Disability history has been emerging since the 1990s as an academic field. It is still largely under researched and in general, perspectives from disabled people are missing.
Understanding the past can help to give context to some of the challenges disabled people may face today. Critical to my research is the social model of disability which essentially states that it is society that poses barriers to disabled people rather than their impairment/s or difference. Universities also need to consider practical aspects of applications and interviews like whether rooms are accessible for wheelchair users or arranging different kinds of reasonable adjustments including sign language interpreters.
To read more, https://www.cam.ac.uk/this-cambridge-life/the-graduate-student-rewriting-deaf-histories-and-disability-histories
