About the Minor

About the Social Model of Disability

We will study the social model of disability in the minor

The Minor in Disability Studies provides an introduction to the fast-growing field of Disability Studies, an interdisciplinary field that centers the knowledge, contributions, experiences, histories, and cultures of people with disabilities. The minor can prepare students for careers in medicine, social work, public service, and teaching, in which they may serve people with disabilities, but more importantly, it encourages all students to celebrate disabled joy, creation, and community while promoting social justice for people with disabilities. 

This new minor will be the third in the California State University system, which serves over 400,000 students and is the largest public university system in the United States. There is a movement in education towards learning how to center disabled voices and disabled perspective, and this new minor provides an interdisciplinary approach to this important field of study. The minor prepares people in all disciplines and abilities to truly serve 100% of the population, including the 25% of the population who is disabled according to the latest CDC numbers.

Disability is a fundamental facet of human diversity—people with disabilities make up the largest minority group in the US population—yet it lags behind race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class in recognition within (and outside) the academy. Disability has its own histories and cultures which deserve to be studied in their own right, and disability ought to be a prominent part of a fully multi-cultural curriculum. Disability Studies is not only the study of disabled people as a distinct population, however; it involves the comprehensive investigation of disability as a cultural construct that undergirds social practices and cultural representations in various media.  Contemporary Disability Studies scholars reject the medical model, which sees disability as a pathology that needs fixing, in favor of the social model, which understands disability to be a significant and powerful cultural category; like race and gender, disability is a social construct (or system of representation) that assigns traits to individuals--and discriminates among them--on the basis of bodily and neurological differences. 

Brochure for the Minor

Affiliated Faculty and Creators of the Disability Studies Minor at CSUSB