The Center is organized around four broad thematic strands with an understanding that specific research activities, course curricula, or outreach events will often weave two or more of these strands together. 

a.    History and Cultural Studies

The importance of this theme in the Center’s work goes beyond the interests of disability scholars themselves. 

In the words of the historian, Douglas Baynton,

“not only has it been considered justifiable to treat disabled people unequally, but the concept of disability has been used to justify discrimination against other groups by attributing disability to them.”

We are interested in how the cultural concepts and personal experiences of disability have changed over time and varied across cultures. The Center will take special interest in exploring the historical and cultural variations in the development of what is “normal” and what is “disabled.” 

b.    Social Policy and Theory

People with disability and their families are affected dramatically by the health, education and social welfare policies, both official and unofficial,  preached and practiced, in the places where they live. 

However, much of the advocacy and analysis around these policies remain grounded in a unidimensional endorsement of the ‘disability as defect’ model. 

Our approach to disability policy will combine our constructivist approach with an honest respect for the daily realities of the people who live with the effects of those policies. 

Some of our research in this area will be applied in nature, looking, for example, at the details of specific health policy or the implications of a local residential support initiative.  Other work at the Center will take a larger view of the conceptual assumptions and rhetorical strategies that surround such applications. However, regardless of the methodological tools used for any specific policy study or theoretical critique, we will try to ask better questions as often as we seek more answers.

c.    Families

In the past, the dominance of the medical or deficit model of disability produced research on families that looked primarily at how families coped with the ‘tragedy’ of disability. The Center will instead explore the variety of meanings and experiences that arise at the intersection of families and disability.  Our interests here will be as varied as families themselves and cut across issues and contexts of race, class and gender. 

We will explore the effects of policy and professional practice both currently and in the past. Finally, we will listen to families themselves as they tell us how disability has affected their lives.

Education and Community Life

Here again, traditional disability research in this area has concentrated on the separate settings of school, work, and residence where disability professionals have concentrated their services:  special education classrooms, sheltered workshops, institutions and other congregate care facilities.

The Center will instead explore the participation and inclusion of people with disabilities across all domains of school and community life.  It is within this strand that much of our research on inclusive approaches to education will be found.