Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

74minority group” 181 The disability rights agenda defines identity in terms ofpolitical cause rather than in a more integrated understanding of personhood, andof what a person with a disability can contribute to their culturally-lived context.2.4 Cautiously Towards a Workable Disability ModelEach of the models of disability outlined above contributes to adefinition of disability. Even where a disability model may be completelydiscarded as having little or no positive contribution to a contemporary definition,discussion of what is not helpful serves to sharpen thinking as to what is helpful.Even the Limits model, with its negation of disability as a definitionalconstruct in pursuit of more universalizing constructs of human identity, makes ahelpful contribution to the issue of definition. For those who seek ownership ofthe term disability, in whatever form, the issue of why the term ought to beclaimed contributes to the development of a credible definition.Disability models contribute their own definition of what disability is andis not. The definitions so described reflect the attitudes, values and needs of thosewho construct the models, 182 and they reflect in some way the dominant oremerging socio-political influences of their era.For example, the Medico/Bio-technological model of disability reflectsthe contemporary rise in bio-technological lines of scientific enquiry seekingways of eliminating the ‘disabling’ or ‘bad’ gene, thus reinforcing the embodieddisability perspective. The early manifestations of the Social model of disability,as expressed through oppression and structuralist discourses, reflect an initial andradical reaction against the long-held and all-pervasive objectifying effect of theMedical model on people living with disabilities. The Socio/Rights-based modelof disability reflects an age of socio-political activism in which minority andotherwise undervalued, silenced and oppressed social and political groupings,such as women, Afro-Americans, and people with a disability, found a voice andsought to claim their rights as a matter of justice. The Christian Tradition model181 Clapton & Fitzgerald. The History of Disability , sec.4, par.3.See also,Pfeiffer, David. "The Disability Paradigm." In The Psychological and Social Impact of Illnessand Disability, edited by Paul Power and Dell Orto, 7-10. (New York: Springer PublishingCompany, 2007), 9. Here Pfeiffer asserts that, “the oppressed minority perspective is rejectedsimply because many people with disabilities are not oppressed.”182 Smart, & Smart. "Models of Disability." 89.