Social, Political, Ethical & Cultural Dimensions of Health and Disability

The aim of this platform is to investigate and address the social, political, ethical and cultural forces that shape how health, disease, and disability are understood and addressed in healthcare and rehabilitation and in various communities and societies. This aim is addressed through critical social science approaches that investigate:

1. How health, disease, and disability are conceptualized and addressed in health care, communities and at the societal level, and the effects on disabled people;
2. How systems of oppression shape healthcare and contribute to social and health inequities;
3. How core assumptions, concepts and values underpinning physical therapy and healthcare influence education, practice, delivery, policy, and research. 

Research in this theme is directed towards critical inquiry, has explicit anti-oppression aims oriented to transformative and emancipatory systemic changes to healthcare and society more broadly.

Aligned with the growing field of Critical Rehabilitation Studies, SPEC research is explicitly transdisciplinary, drawing on diverse knowledges, and critical scholarships ( critical disability studies, critical race theory, anti-colonial studies, Indigenous studies, childhood studies, feminist studies, and posthumanism). The platform also promotes diverse methodologies, such as narrative, discourse analysis, post-qualitative inquiry, oral history, and arts based approaches.

Programs of Research and Faculty

• Critical Disability and Rehabilitation Studies (CDARS) - Barbara Gibson
• Responsible Health Innovation Lab - Jay Shaw
• Critical Disability Studies - Karen Yoshida
• Education Scholarship - Meredith Smith, Annette Marcuzzi
• Advancing Critical Disability Studies for Equity and Social Change (ACCESS) - Chavon Niles