Visual impairment and disability: a dual approach towards equality and inclusion in UK policy and provision

Debates about the polarization of the social and medical model divide have dominated discussions within disability studies in the United Kingdom (UK). Arguments for each perspective are well rehearsed, with the social model attributing disability to socially produced inequality and dependency (Oliver 1996; Barnes andMercer 2003), and the medical model treating disability as a result of individual ‘inability’ and ‘abnormality’: a division based upon ‘society’ and ‘the individual’; ‘disability’ and ‘impairment’; and ‘the political’ and ‘the personal’.