Social Construction: Disability

Abstract

This symbolic interactionist theory examines the structure of relationships between the disabled and the nondisabled through face-to-face interaction and the formation and participation in organizations which provide specialized services. Some propositions from Randall Collin's Conflict Sociology (1975) create a framework for understanding the behavior of the disabled. Goffman's concept of career is used to examine the conditions under which various adaptive strategies are employed by the disabled to negotiate favorable definitions of self from their social communication. Finally, a symbolic interactionist explanation is outlined to account for the active and interested involvement of the nonhandicapped with the handicapped in getting the handicapped to accept their situation. Persons who acquire a disability find themselves facing more than just an adjustment to a physical impairment or long-term illness which prevents them from walking as fast as other people, from riding horses, or holding a job in competitive employment. They are now regarded by others and even by themselves as being different and this difference is considered to be an undesirable one, affecting social interaction with others in such a way as to create a sense of awkwardness, embarrassment and confusion. This problem of maintaining easeful face-to-face interaction between disabled and conventional members of society results, first, from the uncertainty produced in such situations as to what kinds of claims the disabled and the conventional person will make upon each other. If, for example, there is a young man with a prosthetic leg at a party, will he ask one of the young women present to dance? In turn, will one of the young ladies present ask that crippled young man to dance hoping to compensate for his natural shyness? A second source of confusion and uncertainty remains in addition