Researching disability: the way forward

This paper critically examines the individualistic and medicalized assumptions underlying much research on disability. The OPCS surveys of disability, in particular, are examined. Based on the perceptions of disabled people and their organizations, and drawing on a series of seminars on disability research which took place in 1991, an alternative social view of disability is presented and applied to research. It is concluded that the assumptions underlying much disability research, especially when they are translated into practice, are oppressive to disabled people, and that participatory and emancipatory research needs to be developed in order to assist disabled people in their struggle for empowerment.