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European Journal of Special Needs Education
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A social relational model of disability: a theoretical framework for special
needs education?
Solveig Magnus Reindala
a NLA, School of Religion, Education and Intercultural Studies, Bergen, Norway
To cite this Article Reindal, Solveig Magnus(2008) 'A social relational model of disability: a theoretical framework for
special needs education?', European Journal of Special Needs Education, 23: 2, 135 — 146
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/08856250801947812
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European Journal of Special Needs Education
Vol. 23, No. 2, May 2008, 135–146
ISSN 0885-6257 print/ISSN 1469-591X online
© 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/08856250801947812
http://www.informaworld.com
A social relational model of disability: a theoretical framework for special
needs education?
Solveig Magnus Reindal*
NLA, School of Religion, Education and Intercultural Studies, Bergen, Norway
Taylor and Francis LtdREJS_A_294947.sgm10.1080/08856250801947812European Journal of Special Needs Education0885-6257 (print)/1469-591X (online)Original Article2008Taylor & Francis232000000May 2008SolveigReindalsmr@nla.no This paper discusses various approaches to the phenomenon of disability in relation to special
needs. Ever since disability researchers launched the social model of disability and criticised
the field of special education for preserving an understanding of disability in accord with a
medical model, the special education field has been in a state of crisis. The implication of this
has been the embarrassment of talking about categories and levels of functional difficulty; as
well as diagnoses, all of which enable individual assessments necessary for building the IEPs
(Individual Educational Plans) and child-centred teaching within special needs education. The
challenge for special needs theorists is to consider the critique of the orthodoxy of special
needs education and its understanding of disability, yet at the same time to develop an
understanding of disability that can serve as a departure point for working in the field of special
needs education. This implies an understanding of the phenomenon of disability, identifying
pupils’ needs without contributing to the negative effects that often have come about in the
wake of classification, categorisation and labelling in education. The present paper argues for
a social relational model of disability as a platform for the enterprise of special needs
education. The rationale for the social relational model of disability is that it better conforms
to the morality of inclusion because the main issue of the social model, oppression, is not
obliterated.
Keywords: social relation model; disability; special needs education; philosophy of special
needs education
Disability studies and critique of special needs education
In recent years, what some label orthodoxy in special needs education (Gallagher et al. 2004) has
been challenged by the social model of disability presented by authors in the field of disability
studies (Oliver 1996b; Shakespeare and Watson 1997; Swain et al. 1993). The orthodoxy within
special needs education is identified within a positivistic and functional paradigmatic frame,
where a medical model of disability is the platform for classification systems used in special
education (Skrtic 1991, 1995a, 1995b). Disagreement between disabled people and professionals
is delineated, the medical model and its way of defining needs continue to disempower disabled
people (Sim et al. 1998, 54). The field of habilitation is especially criticised for its categorisation
of impairments and special needs into disabilities, through classification systems grounded in a
medical understanding of disability. This orthodoxy in the special needs education enterprise is
by some identified as the cause of the failure of integration – the integration policies representing
in the 1970s and 1980s a real “breakthrough” for special education as a profession and field of
research (Vislie, 2006, 406).
In the wake of the growing and national/international critique of the orthodoxies of special
needs education, a Quality Committee addressing special education in Norway proposed abolish-
ing the right to special needs as provided in the Education Act 2003, instead strengthening the
*E-mail: smr@nla.no
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136 S.M. Reindal
right to adapted and ordinary education “for all” (NOU 2003:16). The rationale for the sugges-
tion, among others, documented negative effects of special needs education by effect studies.
However, closer scrutiny of such studies, referred to by the Quality Committee, demonstrated it
was the quality of special needs education that could be criticised, as teachers were likely to lack
special education qualifications and be untrained teacher assistants (TA) (Universitetet i Oslo
Institutt for spesialpedagogikk 2004, 24). This assumption is supported by other studies, where
students with impairments have moved from mainstream schools into special needs further
education (Pitt and Curtin 2004, 394; Rogers 2007, 61). The use of TAs to support inclusion is
well established, but their lack of training has been highlighted as a major concern in the success-
ful undertaking of a pedagogical role (Lindsay 2007, 14). Is a growing substitution taking place,
where TAs within inclusive education take over the pedagogical role for the special educational
needs (SEN) pupils?
A study of pupil perspectives identified the TA role as: mother, friend, protector and primary
teacher, and pointed out that the relationship between the TA role and child outcomes requires
further research (Lindsay 2007, 14). However, in the case of Norway, in the subsequent White
Paper the Education Ministry did not take up the suggestion of the Quality Committee regarding
abolition of the right to special education (White Paper No. 30, 2003–4, 10). Yet, one can say that
the special needs enterprise is in crisis, as legitimating a discipline that has traditionally been
understood as dominated by the habilitation field, both in Norway and internationally. Often the
pedagogy derived from the habilitation field has been labelled as “more-of-the-same” pedagogy,
where repetitive training of weak functions has been the major focus (Markussen 2004). As previ-
ously mentioned, this pedagogy is criticised for continuing to uphold an understanding of disabil-
ity within a functional and medical paradigmatic framework.
The challenge is: how are special educators to consider and understand impairments and
disability? Are impairments and disability social constructs and, hence, is the enterprise of special
education part of the problem, since the understanding of difference is an important background
for provision and special arrangements? If so, a deconstruction of special need is necessary, as
Skrtic and other postmodern critics of special needs have argued (Danforth and Rhodes 1997;
Skrtic, 1995a, 1995b). Furthermore, is the issue at stake here not just a deconstruction, but rather
abolition, as some of the radical proponents of inclusive education have suggested – as they see
the special needs enterprise just as “a necessary evil” because of general education’s inability to
accommodate and include the full diversity of learners? This perspective has been labelled as
“full non-separatist inclusion” (Norwich 2002, 488). Or has the enterprise of special needs its own
legitimate right within the school setting? Some of the answers to these questions, I argue, are
related to the perceptions of the phenomenon of disability. Is there a common ground that can
serve as a platform both for the radical proponents of inclusive education and SEN, although the
former group is critical to special needs education as an enterprise? I propose that some of the
answers to these questions are found in a common perception of the phenomenon of disability.
Danforth (2001) has argued that special needs educators and other service personnel involved
with pupils with special needs do not need a common understanding of disability:
Likewise, special educators and disability service personnel need not come to a consensus about how
to view disability or a person considered to have a disability … It is therefore best to view the above
analyses of the three models of disability as something other than competition for the one, best way
of thinking. (Danforth 2001, 356–7)
The stance is argued for by Danforth on the ground of pragmatic philosophy with reference
to the Dewey-West articulation of the social ideal of “creative democracy” (Danforth 2001, 345).
Instead of arriving at a shared model and understanding of the phenomenon of disability as a basis
for special needs education, Danforth suggests that we should set aside the metaphysical question:
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European Journal of Special Needs Education 137
“Is this model scientifically true?” … in favour of the practical question, “What can we special educa-
tors and service providers do with this model? Where will it take us as we act within social-moral
world?” (Danforth 2001, 347)
This, then, is an important way of approaching the issue of the phenomenon of disability. My
intention is not to develop a scientific model, but a theoretical framework exploring the phenom-
enon of disability, illuminating the interplay between impairment and the phenomenon of disabil-
ity as a thinking chart. However, I do not agree with Danforth’s conclusion that we need not come
to a consensus. I propose that in order to have practices that thrive and facilitate development in
the same direction and not in opposing directions, a prerequisite is an understanding of disability
that underpins the special needs education enterprise. The main reason for this is that the ways
we perceive the phenomenon of disability influence the classification systems that underpin
special educational practices. However negative one can be regarding classification systems, it is
difficult to abolish them altogether in the school setting, because the consequence is denying
rather than being able to abolish the need for differentiation. As Rogers argues:
“inclusive” education policy, as concepts, process and an experienced reality, denies difficulty rather
than embraces it. This is due largely to the conflict between “inclusive” education, the league tabling
of schools and the testing and examination culture. (Rogers 2007, 56; emphasis in original)
Rogers here builds her argument on parental experience of “inclusive” mainstream education
within the context of “inclusive” education.
Phenomenon of disability, special education and classification
The classification system in special education has been a tool to organise information of pupils’
needs and has served among other things: to understand the differences among pupils and to ratio-
nalise the distribution of resources; and it has been requisite to receiving special educational and
related services (Florian et al. 2006, 37). However aware we may be of the negative and problem-
atic effects of classification, categorisation and labelling can have in educational settings, there
can be no public policy without classification (Florian et al. 2006). Even more urgent is that the
enterprise of special needs education has a perception of disability that functions as a platform for
identifying difficulties and differences that do not disempower disabled people, as the individual
medical approach has been accused of doing (Sim et al. 1998).
Currently, there are two influential perspectives on disability as it pertains to learning: one
emphasises the additionality for the individual child (identified as an individual approach to
disability), and the other the inclusivity of the system (identified as a social approach to disability)
(Norwich 2002). The tension between these two approaches gives rise to various models for how
an inclusive school should be realised, with reference to pedagogical practices, structures and
systems.
But as Norwich points out, it is unclear whether and how far the terms “additionality” or
“inclusivity” go beyond the field of disability, as the distinction between adapted education and
special education is blurred, and as inclusive diversity also includes other vulnerable, disadvan-
taged or oppressed groups (Norwich 2002, 493). An effect of this might be that disability issues
in education are dissolved into a wider amorphous inclusive education and that the term “inclu-
sive education”, just like SEN, can come to be a separatist term relative to mainstream educa-
tion (Norwich 2002). However, as Lindsay argues, there is an opportunity to implement and
evaluate a variegated system of inclusive education appropriate to the complex societies and
patterns of schooling in the twenty-first century where inclusion, in its widest sense, is impar-
tial, addressing religion, ethnicity, social class and other social dimensions as well as SEN and
disability (Lindsay 2007, 19).
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138 S.M. Reindal
If this is indeed possible, then, I argue that it is important to have a perception of disability
that goes beyond the discussion, where one accuses the other of either over-individualising or
over-socialising the phenomenon of disability within the context of SEN. We need an understand-
ing of disability that gives rise to talk about individual needs and inclusion, as well as an under-
standing of disability that does not split additionality and inclusivity (Norwich 2002, 493).
Norwich argues for an understanding of disability within a biopsycho-social model, similar to the
WHO’s International classification of function, disability and health (ICF: WHO 2001). In a
recent literature overview of the ICF endorsement, it is shown that there have indeed been few in
education (Bruyere, Van Looy and Peterson 2005). Recently, however, Florian et al. have argued
for ICF as a tool enabling disability classification and categorisation in cross-national compari-
sons on disability in education (Florian et al. 2006). Nonetheless, this model has been criticised
for upholding an understanding of the interplay between impairment and disability as that of
restriction (Thomas 2004, 578).
Understanding this interplay as restriction implies an understanding of disability as a
phenomenon of disadvantage, not as a form of oppression. The moral implications of the
difference between oppression and the disadvantaged are crucial for the social model, as it was
initially formulated by Paul Hunt and Vic Finklestein as a relational specificity (Thomas
2004). Nordenfelt (2003) has criticised the conceptual framework of the ICF model, focusing
on the definitions of activity and participation. He maintains that there exists confusion
between capacity for action and the actual performance of the action, and that the ICF does not
bring in sufficient elements for a theory of action as the aspect of intention and volition is not
within the conceptual framework of activity and participation (Nordenfelt 2003, 1079). Within
the ICF, disability and restriction of activity are linked to general norms in relation to activities
and roles that are statistically normal or considered positively desirable in the relevant cultural
context.
However, the issue is not normal or statistical goals, but also what is vital for the individ-
ual in relation to participation and activity. Edwards (2005) argues that Nordenfelt’s approach
seems not to ride roughshod over individuals’ own views about what is important to them in
the way in which the ICF does (Edwards 2005, 26). This aspect is crucial in moral theory, as
it addresses the issues of autonomy and empowerment, which are important aspects of inclu-
sion. The conclusion by the various ICF endorsements in the contemporary literature is that,
although numerous authors support the ICF framework and its utility for rendering compara-
ble health information from multiple settings, several authors point to drawbacks in the
conceptualisation of specific components, which are in need of further study and develop-
ment (Bruyere, Van Looy and Peterson 2005, 114). Yet another important issue is lost, in this
model, that has been a sine qua non for those disabled people who launched the social model:
the issue of oppression. Within the framework of the ICF the understanding of disability
continues to be “not being able to do things” and as “restricted activity” (Thomas 2004, 579).
The other aspect pointed out by Edwards (2005), building on Nordenfelt’s critique of the ICF,
is decisive because it shows that the ICF model is a weaker framework for theorising about
empowerment and autonomy for disabled people, as goals for participation rest on norms
related to normality and statistics. I cannot see that Norwich’s biopsycho-social model
manages to incorporate these crucial issues, as his model is similar to the ICF’s understanding
of disability.
In the following, I outline various models of disability as discussed in the field of Disability
Studies and their critique, and I will argue for a relational social model of disability (Reindal 2007;
Thomas 2004) as a platform for the enterprise of special needs education, where additionality and
inclusivity are not split as a basis for SEN and where the issue of oppression is not obliterated
from an understanding of disability.
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European Journal of Special Needs Education 139
Perceptions of the phenomenon of disability: various models
With reference to contemporary writing about disability theory, Priestley (1998) suggests that a
proper understanding of disability theory requires both a distinction between individual and social
approaches, and a distinction between materialist and idealist explanations. In this background he
recognises four models of disability in the contemporary literature, as follows.
First, I outline the main distinction between individual and social models. The proponents
of the social model have argued that the main target of the social model has been to break the
presupposed causal link between reduced function and disability, which individual models
build on (Oliver 1996a). Instead the social model proposes that the relation between reduced
function and the experience of disability is contingent on environmental, social and cultural
factors. This has been the main theoretical and empirical prerequisite of the social model.
If the difficulties disabled people experience are only within the limit of their reduced function,
the solution is to learn to tackle, on a personal basis, the impairment psychologically, emotion-
ally, culturally and socially. Hence various individual approaches to the phenomenon of
disability would be adequate. However, Oliver argues that “the social model is not an attempt
to deal with the personal restrictions of impairment but the social barriers of disability” (Oliver
1996b, 38).
Furthermore, there is the divergence between materialist and idealist levels of explanation. In
the contemporary literature, one can identify at least two main social models departing from
different traditions: an idealist tradition, which historically can be identified with Durkheim and
the study of culture, often recognised as a postmodern research tradition (Thomas 2004, 590); and
a materialist tradition, which historically can be associated with Hegelian and Marxian analysis
of the production of material structures within a specific historical context (Priestley 1998), often
recognised as a historical-materialist research tradition (Thomas 2004, 590). Within the idealist
view, disability is regarded as the idealist product of societal development within a specific
cultural context. The units of research are cultural values and representations that give rise to vari-
ous social constructionist models of disability. Within the materialist view, disability is the mate-
rial product of socio-economic relations developing within a specific historical context. The units
of analysis are disabling barriers and material relations of power that give rise to various social
creationist models (Priestley 1998, 78). Sometimes this approach is also labelled the minority
group model (Danforth 2001, 349).
Similarly, one can identify two individual models respectively within a materialist tradition
and an idealist tradition. The individual-materialist tradition is often labelled the medical model
and has been identified as the foremost understanding of disability underpinning the enterprise of
special education (Skrtic 1986, 1995a, 1995b). Within this view disability is the physical product
of biology acting upon functioning of individual bodies. This understanding of disability arises
out of a functionalist research tradition (Skrtic 1991). The individual-idealist tradition sees
disability as a product of voluntaristic individuals (disabled and non-disabled) engaged in the
creation of identities and negotiation of roles. The units of analysis are beliefs and identities, and
they give rise to various interactionist models of disability (Priestley 1998, 79–80) stemming
from an interpretative and phenomenological research tradition (Skrtic 1991).
All the four models acknowledge that there is some initial biomedical condition that causes
reduced function by the individual. Within the constructionist models reduced function is seen as
a natural variation of the human species (Reindal 1995). This stance has been criticised by the
creationists. They argue for the importance of a social origin of reduced function, seeing impair-
ment as a result of biosocial processes, as lack of vaccination programmes and health care, malnu-
trition, poverty, etc. (Abberley 1987, 1996). The various interpretations of the phenomenon of
disability in relation to special needs can be presented as in Figure 1.
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140 S.M. Reindal
Figure 1. Special needs and models of disability (adapted from Reindal 2007, 53).
Disability and special needs education
Even though identifying reduced function in various aspects often is the ground for labelling as a
special need, the understanding varies as to how this becomes a disability. The process of identi-
fying something as a special need, as an effect of impairment, is not the issue that is relevant to
the debate of inclusion, but how this need becomes a disability: how does a reduced function
become a state of being disabled? Which understanding of the phenomenon of disability concords
with the experiences that disabled people have in relation to the in/exclusion experience? Is there
a common ground of understanding, which can serve as a platform for the special needs education
enterprise? Or do we have to settle with the pragmatic solution proposed by Danforth: “Likewise,
special educators and disability service personnel need not come to a consensus about how to
view disability or a person considered to have a disability” (Danforth 2001, 356)?
I will argue that it is important to have a common platform as an understanding of the
phenomenon of disability that connects individual and social aspects, both for explanatory
purposes and for designing provisions, facilitating interaction between the inclusivity of the
Figure 1. Special needs and models of disability (adapted from Reindal 2007, 53).
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European Journal of Special Needs Education 141
system as well as responding to specific individual needs (Norwich 2002). Is it possible to talk
about special needs and still not contribute to an understanding of disability as an individual prob-
lem? Is the main problem the notion of special needs, as some argue that it remains conceptually
a “within-child model” (Terzi 2005, 447)? I argue that it is possible to talk about special needs as
individual needs, related to the effects of reduced function, without remaining in the “within-child
model” for an understanding of the phenomenon of disability, as Terzi requires. I now outline
some critiques and some of the shortcomings of the above models.
Critique of various models
The main critique concerning the individual models is, as pointed out above, the linear under-
standing of causality between a reduced function and the phenomenon of disability. These models
are accused of ignoring social, cultural and environmental aspects in the formation of the
phenomenon of disability. There are many historical examples of individualising social prob-
lems: explaining poverty and unemployment as a result of idleness and character weakness; crime
as a result of “moral insanity”, a frequently used label in the interwar period (Simonsen 1999;
Kirkebæk 2001); and lack of education as a result of inability, etc. A common denominator for
these elucidations is that they frame social phenomena in the light of the individual instead of
addressing the individual in relation to various macro levels. Individual models can dissolve the
phenomenon of disability to reduced function with consequent effect as the main reason of the
disability.
Another problem the biomedical model embodies is that it cannot account for the discrepan-
cies of the multifaceted perceptions of impairment in terms of ethnographical, social anthropo-
logical and cultural studies (Clausen, Kirkebæk and Sætersdal 1998; Ingstad and Whyte 1995;
Solvang, Froestad and Söder 2000). These studies do not confirm the supposed perception of the
medical model of impairment as disability, as impairment/reduced function and disability are
causally related. Critique of the interactionist models focusing on, for example, stigma, is based
on the ground that the theory of stigma fails to clarify why disabled people as a group experience
social restriction (Oliver 1990, 68).
Individual models of disability have enabled the professional ideologies and practices that
operate within attitudes of caring and caretaking of the “unfortunate” individual: underpining this
is the view that disability is a personal tragedy due to reduced function. This approach has
promoted attitudes of paternalism and mechanisms of dependency at various macro levels within
society.
Critiques of social models can be divided into: (1) an internal critique, (2) a critique arising
from related research fields and (3) a philosophical critique (Reindal 2007, 38). The internal
critique is partly a self-critique, in order to improve the model by its architects. The social model
arose from the milieu around the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS)
in England, with contributions from Paul Abberley, Len Barton, Vic Finkelstein, Paul Hunt and
Mike Oliver, to mention a few. The main problem the social model faced was how to “fit” the
personal experience of impairment, as the social model did not attempt to address personal
restrictions of impairment, but rather social barriers of disabilities (Oliver 1996b, 38). These
attempts met with criticism from other advocates of a social model, who stressed the importance
of the personal experience (Crow 1996, 60). The main goal of social models was to break the
linear, causal understandings that were prominent in the individual models, stressing contin-
gency. The authors have pointed out the need to deconstruct the phenomenon of disability in order
to show that it is not ahistorical or universal (Corker and Shakespeare 2002; Danforth and Rhodes
1997). The challenge was to understand the interplay between the reduced function and the
phenomenon of disability: how contingent was this relationship? And if no cause and effect
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142 S.M. Reindal
existed between reduced function and disability, how was one to understand the fact that people
with impairments often experienced oppression and discrimination as a group?
Bury argues that if there is no initially underpinned individual problem, then social reactions
such as oppression, exclusion, discrimination, etc. will have nothing to respond to (Bury 1996,
30). The lack of clarity and disagreements have related to the issue of how to explain such an
interplay, both from a creationist as well as a constructionist position. This lack of clarity has also
been prevalent in contemporary special needs debates in relation to understanding and conceptu-
alisation of individual need, as, for example, Terzi shows with reference to Dyson (2005, 448):
Special needs are not needs that arise in a child with disabilities with regard to a system that is fixed.
Rather they are needs that arise between the child and the educational system as a whole when the
system fails to adopt itself to the characteristics of the child. (Terzi 2005, 448)
Comments like that of Dyson have given rise to the second critique, of the related research
fields that have criticised the social model of over-socialising the phenomenon of disability. This
critique has been especially advanced within the fields of sociology of medicine and bioethics
(Bury 1996; Harris 2000). However, the constructionist view, drawing on social constructivism,
is the right addressee for this critique as this position relativises the phenomenon of disability
more radically, as has been shown, for example, in the writings of Tregaskis – where she argues
that disability could be eradicated if society were organised in ways that took the needs of all its
citizens into account (Tregaskis 2004a, 2004b, 604). Such a broad constructivist position (Collin
1997), as Tregaskis argues for, is seen by some bioethicists as approaching the absurd:
No matter how conveniently a paraplegic might move around in a town there would be problems
about trying to keep with a party climbing in the Himalayas – and it would be difficult to attribute
this to any kind of social construction. And if such problems appear in thought experiments about one
particular disability, they appear far more when you consider the endless types and degrees of disabil-
ity that exist, and imagine trying to construct environments that could cope with them all. (Richards
2002, 710)
The point Richards touches upon here concerns a general problem within the constructionist
position, the interpretation of restriction of activity (i.e., disability) as caused by social barriers,
and that impairment is not relevant for the experience of restriction of activity. This is absurd, as
Richards rightly points out. The reason for this is the blunt
social modelist assertions to the position that “all restriction of activity are caused by social barriers”.
It is then easy to slide into making logical counter-assertions such as this: impairment does not cause
restrictions of activity because the social models tell us that all restrictions of activity are caused by
social barriers. (Thomas 2004, 579; emphasis in original)
However, the creationist position has not denied the issue of impairment, and that it causes restric-
tions, hence it holds that the problem is not solely impairment, but rather social barriers; but this
has often resulted in the counter-assertions, as pointed out by Thomas. Nonetheless, the creationist
position has been accused of upholding a dualistic understanding of the distinction between
impairment and disability, and that it confines the body to medicine (Hughes and Paterson 1997).
Instead, researchers have argued for a phenomenological approach to the body, with reduced
functions as a platform for an understanding of a social relational model of disability (Hughes and
Paterson 1999; Reindal 2007).
The third critique of the social models comes from the philosophy of science (Reindal 2007),
where the social model is affected by the same general critique as other social constructionist
positions and relativist variants of sociology, because the distinction between ontology and epis-
temology is dissolved. As a consequence, these positions have difficulty in producing social facts
due to lack of construct validity (Collin 1997, 74). The creationist position argues that the ideol-
ogy of normality originated with the rise of capitalism, with its need for a workforce defined by
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European Journal of Special Needs Education 143
people’s capacity to be useful and productive (Oliver 1990). However, this position faces the
general critique raised in Marxist analysis – the difficulty of pointing to which historical and
economical context the phenomenon of disability was generated within, as the phenomenon of
disability also existed before the rise of capitalism in Western culture (Thomas 2004, 572).
A social relational model of disability as basis for the SEN enterprise: presentation
of a theoretical framework in order to illuminate the interplay between impairment
and disability
In the social relational model the main issue in the social model is retained: the contingency and
interplay between the effects of impairment and the phenomenon of disability. However, this is
neither elaborated within a historical materialist position nor as a postmodern social construction-
ist position, but as a social relational phenomenon, keeping the element of oppression and
discrimination as an important distinction in contrast to disadvantage due to restriction of activity.
The logical distinction between necessary and sufficient reasons (Reindal 1998, 26) might
clarify the character of the interplay between the reduced function and the phenomenon of disabil-
ity within a social relational model. A necessary condition is one that is a prerequisite – as, for
example, being able to read is a necessary condition for making sense of a text. This is not a suffi-
cient condition, because one might be able to read, yet still find the text too abstract to make any
sense of. Being able to read does not guarantee that one will be able to make sense of it, but if one
cannot read, one certainly will not make any sense of the text. A sufficient condition is one that
when met will guarantee that whatever is in question will be satisfied. Having a particular impair-
ment implies some effect (Thomas 2004) of this condition, which is a necessary condition for
Figure 2. The interplay between reduced function and disability: a social relational model (adapted from
Reindal 2007, 49).
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144 S.M. Reindal
experiencing disablement in certain circumstances; but this is not a sufficient condition, since
whether an impairment results in disablement differs according to time and changing circum-
stances (Reindal 1998, 27). What has been lost in the social model is, according to Thomas, the
relational aspects (Thomas 2004, 579), which I explained as the logical distinction between
necessary and sufficient reasons. In this perspective, a reduced function is a necessary condition
that has both personal and social implications for the individual. However, whether the reduced
function and its effects become a disability is dependent on restrictions within various macro
levels in society that are imposed on top of the social effect that the reduced function implies for
that individual. This understanding can be exemplified as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. The interplay between reduced function and disability: a social relational model (adapted from Reindal 2007, 49).
Within this model, points 1 and 2 (Figure 2) would be the ground for defining and classifying
what Norwich called “additionality”. Points 3 and 4 would be the ground for making changes at
the macro level in order to promote inclusivity, and lessen the consequences of issues related to
point 4 from coming into being. None of these four points is static, in the sense that there are feed-
back loops back and forth between the various levels. New treatment and technology should be
able to modify the necessary condition of some aspects of reduced function, as well as alterations
at the macro level within societies that could change the conditions for becoming disabled.
Concluding remarks
The important distinction this model presents is: it is possible to distinguish between personal
experiences of social restrictions due to the reduced function in a social setting, on the one hand,
versus imposed social restrictions in social settings, on the other hand. By holding on to both
personal and social effects of a reduced function, it is possible to talk about “additionality” that
is needed in order to adjust to the experience of disability on an individual level. At the same time,
it is possible to expose what is imposed on top of the social restriction due to the reduced function,
and in this way, to see in/exclusive mechanisms within the social setting and at various macro
levels. Within this model it is possible to give weight to the personal experience of living with
reduced function, both socially and individually, without embracing an individual approach. This
enables the narrative element and provides the opportunity to tell the story of how reduced func-
tions both enrich and restrict one’s experiences. Frank (1995) points out the importance of indi-
vidual experience, and how this enriches and is a source of empowerment to others, because it
gives the experience a voice:
In wounded storytelling the physical act becomes the ethical act. Kierkegaard wrote of the ethical
person as editor of his life: to tell one’s life is to assume responsibility for that life. This responsibility
expands. In stories, the teller not only recovers her voice; she becomes a witness to the conditions that
rob others of their voices. When any person recovers his voice, many people begin to speak through
that story. (Frank 1995, xii–xiii)
This implies that it is possible to talk about social effects as something other than just social barri-
ers. One can speak of social restrictions as effects of a reduced function: in addition, one can
speak of imposed social, cultural, environmental and religious mechanisms that restrict and
hinder the individual in realising vital goals and achievements in life.
Another important aspect of this model is what it opens for the narrative aspects, as it recog-
nises the personal and social effects of reduced function without sliding into an individual
approach. It recognises that disability is a contingent phenomenon imposed on the individual by
social hindrances and restrictions on top of the social effects impairment may bring about for the
individual. However, further conceptualisations are needed in order to develop the model, partic-
ularly in relation to additionality and inclusivity with reference to SEN. By not obliterating the
element of discrimination and oppression, the social relational model is better aligned to the
morality of inclusion as it is able to distinguish between personal restrictions in social settings
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European Journal of Special Needs Education 145
versus social hindrances that are imposed on top of these and which hinder the individual in
achieving vital goals.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank colleges at NLA, and especially Asbjørn Tveiten, for valuable comments on
earlier drafts of this paper.
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