University grabs a leadership role in a provocative field _ disability studies.

Byline: J. Linn Allen

CHICAGO _ With a blitz of high-profile hires, the University of Illinois at Chicago has made itself the top school in the country in a cutting-edge discipline that bridges health, social policy and the humanities: the study of how people with physical and impairments see and are seen by the world.

Like race studies and gender studies in the previous generation, the growing field _ called disability studies _ has shaken up academia by putting on center stage a group that has previously been shunted to the margins.

Disability scholars say the field can change the way society looks at the disabled and has a huge potential constituency in the disabled themselves, those who care for them and live with them, and the vast numbers of Baby Boomers who will be prone to disabilities as they age.

These scholars' approach to disability is a far cry from the "medical model," which deals with it as an illness to be prevented, treated or ameliorated by crafting better wheelchairs or hearing aids.

Instead, they propose that the so-called normalcy of a non-disabled body is not a given but is a socially conditioned concept that can and perhaps should be changed.

"Rather than looking at a man with a cane or a blind person with glasses, (the field) looks at the social construction of disability in literature and film…