Disability Studies at UCB provides leadership and training for students, faculty, staff and community members.

Disability studies provides a space to explore questions like these: How has disability been defined in various historical moments, in various cultures and eras? While impairment has unquestionably been a frequent experience throughout human history, has disability—the construction of impairment as a generic social category -- been a historical constant, or is it a modern invention? What social ideologies, cultural systems, and societal arrangements have shaped the meaning and experience of disability? How has disability been defined or represented in cultural and artistic productions, public laws and policies, modern profes sional practices and in everyday life?

The field also explores how to best meet the challenges and alleviate the problems of those with impairments or disabilities, with emphasis on the role of those affected in defining problems and evaluating solutions.