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American Pragmatism, Sociology and the Development of Disability Studies
would help impaired and disabled people return to work. This has
traditionally been the major focus of the Veterans Administration
and the branches of the Social Security Administration dedicated to
disability. Medical researchers employed the quantitative methods
of surveys, targeted sampling strategies, double blinded clinical
trials and evaluation studies to demonstrate patterns and outcomes
that would help in implementing programs to help disabled people
be more functionally independent. The social rehabilitation
researchers, often including sociologists and economists, also used
quantitative methods and statistical models to determine which
variables and interventions predicted return to work.
Many Disability Studies scholars in the United States were trained
or heavily influenced by sociologists so they carried over the social
concerns and research paradigms from sociology to Disability
Studies. Quantitative research in Disability Studies is an illustration
of this influence. For example, FUJIURA and RUTKOWSKI-KMITTA
(2001) point out that counting disability is an important enterprise
for disabled people, governments, policy makers and social
scientists. Regardless of the heated debates over disability
definitions and who and what ought to be measured, if anything,
governments need to be able to identify and count disability if they
are to provide health insurance, medical and social services and
make the environment more accommodating. While there is deep
concern over labeling, failing to take disabled peoples’ experience
into account and giving insufficient attention to the accessibility of
the environment, governments could not provide services nor even
consider altering the environment unless they could identify
disabled people and their needs. FUJIURA and RUTOWSKI-KMITTA
(2001:70) observe that : “Although there are notable exceptions,
the organized political state exists to promote the well-being of its
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