The Social Construction of Disability: From the Consideration of the Disabled as Deviant to Inclusion of the Disabled Worker

The paper aims to analyze the different meanings of disability by the different approaches that studied disability over time. Attention, in particular, will be focused on so-called disability studies that, starting from the 1980s of the last century, have allowed the overcoming of that medical conception that explained disability as a biological condition or as a synonym of individual deficit. With the social model of disability, the focus shifts from the individual to the environmental, social and cultural factors, so-called disabling factors of the man who differs from the norm. There is no need to fight individual deficiencies, but to identify and remove the discriminating conditions that produce exclusion from active citizenship and cause dependence. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), introduced a new approach to disability based on human rights. Disability is increasingly a relationship between the individual characteristics of people, the environment and social constructions that support or limit full social participation. The difficulties of find a job for people with disabilities, even today, despite ad hoc policies, are an important indicator of how the inclusion is often more than formal. Change contemporary society, still excluded and disabling, requires a revision of the relationship and relations of power on which it is founded. Therefore, once again, the role that research can play in implementing truly inclusive policies appears important.