CHALLENGES RELATED TO THE CONCEPT OF PARTICIPATION AS USED IN THE DISABILITY FIELD
CHALLENGES RELATED TO THE CONCEPT OF PARTICIPATION AS USED IN THE DISABILITY FIELD

Summary/Abstract: The study of participation, in particular in the context of a disability, requires at the moment the management of some significant challenges related to the conceptual difficulties, specific to the new areas of study. The concept of participation is ambiguously defined in the specialty literature, not differentiated clearly or at all by social participation, partly confused with activity or even with participation restrictions (expressed more clearly by the concept of handicap, according to the social model of disability). Besides, as expected in this context, the proposed instruments to measure participation reflect the corresponding difficulties of the operationalization of the construct. We propose in the paper a more operational definition, useful in the purpose of measuring objective participation, and also suggest some criteria for the classification of activities related to participation, aiming to inventory the most relevant and popular aspects of it.

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