ABILITY AND DISABILITY

AS DIMENSIONS OF
DIVERSITY
 DIVERSITY
covers the limitless domains of an individual’s unique
characteristics, experiences, and capabilities. It
encompasses respect and tolerance of differences that
enables a celebration of uniqueness.
 ABILITY

refers to the possession of the qualities required to

do something: necessary skill or competence, or
power. (English Collins Dictionary)
 DISABILITY
the umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations, and participation
restrictions, referring to the negative aspects of the interaction between
an individual (with a health condition) and that individual's contextual
factors (environmental and personal factors). (World Health Organization
(WHO n.d)
The American Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) "defines a person with a disability
as a person who has physical or mental impairment that substantially limits
one or more major life activity. This includes people who have a record of
such an impairment, even if they do not currently have a disability. It also
includes individuals who do not have a disability but are regarded as having a
disability.”
 DISABILITY
“Disabilities may affect one's senses or one's mobility; they may be static or
progressive, congenital or acquired, formal (affecting the shape of the
body) or functional, visible or invisible" (Couser 2005).
A person's disability makes him/her a unique individual who is, at times, shunned from
places and activities. They have to be acknowledged as part of the spectrum of diversity.
They have to be recognized as human beings who should not be discriminated against, but
rather understood, accepted, and tolerated. They have to be accorded their rights.
Disabilities have to be seen as a natural part of life and a natural part of diversity. People
with disabilities have to be perceived and accepted as people with distinct abilities. They
have to identify themselves as having disabilities so that the world can accept them and
create avenues for them to live in.
THE DILEMMA
OF DIVERSITY
 DICRIMINATION
In this age of fast-paced development where diversity plays a unique role,
there are still challenges that confront a lot of people who have been
identified as "different."

Discrimination issues around race, gender, age, and intellect still abound in
spite of charters, laws, and policies that uphold diversity.
 DICRIMINATION
In some workplaces, women and people of color are still discriminated against and not
given positions in management or administration.
People of a certain race are stereotyped to be of a specific character. A number of
times, Muslims have been taken aside in immigration and interrogated.
Non-married and same-sex couples are still not accepted in some parts of the world.
In some schools, children with special needs are shunned with the reason that they
are not ready for school yet or are not suited for the school. Children from
indigenous groups have to go through an educational system that does not consider
their ethnic background, needs, and values.
In more workplaces, there are systems and processes put into place to
intentionally promote diversity.

Diverse ways of thinking and doing things bring in creativity and

productivity. Innovative thinking and collaboration are encouraged when
different people work to come up with solutions to problems or
challenges.
In schools, diversity is the best way to teach what it means to be tolerant and
respectful of each other's differences.

In government, the acknowledgment that diversity is an integral component of

community equates to laws and policies being passed to look out for the welfare of
people of diverse cultures and backgrounds.

Diversity, therefore, is an integral component of

life and of living.
Activity: Venn Diagram of Similarities and Differences

Directions
Pick a classmate you do not fully know. Take turns
discussing different things about each other.
Complete the Venn diagram below by drawing the
things that make you different (draw in the outer
circles) and make you two similar (inner circle).
Count the number of things that make you the
same and make you different from each other.

Share to the class ways to show your appreciation

of differences/diversity.