FROM HISTORICAL STIGMA TO SELF-DECLARED DISABILITY: A STUDY WITH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

The multiple current understandings of disabilities have incited, in the historical-cultural perspective, critical revisions in the Higher Education scope. Facing this challenge, the present research aimed at identifying and analyzing, in the context of two Brazilian public institutions of Higher Education, multiple conceptions of disability, specifically from the point of view of 81 university students (graduation and post-graduation) who declared themselves as being disabled. Through an online questionnaire, together with the Intercultural Scale of the Conceptions of Disability (ISCD), the statistical analysis of the collected data revealed a trend of the participants’ agreement regarding the biological conceptions of social disability, even though the metaphysical conception was also identified. Therefore, the study reveals a com-plex and necessary debate over the socio-anthropological phenomenon of disability encompassing all areas of knowledge, with the goal of promoting the recognition and legitimation of the rights of people with disabilities as citizens. There is also tension on the self-declaration to define the condition of disability at the university.