ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the sociological contributions to the study of disability. Sociology is an inherently inquisitive and controversial activity. Sociologists are always asking questions, sharpening the focus of concern and providing critiques of existing forms of social conditions and relations. Sociologists have tended to accept the dominant hegemony with regard to viewing disability in medical and psychological terms. Sociological work concerned with the generation of theories of social reproduction and the pursuit of change has ignored the ways in which disabled people operate as a powerful social movement. The level of esteem and the social standing of disabled people is derived from their position in relation to the wider social conditions and relations of a given society. The issue of disability raises difficult questions that are not only to be examined and engaged with at a societal or policy level, but also at an individual one.
