Cultural Differences Related to Disability
Do you have questions about cultural differences related to disabilities and how disability-related accommodations differ between cultures?
In This Tipsheet:
Education of People with Disabilities
Understanding Disability Rights Models
Working Across Cultures: Disability Culture in Different Countries
Cultural Models of Providing Accommodations
Education of People with Disabilities
Disability rights movements are at different stages in different countries and parts of the world. Most are making positive changes with support from the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Although it is changing in many countries, children with disabilities, if they receive education, are most often educated in segregated schools and vocational training centers among other students with similar disabilities – schools for students who are deaf, blind, with mobility disabilities, cerebral palsy, etc.
Access at the higher education level is usually restricted for people with disabilities, although in every country bright young people with disabilities have achieved access and success often with self-determination and support of family and friends in the absence of any university-provided accommodations on campus like exist in the United States.
Laws and their implementation for inclusive education vary widely throughout the regions of the world, and some inclusion efforts at the primary and secondary levels, and provision of disability services in higher education are slowly being established or expanded. For information about disability laws in other countries, visit DREDF’s Directory of National Disability Non-Discrimination Laws or library documents at the Independent Living Institute.
Although it is important and necessary to show respect for the ideas and beliefs of the partner country, U.S.-based international exchange programs have legal as well as ethical commitments to ensure that all exchange participants have equal opportunities to participate. Overseas partners of U.S.-based exchange organizations must fully comprehend the organization’s clear commitment to the human and civil rights of all people with disabilities – those from the United States and those in the host country.
Understanding Disability Rights Models
Medical vs. Human Rights / Social Justice Model
The medical model defines disability as a health condition or disease and as an impairment to be addressed by doctors and rehabilitation specialists who pursue treatments and cures for disabling conditions. The focus is on changing disabled people who are seen as needed to be cared for and cured so they can perform more efficiently in a society that has been constructed by and according to non-disabled people.
The human rights and social justice model focuses on the role of society in gaining equality for all its citizens, including people with disabilities. The focus shifts from fixing individuals to eliminating socially constructed barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating fully in their communities. Equality for people with disabilities is seen in the same light as equality for other minority communities where social structures such as prejudice, segregation, inaccessibility and cultural/religious beliefs are the problems.
While these are two contrasting models, there are other variations of models to describe disability perspectives. Read more about Definitions of Disability Models on the Disabled World website.
Working Across Cultures: Disability Culture in Different Countries
Cultural differences in concepts like disability, independence, confidentiality, respect for authority and personal rights may affect a person's approach to disability accommodation.
Language and terminology
It may be difficult to explain a disability, especially a non-apparent disability, in the language or cultural context of the host country, and the explanation may not receive the kind of response expected. When explaining about the equal opportunity and access in the United States understand that “accommodations” or “rights” may be understood or approached differently.
- Disability-specific vocabulary
There may be no precise word in the host country’s language for a participant’s disability, or some types of disability may not be one that is easily accepted as legitimate or understood in the host country. - Perceptions of independence
In some cultures, independence may include relying on family, friends, the community or the aid of strangers – utilizing informal human support, which compared to the United States may be perceived as a less self-directed approach. Culturally, it is common for family members to provide services such as a sighted guide for a sibling who is blind, or a cousin may assist with note-taking in classes, as opposed to assistive technology like a white cane or Braille notetaking machine that may be more common in the U.S. If traveling, young, unmarried women with disabilities may be accompanied by an elder brother or uncle for cultural or religious reasons in some countries. - Understanding how a disability may be viewed by a given culture
In some communities, people with visible disabilities are deterred from participating in the life of the community by social, institutional and infrastructural restrictions while other disabilities may be regarded as a blessing or gift (for example: in some cultures, people with epilepsy are considered gifted because they are believed to communicate with ancestors during seizures, other cultures may consider women who are blind unlikely to marry so will invest in their education for self-supporting futures). Parents who are influenced by their cultures that see visible disability as shameful and a reflection of a family's past wrong deeds, or as undervalued or less useful in comparison to investment of family resources in non-disabled siblings, may keep their children from school or hidden from community interactions. The children who are not hidden but sponsored to attend school, athletic or work training programs will have made it through cultural stigmas and infrastructural barriers. - Difference in approach to accommodations
Many overseas universities in the non-Western world do not have an office of disability services or a formal procedure for requesting disability-related accommodations. Accommodations are arranged through community services, person-to-person, or by family members versus through legal processes according to law. There may also be a perception that only non-disabled people are desired or eligible on exchange programs if there has up to that point only been non-disabled participants.
Cultural Models of Providing Accommodations
Approaches to providing accommodations
- Procedural
Doing what is required by rules or law (U.S. approach) - Personal
Arranged person to person through direct conversations about what is needed and why - Community
In some cultures it is the responsibility of the student’s friends and family
Exchange participants coming to the United States can read about how disability services are approached in the United States on the Coming to the USA webpage. Americans with disabilities can learn more about cultural differences in other countries in the online publication: Survival Strategies for Going Abroad:A Guide for People with Disabilities. For more information on first-hand experiences by people with disabilities on cultural differences they experience while on international exchange programs, read our Stories & Blogs webpage.
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