ABSTRACT
Debate on approaches to the analysis of disability has become a distinctive feature within the academic literature on disability studies during this decade. These arguments illustrate how theoretical ideas can contribute to changes in the way we understand and discuss disability issues. In other words, these debates have an impact far beyond academic circles. The way in which the causes and outcomes of disability are discussed have an effect upon the everyday life of disabled people. For example, the emergence of the social model has politicized disabled people to bring about political change in the USA and the UK. The mobilization of disabled people through organizations such as Disabled People International (DPI), which advocates the social model, has brought disability onto the international political agenda. The shift in emphasis from the medical approach to a social model approach has given disabled people confidence and helped them to become a changing force, looking at the environment rather than themselves.
