for the full range of experience of PwD in society. Privilege relates to advantages that individuals have due to their identity as a disabled person. Oppression on the other are disadvantages related to one's identity as a disabled person.

Privilege and oppression are always relational; that is they manifest in the relations of PwD with the rest of society.

They are also useful for stimulating critical reflection on the place of PwD in society.

Approaches to and Perceptions of Disability

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