Applying the social model in practice: some lessons from countryside recreation
Claire Tregaskis, Inclusive Education and Equality Research Centre, University of Sheffield
Abstract
This paper challenges assumptions of an inevitable divide between the development of academic social model thinking and disability activist practice, by exploring some of the ways that social model ideas can influence the development of organisational policy and practice in mainstream settings. Drawing on the presenter's own wide-ranging experience of working with recreation managers and disabled people to implement countryside access design solutions based on social model principles, a range of issues involved in applying the social model to practical settings is identified and discussed.
A key argument of the paper is that, in seeking to influence the development of more inclusive policies and practices across a range of real-world settings, disability studies needs to look for new ways of engaging with diverse audiences of practitioners who may at present see no organisational advantages to adopting social model principles in their work. At its most basic level, this development role is likely to involve working collaboratively with these new constituencies to identify 'what's in it for them', by showing them how adopting social model principles in their work can and will lead to better service provision for all their customers.
As will be demonstrated in the paper, working collaboratively in this way brings with it new challenges, and demands in particular that we work constantly towards finding new more accessible ways of explaining social model ideas to mainstream audiences. However it will be argued that, in a social climate in which disability discrimination is still not treated as seriously as other forms of oppression against minority groups, disability studies has a responsibility to demonstrate to a wider audience of theorists, policy makers and practitioners why and how the practical application of social model ideas to real world contexts is a crucially important means of challenging the ongoing oppression of disabled people.