What Is the Social Model of Disability and How Should It Form Our Work as a Heritage Organisation?

What is this advice about?

This advice introduces the concept of the Social Model of Disability to help inform the policies and practices for accessibility and inclusion of heritage organisations of any size.

It covers the basics of the Social Model and how to embed it into organisations, including employers, volunteer managers, and places that welcome visitors or participants.

What are the key points?

What is the Social Model of Disability?

The Social Model of Disability is a framework for understanding and expressing the barriers disabled people face in their daily lives. It states that these barriers are caused by society's attitudes and prejudices, lack of understanding, and lack of accessibility measures put in place, not by any difference or impairment a disabled person has.

The term was coined by academic Professor Mike Oliver, who was the first UK Professor of disability studies.

Examples include:

• Wheelchair users cannot access historic buildings with stepped entrances because they were not considered in the design, not because of their mobility impairment
• Autistic people with sensitivity to loud noises cannot use bathroom facilities in museums with loud hand dryers because they were not considered when bathrooms were being installed, not because of their neurodivergence
• Deaf people cannot experience video presentations at a historic site in their first language because BSL interpretation is not provided as standard, not because they are Deaf

The Social Model is grounded in the disability rights movement. Disabled people created it as an alternative to the medical model, which pathologises disability and focuses on medical interventions to 'fix' a disability or impairment. Many disabled people see this medical model as othering and exclusionary and an attempt to fit disabled people into societal 'norms' rather than address their individual and unique needs. The Social Model seeks to fix the problem of society and the world not being accessible enough; the medical model seeks to 'fix' individuals towards 'normative' standards, regardless of their individual needs.

The Social Model uses people-centred language to change the way people think about disability actively. For example, the term 'disabled people' is preferred to 'people with disabilities', as the latter suggests the medical model of an individual and their impairment being the issue, not society.

The heritage and history of disabled, d/Deaf, and neurodiverse people has often been interpreted and presented through the medical model. Disability histories have often been explored through medical interventions or through platforming disabled people as overcoming adversity or being heroic in the face of struggle, and generally by non-disabled historians.

Under the Social Model, disabled, d/Deaf and neurodiverse people research and present their own heritage, explore the wider lives of disabled people, and explore disability heritage through lived experience and acknowledgement of the impact of societal attitudes and beliefs. You can find more about this in our resource, 'How Should We Write and Talk about the History of Disability?'

How can we begin to embed the Social Model into our work?

The first step is to invest in an informed, confident workforce or volunteer cohort across your organisation. Disabled, d/Deaf, and neurodivergent people could be colleagues, volunteers, or visitors – and may not have disclosed this to you. Good awareness and practices must be embedded across an organisation to ensure the ethos and approach of the Social Model are embedded and consistent. This can be achieved through training, and you should explore options relevant to your organisation, led by disabled people. For example, there is the Enabled Archaeology Foundation for archaeologists.

The next step is to review your policies and practices around accessibility and inclusion, ensuring they include accommodations and considerations for different impairments, not just physical and visible disabilities.

This might mean looking at:

• Your recruitment procedures
• Remote working, flexible working, and sick leave policies
• Codes of conduct, visitor charters, behaviour policies, or other documents governing expectations of behaviour in your organisation
• Access guides, site plans or maps, or site information panels for staff, volunteers or visitors to your site (including public and non-public areas)
• Your procurement procedures, especially when purchasing services that will affect your staff, volunteers, participants or visitors
• Your annual budget for access and inclusion – or ringfencing one if it doesn’t exist already

You should review all of these in partnership with disabled, d/Deaf, and neurodivergent people to sense-check them and ensure that there aren’t elements missing that someone with lived experience could alert you to. This could be existing staff, volunteers, or visitors – but ideally, this work should be undertaken by a paid consultant with lived experience.

How do we embed the Social Model into our long-term work, policies, and procedures?

The Social Model is an excellent framework for thinking through access and inclusion for disabled, d/Deaf and neurodivergent people as it challenges society to think of solutions beneficial for many people rather than attempting to 'fix' a single individual. There are 2 key questions to ask when embedding it into your organisation: what are the barriers, and how can we take action to remove them?

Barriers can come in many forms and will differ depending on the type of organisation and its work. They fall under these broad categories:

• Employment or volunteering. Interview procedures, meeting styles, 'unwritten rules', workplace layout, workplace building access levels, policies and procedures, training budgets, budget for accommodations, management structures, codes of conduct or behaviour
• Physical. Stairs and steps, slopes, ground surfaces, doorway and corridor widths, lift types and sizes, temperature or lack of controls, lighting types, noises, busyness of indoor or outdoor spaces, surface materials, maintenance of facilities, access to kitchens or fridges
• Communication. Signs and maps, information panels, handouts or leaflets, training for public-facing staff, audio or video materials, guides and tours

Removing or lessening societal barriers to access means increased access to heritage for disabled people, but also additional benefits and increased accessibility for other groups. For example, creating consistent, clear, visual and symbol-based signage around a heritage site means learning disabled visitors can navigate and experience a site more independently, as well as an additional benefit for young people, people for whom English is not a first language, and people with a visual impairment.

It is unrealistic to attempt to solve all of the barriers disabled, d/Deaf, and neurodiverse people face, but acknowledging them and working on the ones you can change is better than taking no action at all. Visible acknowledgements and actions build trust and let people know you are proactive.

The following framework is a good way to look at all aspects of your organisation and think through them to identify the barriers and how to tackle them. Remember, this should be revisited regularly to maintain an accurate understanding of barriers and develop your practice (and budget) to action changes.

Further reading

A brief introduction to the Social Model from Disability Rights UK

A PDF guidance note on the Social Model from the UK Health Service Ombudsman

Sense (UK charity for the deafblind) guide to the Social Model