- • with the back story, students could design avatars to represent each • with the back story, students could design avatars to represent each of the three causes that historians feel are important. They could then summarise each cause in a single sentence by its avatar.
- • could write a paragraph to summarise their answer to the question. • could write a paragraph to summarise their answer to the question.
- • could add a citizenship angle to this by challenging students to take note • could add a citizenship angle to this by challenging students to take note of all the evidence around them of responses to the legislation to make society more accessible to people with disabilities.
- • slot-ins always have an ‘over to you’ section. These are to encourage • slot-ins always have an ‘over to you’ section. These are to encourage students that learning is ongoing and something that they should be taking responsibility for.

### Misconceptions to dispel

Students, understandably, often take for granted that the world around them is as it has always been. This slot-in should help to dispel the misconception that people with disabilities have always been regarded as full citizens. At the same time, many people with disabilities feel that their campaign for equal rights is ongoing. Students should also reflect that change for minority groups does not just ‘happen’. Years of campaigning to change attitudes are often involved, at great cost to the people involved in campaigning, even when the conditions are favourable for change.

### Extra background for teachers

The history of disability is rarely taught in schools and not much taught in universities. However, it is a growing area of research. European attitudes to disability changed fundamentally in the period following the Reformation. While societies in the Middle Ages had associated disability with the Devil’s work, the need to ‘save one’s soul’ by being good to the poor had resulted in a social contract where the giver also gained from help and support given to a person with disabilities. The ideas of philosophers about the mind and body, principally Descartes, resulted in a shift in attitudes to see the person with disabilities as someone who was a less than perfect human. The industrial age saw an even greater shift to the idea of the machine-like qualities of a human, with ‘weaknesses’ to be ‘improved’. At the same time, increasing numbers of people began to work outside the home to timetables and demands set by others. All of these changes served to demean and alienate disability from the ideal of human society. As stated in the back story text for students, attitudes began to change as a result of the World Wars and the assertion 20th of Human Rights in the century. 1980 as ‘The United Nations Year of Disability’ was another turning point moment in the recent past, both in terms of the protests that it sparked and the focus that it gave upon issues.

### Where to link to

The Open University has a learning disability history site. The National Archives, Historic England and Scope also have good resources on the history of disabilities. Every year there is a Disability History month in the UK.