DIS 200 - The Disability Population in the Environment

Designed to raise awareness and introduces students to disability from progressive and contemporary diversity perspectives. Beginning with an introduction and overview of disability history, theory and current thinking in the field of disability studies and followed by focusing on historic and current terms for population descriptors including normal, abnormal, crippled, deficient, impaired, challenged and diverse. As a basis for analyzing the unstable prevalence and incidence statistics, the variation in characteristics and theoretical explanations that are grouped to form the disability population are examined. The focus then turns to the reciprocal interaction of disability populations with economic, physical, social, political, cultural, and spiritual environments, identify how disability is conceptualized differently in varied contexts, and analyze how disability fits within the contemporary discourse of human diversity.

Satisfies the General Education Cultural Diversity and International Perspectives Requirement.

Credits: 3