ADAPTED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY QUARTERLY, 1998,15,269-277 O 1998 Human Kinetics Publishers. Inc.

The Social Construction of Disability: The Impact of Statistics and Technology

Debra Shogan University of Alberta

This paper aims to foster a discussion about the social construction of disability within adapted physical activity. Social construction of disability refers to the social history of disability and the social contexts that both enable and disable individuals who negotiate these contexts. Statistics and technology are intro- duced in this paper to illustrate that "the normal," "the abnormal," "the natural," "the unnatural," "ability," and "disability" have emerged historically and to dem- onstrate that these concepts are implicated in social contexts. Work in the history of statistics is drawn upon to establish that the nonnal is a fairly recent notion in the English language. It is argued that statistics, as a normalization discourse, sustain artificial demarcations between ability and disability and the normal and abnormal when used by researchers and practitioners. To expose assumptions about natural ability, technological-assisted performance for participants with or without disabilities in physical activity and sport are addressed.

The emerging field of disability studies, like some forms of feminist, "queer," and cultural studies, challenges ways in which the body is taken for granted (Davis, 1997, p. 5), resists and problematizes "regimes of the normal" (Warner, 1993, p. xxvi), and explores how categories, like disability, are socially constructed. It is not self-evident, however, what is meant by the claim that disability is socially constructed. There is, after all, a physicality to disability, which often includes discomfort and pain, that seems to defy social constructionist explanations. To illustrate how disabil- ity can be understood as an effect of the social and that concepts, like "the normal," "the abnormal," "the natural," "the unnatural," "ability," and "disability,"' have a so- cial history, I introduce two sites, statistics and technology, which have shaped under- standing of ability and disability in the western world since the 19th century.

I take up this discussion as an outsider to adapted physical activity. As such, I have much to learn about the ways that researchers and practitioners in adapted physical activity already do question and problematize ability and disability. What I am able to bring to this discussion is a scholarly interest in practices and disciplines that nor- malize and naturalize ability, including a recent work that explores how technolo- gies of normalization are central to high-performance sport (Shogan, in press).

Debra Shogan is with the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the Uni- versity of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2H9, Canada.

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The Discourse of Statistics and Creating the Normal

Historical records show that people with disabilities have lived in every age and that their status has shifted according to how disability has been understood (Winzer, 1997). Winzer indicated that people with disabilities have always been a social concern and that "no two societies viewed their disabled population in precisely the same way" (p. 87). Only since the 19th century have people with disabilities been understood in relation to the normal. Prior to the that time, concepts of the normal and abnormal did not exist, nor did ideas about the disabled in relation to a norm (Davis, 1995, p. 24).

The emergence of the normal to signify that which conforms to and does not deviate from a standard coincided with developments in statistics and probability theory during the 19th century (Davis, 1995; Hacking, 1987,1990; MacKenzie, 1981). The work of statistician Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1847) was central to conceptualiz- ing the normal to signify what is usual or typical. Quetelet proposed that the method astronomers used to locate a star-the law of error--could be applied to frequency distributions of human and social phenomena. Astronomers found that most sightings of a star fell in the center of a bell curve. Sightings that fell to the sides of the curve were considered errors. According to Quetelet, physical characteristics as well as moral and social behaviors could be plotted and determined utilizing this law of error. Quetelet constructed the notion of the average man from the true mean of human attributes (Davis, 1995; Hacking, 1990). He thought the average, or the normal, signi- fies what is usual or typical as well as the way things ought to be. In contrast, errors were abnormalities, deviations, or extremes (Davis, 1995; Hacking, 1990).

The norm divides the population into standard and nonstandard subpopula- tions. Quetelet wrote, for example, that "deviations more or less great from the mean have constituted . . . ugliness in body as well as vice in morals and a state of sickness with regard to the constitution" (cited in Porter, 1986, p. 103). According to Lennard Davis (1995), "The idea of the norm pushes . . . variation of the body through a stricter template guiding the way the body 'should' be" (p. 34). Thus, the social construction of normalcy is what creates the disabled person's "problem" (Davis, 1995, p. 24). Indeed, the very meaning or signification of the normal has become tied to a concept of disability (Davis, 1995, p. 2). Adapted physical activ- ity, of course, has not been immune to this conceptualization of disability. The American Adapted Physical Activity National Standards (1995) indicated, as an example, that practitioners are to understand that "the meaning of obtained test scores that range two or more standard deviations below the mean [are] related to individuals with disabilities" (p. 63).

While Quetelet's focus was on central tendencies, Sir Francis Galton (1822- 1911), who founded the biometric school of statistical research, was interested in distributions and deviations from the mean (Hacking, 1990). While Quetelet thought of average or normal human characteristics as how things ought to be, Galton regarded the normal as an indication of mediocrity requiring improvement (Hack- ing, 1990). Galton thought that considering all extremes in human characteristics as errors or abnormalities was problematic (Davis, 1995; MacKenzie, 1981). Ac- cording to Galton, certain attributes that he valued, such as tallness, intelligence, ambitiousness, strength, and fertility, were positive distributions of a trait and not errors. Galton divided the bell curve (renamed "the normal distribution curve") into

established a making system for characteristics. Distributions around -

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the norm were no longer regarded as equal: The average, now referred to as the me- dian, represented mediocrity. Those in the lower quartile were posited as deviant or abnormal and as objects for intervention, while those in the upper quartile represented progress, perfectibility, and eliminated abnormality (Davis, 1995).

Quetelet's appropriating the law of error to explain stability in social statis- tics and Galton's imposing his values about human development onto the bell curve have profoundly affected discourse about ability and di~ability.~ Far from a neu- tral, objective enterprise, the discourse of statistics has produced social meaning about the normal and the abnormal, ability and disability, and subsequently cre- ated categories, such as "the intelligent," "the deviant," and "the disabled in dif- ferent social contexts, from classrooms to playgrounds, from boardrooms to factory floors. Notions such as success, competence, excellence, merit, and ability acquire meaning only in contexts where some skills, attributes, or characteristics are val- ued more than are others. Indeed, McDermott and Varenne (1995) go as far as to say, "Competence is a fabrication, a mock-up . . . [and] the most arbitrary tasks can be [contrived as] the measure of individual development" (p. 337).

John Fiske (1993) described how statistics are utilized to establish normal work efficiency in an airline reservation center. One worker, for example, had a 93.55% utilization by virtue of handling 79 callslday, spending 3.53 min on each call, and completing her after-call workin about 23 s. since the normal utilization for workers at the reservation center was 96.5%, normal callslday were between 150 and 200, and time spent after calls 50.3 of a minute, this worker was consid- ered inefficient. As Fiske indicated, "Norms do not exist on their own terms, but only as products of a monitoring knowledge system. [Without norms] the know- ledge of any one individual can be neither evaluated nor ranked, and thus cannot be applied . . . as rewards or sanctions" (p. 74).

Evaluation, ranking, and intervention through rewards and sanctions rest with experts who work from definitions of and deviations from the normal. These defi- nitions are set out in advance so that experts, given those definitions, can isolate and handle anomalies (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982). Experts' interventions to re- ward or punish and hence attempt to change behavior, performance, or even body shape and configuration are based on the "central insight of statistics . . . the idea that a population can be normed" (Davis, 1995, p. 30). Establishing the normal as the typical and good has enabled making comparisons, isolating those who deviate from the norm, and intervening, performed by experts who attempt to "norm the nonstandard" (Davis, 1995, p. 30).

Norrning the nonstandard relies upon and ensures the place of experts who intervene to improve bodies or abilities. As an example, consider Ann Landers' (1966) advice to a mother who wrote in despair at the thoughtless people who stare at her 9-year-old daughter, who has a port-wine birthmark on her face. Landers advised immediate consultation with a laser therapy expert to lighten the stain. "Instead of trying to change people," Landers wrote, "please take steps at once to get rid of that albatross around your child's neck" (p. C6).

Technological Intervention and the Natural

To alter individuals who are "abnormal" so that they more closely resemble the "normal" population, interventionist technologies are developed that enable indi- viduals to adjust to their environment (Dunn, 1997). By technological interven-

272 Shogan

tion, I simply mean an organized, systematic, expert application of techniques, mechanisms, or practices designed to produce change. A discipline produces a set of knowledge that shapes how the identified individuals are to be understood and defines appropriate or legitimate behaviors or actions (Foucault, 1979). The disci- pline of high performance sport, for example, produces knowledge about the ath- lete, who is then controlled and shaped by this knowledge through interventionist technologies that constantly pressure the athlete to conform to high performance standards or norms (Shogan, in press). Likewise, adapted physical activity research- ers produce, for example, knowledge about the physically awkward child, who is then shaped by this knowledge as experts take up technological interventions to have the child conform to standards of culturally normative activities.

Interventionist technologies, such as biomechanical adjustments, repetitive skill exercises, and resistance training, are necessary for improving physical activ- ity skills. These interventions are commonly regarded as natural performance en- hancements and those who use them are regarded as natural participants, as opposed to unnatural technological interventions, such as performance-enhancing drugs and the unnatural participants who use them. This contrast between natural and unnatural technologies and participants is also used to distinguish between partici- pants with disabilities and nondisabled participants. When persons with disabili- ties use technologies to adjust to participation in "normal" physical activity, the use of these technologies constructs this person as unnatural in contrast to a natural, nondisabled participant, even though both nondisabled participants and those with disabilities utilize technologies to participate.

When some technologies, like resistance training, are assumed to be natural, other technologies, like wheelchairs and prostheses, are considered unnatural, and still others, like steroids, are thought unethical because they are unnatural, this category confusion enables arguing that athletes who use unnatural technologies should not participate or compete with individuals who only utilize natural tech- nologies. In competitive sport this requires separating "natural," nondisabled ath- letes from "unnatural" athletes with disabilities. However, when we recognize that all participants rely on technological intervention as they aim to meet or surpass the standards or norms for their activities, not only is the dichotomy between the natural nondisabled participant and the unnatural participant with disabilities called into question, the specious link that is sometimes made between technological intervention and ethical impropriety may be disrupted as well. Some technologies, such as performance-enhancing drugs, may be ethically problematic, but linking technology to the unnatural and then to the unethical not only commits the "natu- ralistic fallacy," which is to "take disputed values and make them seem innate, essential, eternal, nonnegotiable" (Cronon, 1995, p. 36), it undermines physical activity for people with disabilities who rely on technology.

Categorizing participants is often necessary to achieve fair competition, but separating nondisabled participants and those with disabilities or female and male participants is not legitimate when this separation is based on assumptions about natural abilities. Fortunately, a functional classification system, which is already used in sport for people with disabilities, has the potential to undermine any arbitrariness in demar- cating ability and disability. A functional classification system categorizes partici- pants according to strength, range of motion, motor coordination, and balance (Davis, 1994) zmd, thus, does not set out in advance what &&scan do.

Social Construction of Disability 273

Arguments for separating people with disabilities from the nondisabled (e.g., those with spinal injuries from those with cerebral palsy) and men from women in almost all physical activity and sport are often based on an assumption that we can distinguish between the natural and the social. Hans Lindstrom (1986) argued, for example, that muscle mass is a reason for separating men and women in sport for people with disabilities. This argument assumes that muscle mass equates with athletic ability, that men (but not women) naturally have muscle mass, and that women, unlike men, cannot acquire muscle mass through technological interven- t i o n ~ . ~ Separate competitions for men and women undermine the seriousness with which it is possible to take a commitment to a functional classification in physical activity and sport for people with disabilities. Moving to a functional classification system has not broken down a malelfemale division, which indicates that a notion about natural abilities still has a very strong hold.

Social Construction of Disability

I have briefly explored statistics and technology as two sites that have shaped what is understood by disability. The claim that disability is socially constructed in- cludes a recognition that disability is not a static, ahistoric notion. But there is more. This claim also asserts that the organization of social contexts enables some while disabling others who must negotiate those contexts. To draw out this under- standing of the social construction of disability, I refer first to the United Nations' (1983) definitions of impairment, disability, and handicap:

Impairment: Any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or ana- tomical structure or function Disability: Any restriction or lack (resulting from impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal Handicap: A disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from impairment or disability, that limits or prevents fulfilling a role that is normal for that individual, depending on age, sex, social, and cultural factors

Handicap is therefore a function of the relationship between disabled per- sons and their environment. It occurs when they encounter cultural, physi- cal, or social barriers which prevent their access to the various systems of society that are available to other citizens. Thus handicap is the loss or limi- tation of opportunities to take part in the life of the community on an equal level with others. (pp. 6-7)

While these distinctions have some usefulness, particularly because they en- able us to include debilitating chronic illnesses (Wendell, 1989), 1 am inclined to agree with activists from the disability movement who distinguish between impair- ment and disability but see no need to distinguish further between disability and handi- cap. As Oliver (1996) indicated, to be impaired is to lack "part of or all of a limb, or have a defective limb, organ or mechanism of the body . . . [whereas] disability [i]s the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organization which takes little or no account of people who have physical impairments" (p. 22). Susan Wendell (1989) argued that, by definng impairment and disability in physical terms and handicap in cultural, physical, and social terms, the United Nations docu- ment makes an arbitrary distinction between physical and social aspects of disabil-

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ity. Wendell reminded us that "not only the 'normal' roles for one's age, sex, soci- ety, and culture, but also 'normal' structure and function and 'normal' ability to perform an activity, depend on the society in which the standards of normality are generated" (p. 107). Such factors as "social expectations, the state of technology and its availability to people in that condition, the educational system, architec- ture, attitudes toward physical appearance, and the pace of life" (p. 109) affect the point at which variation from the norm becomes a disability (Wendell, 1989).

How and whether one is disabled or enabled by a social context depends on "the relationship of a physical impairment and the political, social, even spatial environment that places that impairment in a matrix of meanings and significa- tions" (Davis, 1995, p. 3). Indeed, as McDermott and Varenne (1995) indicated, cultures "actively organize ways for persons to be disabled" (p. 337). McDermott and Varenne went on to say:

The difficulties that people in wheelchairs (or city shoppers with carts . . .) face with curbs and stairs tell us little about the physical conditions requir- ing wheelchairs or carts, but a great deal about the rigid institutionalization of particular ways of handling gravity and boundaries between street and sidewalk as different zones of social interaction. (pp. 327-328)

When some are at a disadvantage by the way that a social context is organized, it can be argued that disability is an effect of the social context. In other words, dis- ability is socially constructed. Martha's Vineyard in the 18th and 19th centuries is a striking example of an absence of disability in a community, even though numerous people had physical impairments. What was unusual about this community was not only that many people were deaf but that almost everyone signed (McDermott & Varenne, 1995). Surviving members of the community could not always remember who had been deaf because sign language was used by almost everyone in Martha's Vineyard, even between hearing people (McDermott & Varenne, 1995). This is an example of how it may be possible in some situations to "eliminate the category of the disabled altogether, and simply talk about individuals' physical abilities in their social context" (Wendell, 1989, p. 108).

The context of wheelchair basketball, for example, is not disabling for those who can perform the required skills, and these participants are not disabled. Referring to participants in these activities as disabled only makes sense when their skills, com- pared against ability standards that do not apply to wheelchair participants, are con- sidered deficient. People in wheelchairs are not disabled by wheelchair basketball if they have acquired the activity skills but they are disabled by a game of basketball that does not accommodate wheelchairs. A physical activity for individuals with disabili- ties distinguishes an activity for people who are disabled by the larger culture but who are not disabled within these physical activity contexts. Likewise, someone attempt- ing to run and jump in a wheelchair basketball game would not be enabled by running and jumping. 1 am reluctant, however, to call this person disabled because, even though disabled by wheelchair basketball, in almost every other context aside from wheel- chair basketball, the person who can run and jump is enabled.

Implications for Adapted Physical Activity

I have discussed two ways of understanding the claim that disability is socially constructed. The first relates to the fact that the normal, the abnormal, the natural,

Social Construction of Disability 275

the unnatural, ability, and disability each have a social history. The second is related to understanding that disability is created when social contexts are organized to enable some but not 0thers.A~ a consequence of this discussion, certain questions are opened up for adapted physical activity researchers and practitioners. With respect to under- standing the social construction of disability, we might ask, How much do research and professional practice in adapted physical activity depend upon notions of the norm while giving experts license to intervene to make bodies or abilities more "normal"? With respect to understanding the social construction of disability, we might ask, To what extent is adapted physical activity part of a social context that sustains disability? Related questions include the follwoing:

1. Does some research and professional practice in adapted physical activity depend on an assumption that there is a normal population that can be cat- egorized and from which special populations deviate? Is the normal defined in advance in order that experts can isolate and deal with anomalies given that definition (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982).

2. When there is a normalization goal in adapted physical activity programs, does normalization require norming the nonstandard; that is, does it require making people with disabilities more like those without?

3. What are the assumptions behind modified equipment or exercise? If a cul- ture is committed to enabling all of its members, would it be necessary to think of equipment or exercise as a modified version of other (more impor- tant) equipment or exercise?

4. If the aged, young, disabled, chronically ill, poor, and women are special nonstandard populations, what are characteristics of the normal population?

5. Is technological intervention considered necessary to normalize disabled populations? Is it also an indication that those with disabilities are unnatural when they utilize these technologies?

6. What are the obstacles to basing a functional classification system on what people can do, thus eliminating the need for nonfunctional boundaries be- tween men's and women's activities and between activities for nondisabled individuals and people with disabilities?

Having worked in women's studies for several years, I am aware of the need to take up the very categories that we wish to call into question in order to make changes for those who have been put at a disadvantage because of these categories. A task, as I see it, is to trouble categories in which one is implicated while resisting the impulse to seek cases that solidify these categories. My purpose in this paper has been to trouble the normal and the natural in order to question how these cat- egories shape what is understood as ability and disability; to question the extent to which research and professional practice in adapted physical activity depend upon understanding ability and disability in relation to the normal and the natural; and to foster a discussion about how disability is socially constructed.

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Notes

'Throughout the paper, these terms have no static meaning, and each has a complex set of significations.

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