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Teaching About Psychosocial Aspects of Disability: Emphasizing Person-Environment Relations

Teaching of Psychology

Published online on

Abstract

This article presents some psychosocial aspects of disability linked to the person–environment relation that teachers should share in the psychology classroom. Disability is an often-overlooked form of diversity, one that teachers should discuss alongside race, gender, sexual orientation, social class/socioeconomic status (SES), religiosity, and aging. The experience of disability and disability culture are important topics that should be shared with and understood by secondary and postsecondary students, particularly because people with disabilities are no longer at the social margins of everyday life in the United States. To that end, I review definitions for disability as well as a nascent model for understanding the experience of disability, some select but fundamental psychosocial constructs regarding disability, and a representative negative (stigma and stereotyping) and positive (disability identity) context example from the social psychological literature on disability. I then close with suggestions for teaching about disability.