there are many social models of disability Marcia, and the area is confusing.  I've just had a paper published in Sociology of Health and Illness that may help as a starting point 

Kind Regards

Jan

Hello Janine

Thanks so much for your response. i will certainly have a look.

Marcia

Hello Janine

Is it at all possible that you can send me the article you wrote - the one referred to above. I am a PhD scholar looking at the social model as well as seeking a theoretical basis for this. I cannot read the abstract online and the papers need to be purchased. I am at Stellenbosch University  and looking at disability inclusion as part of my thesis.

Marcia

While medical and social models are still highly influential in discourse and also service design and provision, in recent tears debate has moved on to more nuanced models such as the WHO's ICF, a 'biopsychosocial' framework that claims to incorporate elements of both the medical and social models. Also the Capability Approach has emerged in recent years.

See Bickenbach (2014) and Mitra (2014) for a debate on the the ICF and Capability Approach.

Bickenbach, J. (2014) 'Reconciling the capability approach and the ICF', ALTER-European Journal of Disability Research/Revue Européenne de Recherche sur le Handicap, 8(1), 10-23.

Mitra, S. (2006) 'The capability approach and disability', Journal of disability policy studies, 16(4), 236-47.

Mitra, S. (2014) 'Reconciling the Capability Approach and the ICF: A Response', ALTER: European Journal of Disability Research, Forthcoming.

Marcia, I think that today's disability discourse is as wide as its audience. I really don't think that it is undergirded by any one set of theories, but depends on who is looking at disability and from which angle.There are many alternative ways of looking at disability, some more advanced than others. The issue is that disability has been approached from various angles, and so you would need to examine the question that you have posed from various positions e.g the British vs Scandinavian social models; the 'medical' vs 'civic' models (e.g the USA minorities approach).

You mention that the social model is suggested by the global community in disability studies - I think that this is somewhat inaccurate. The social model is considered the central model by some  but certainly not all. The 'strong social' model that was proposed by Oliver et al in Britain in the 70s  has been heavily critiqued and has lost the power that it had in the last century - see the work of Tom Shakespeare,  or Dan Goodley as  examples. A wonderful book that shows up the weaknesses of the social model is Brian Watermeyers' book on disabiltiy written from a psychoanalytic perspective (and he did his PhD at Stellenbosch University).

[By the way,  note that the proponents of the social model never claimed that it was a theory - they always said that it was a model. It is really important to differentiate between a 'theory' and a 'model'. ]

On Darren's points: the ICF is based loosely on the 'biopsychosocial' model but it again, a model and not a theory. In addition,  the model is presented very superficially in the ICF publications of the WHO. It was a wonderful move by the WHO to acknowlede that disabiltiy does not lie in the individual,but is really pays  lip service in the long run because the ICF remains a classification system of health, and considers disability to be the antithesis of health which is very problematic for diabiltiy activists, and goes against everyting the social model stood for.

Why don't you also take a look at the social work writing on this - there has been some work done on linking theorising on disability to models of practice in social work.. You may find this helpful.

Today's disability accepted discourse is the "Human rights model", centered in the fact that we all humans have the same rights (it's neither charity nor a medical issue). But I think that it will change to a "Diversity model", centered in that human diversity is the natural way of being, of exist.