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The Deficit View and Its Critics

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Dinishak, Janette·2016·Disability Studies Quarterly
DOI 10.18061/dsq.v36i4.5236
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Abstract

This paper investigates what it is to understand human differences in terms of deficits and examines criticisms of this approach. In the past few decades, across many fields of inquiry and outside the academy there has been a surge of interest in critiquing "the deficit view" of all manner of group differences and deviations from the norm. But what exactly is meant by "deficit view" and related terms when they figure in accounts of human differences? Do critics of the deficit view claim that they are never appropriate or that particular applications of the approach are inappropriate? The aim of this paper is twofold: to identify and articulate some of the conceptual issues at the heart of debates about deficit approaches and to examine how these issues matter. Autism is my focus case. As we will see, many critiques of the deficit view of autism tend to characterize what is problematic about taking a deficit view in terms of the personal and social harm that deficit views can or do effect. One important upshot of my discussion, I argue, is that there is another kind of drawback to deficit thinking that is independent of the deficit view's potential negative personal and social consequences, a drawback that deserves serious consideration and sustained critical attention: in some instances, at least, deficit views impede scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the phenomena themselves. Thus, articulating and assessing deficit approaches is of practical and theoretical importance.

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  79. I am grateful to anonymous reviewers' of submissions for the conference "Re-conceptualizing Mental Illness" (London, April 2014) for their comments on an earlier articulation of this third line of thought. Return to Text
  80. I am grateful to Nameera Akhtar, Mandel Cabrera, Jonathan Ellis, Mona Gupta, Andrew Hsu, Rebekah Johnston, Kara Richardson, Paul Roth, Rasmus Winther, an anonymous reviewer for Disability Studies Quarterly, and the audiences at the 2015 annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry in Toronto and the 2015 annual meeting of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science in Manchester for helping me to shape the ideas in this paper. Return to Text
  81. Dinishak, J. (2016) 'The Deficit View and Its Critics', Disability Studies Quarterly. 36(4) doi: 10.18061/dsq.v36i4.5236
  82. Dinishak, J. The Deficit View and Its Critics. Disability Studies Quarterly. 2016 12; %}36(4) doi: 10.18061/dsq.v36i4.5236
  83. Dinishak, J. (2016, 12 2). The Deficit View and Its Critics. Disability Studies Quarterly 36(4) doi: 10.18061/dsq.v36i4.5236

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Authors
Dinishak, J.
Affiliations
University of California, Santa Cruz (US)
Corresponding author
Dinishak, Janette
ORCID
Dinishak, Janette
Venue
Disability Studies Quarterly
Publisher
The Ohio State University Libraries
Published
2016-12-02
Volume
36
Issue
4
ISSN
  • 1041-5718 (ISSN-L)
  • 2159-8371
DOI
10.18061/dsq.v36i4.5236
OpenAlex
W2559516930
Cited by
132
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 1
FWCI
8.14
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Disability Studies Quarterly (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Disability Rights and Representation
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies
  • Social Sciences › Education › Inclusion and Disability in Education and Sport
Keywords
deficit views, autism spectrum disorder, human difference, group differences, normativity, social harm, disability studies, philosophy of disability, scientific progress

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