REHABILITATION STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES OF NEGATIVE ATTITUDES (OPPRESSION) TOWARDS STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN GHANA
Keywords:
community-based rehabilitation, oppression/negative attitudes, social model of disability, action research, community rehabilitation workersAbstract
Many models of disability have been propounded but popular among them is the social model and/or the rights-based model. According to the social model of disability, there are clear relations between the barriers that people with disabilities experience and their suppression by able-bodied people. Community-based rehabilitation students of the University of Education, Winneba in Ghana have been trained to work from a social model perspective of disability. Through action research this study investigated how the students understand the oppression of people’s negative attitudes towards persons with disabilities. Following an initial phase of interviews with past cohort of students, changes were implemented in the CBR rehabilitation programme. Subsequent interviews with current students demonstrated that the current students have greater understanding of the complexities of the oppression of people with disabilities than the past students. Recommendations have been proffered to align training on the negative attitude formation about persons with disabilities to a human rights approach to disability.
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