Društveni položaj osoba sa invaliditetom u Srbiji: između diskriminacije i integracije - studija slučaja (rezultati sociološkog istraživanja)
Social status of persons with disabilities in Serbia: between discrimination and integration - a case study (social research results)

Summary/Abstract: The lecture presents the results of a research in the social position of people with disabilities in Serbia from the theoretical framework of the so-called social constructivism. This theoretical approach advocates the view that disability is a phenomenon that cannot be separated from the historical, legal and social context, and that it is a problem that cannot be reduced to the primary health damage of individuals, but it discusses whether and to what extent the social environment is adjusted to different abilities of individuals. The participation in social life is therefore viewed as an indicator of the willingness of social environment to engage the available capacities of persons with disabilities. The commitment to this kind of interpretation of disability meant that the attitude of society towards people with disabilities in Serbia should be examined in several key areas, and the lecture presents the results of studying the life histories of thirty people with disabilities through the most important aspects of their interaction with the narrower and wider social environment. The analysis of these life histories has sown that the prejudices that are deeply rooted in the culture represent a key fact in the interpretation of the overall relationship of society to the studied population. Incompetence attributed by the environment is attached to disability as the primary damage. As a result, the generalization of the primary damage to the entire personality occurs. The outcome of the persistent preservation of prejudice is an environment which is unavailable, the exclusion from social life and the establishment of a social distance by the population majority. Moreover, it was found that the personal identity of people with disabilities is inextricably linked to their social identity. Thus, within the culturally and socially defined circumstances, a framework is created that (does not) allow individuals to develop their abilities and needs.

• Details
• Contents