Terminology and concepts Glossary

Disability Studies distinguishes between impairment and disability: impairment is the physical side of disability - a missing leg or eyesight, a chronic illness. With ‘disability’, a social aspect is added - barriers hinder and exclude, which often makes the impairment a problem in the first place.

There are different understandings of disability. The medical model of disability is based on the norm of a healthy human body without impairments. A disabled person does not correspond to this medical concept of a healthy, functional body.

The social model emerged from the activist movement as a reaction to the medical model and is at the centre of disability studies. The focus here is not on individual impairments, but on disability, i.e. the systematic marginalisation and discrimination that society imposes as a result.

Cultural model
This model examines disability as a cultural-historical phenomenon of exclusion processes that arise from culturally specific interpretations of otherness and norms.

The German Social Code defines disability as follows: ‘People are disabled if their physical function, mental ability or mental health is likely to deviate from the typical condition for their age for more than six months and their participation in society is therefore impaired. They are at risk of disability if the impairment is to be expected.’ (Section 2 (1) of the German Social Code (SGB IX))

Interdisciplinary field of research that understands disability as socially, historically and culturally constructed and researches the topic from a social and cultural science perspective. The development of Disability Studies was significantly influenced by the activist disability movement in the US and the UK.

These terms describe discrimination against people with disabilities and chronic illnesses through derogatory language, degrading behaviour or exclusion.

For many people with disabilities, the words ‘disabled’ and ‘disability’ are neutral terms. It is crucial to speak of ‘disabled people’ or ‘people with disabilities’, because ‘the disabled one’ alone reduces the person to one characteristic and imagines the cliché of a homogeneous group of ‘disabled people’ instead of recognising their individuality and diversity.

A chronic illness is a long-lasting, difficult to cure or incurable illness that often requires recurring medical treatment. These include epilepsy, allergies, rheumatic diseases, intestinal diseases, diabetes, lung diseases or multiple sclerosis, as well as AD(H)S, autism, dyslexia or depression, for example. Disabled people are not ill, but chronic illnesses can result in impairments that in many cases lead to disabilities.

Accessibility aims to create an environment in which people with disabilities can participate independently in leisure, work and society. To achieve this, structural, communicative and, especially at the university, didactic and digital barriers must be removed. As it is almost impossible to achieve complete accessibility, the term ‘’low barrier‘’ is now often used.

Students with disabilities and chronic illnesses are entitled to compensation for disadvantages in accordance with the BW State Higher Education Act. The aim of this is to compensate for disadvantages resulting from the individual impairment and to create equal opportunities through adapted framework conditions, for example in examinations. The form that compensation for disadvantages can take in a specific case therefore depends largely on the individual impairment and the resulting disadvantages. Possible ways of compensating for disadvantages include, for example: extending the examination time, e.g. extending the time for completion, technical aids, e.g. using a computer as a writing aid, examination assistance, e.g. a typist, changing a written examination into an oral examination or vice versa or using an extra examination room under supervision.

The cross-sectional concept of ‘disability mainstreaming’ is based on the 2006 UN Convention on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities and, modelled on ‘gender mainstreaming’, pursues the inclusion and consideration of the concerns of people with disabilities in all political decision-making processes with the aim of equality and participation of people with disabilities and the chronically ill.