Promoting identity for people with disability: A literature review of the notion of “self-determination” in educational studies

Self-determination is a complex notion with deep historical and philosophical roots. The Oxford English Dictionary identifies the earliest use of the word in 1683 as referring to “determination of one’s mind or will by itself towards an object” (Simpson, Weiner, 1989: 919). Similarly, Wehmeyer states that self-determination refers to the attitudes and abilities required to act as the «primary causal agent in one’s life and to make choices regarding one’s actions free from undue external influence or interference» (Wehmeyer, 1992: 305). In the context of disability, this concept has been generally translated as that necessary condition of enabling people to participate actively in goal setting, planning, selecting and purchasing support services that suit their individual preferences and situations. However, this question becomes more complicated when it is refered to people with severe disabilities (such as the intellectual) with low levels of personal autonomy – a situation that often feeds the misunderstanding that, “for the benefit of the person with disability”, we can decide what is best for them by replacing them. For this reason, this concept of self-determination from a construct born primarily in the psychological studies (Deci, Ryan, 1985), it soon became a flag for the recognition of civil rights of people with disabilities claiming their right to be involved in the decisions making process related to care and support services as well as the essential aspects of their life (e.g. Indipendent Living Movement) up to represents, within the promotion of an inclusive society for all and for everyone, a crucial domain of Quality of Life models (Brown, Bayer, 1989; Shalock, 1991; Felce, Perry, 1995). However, there is no unanimity within psycho-pedagogical studies (neither at the interdisciplinary nor in the intradisciplinary level). It is generally a conceptual pass-partout on which scholars and paradigms often try to make their own contribution both from the theoretical and practical-operational point of view. In order to give an account of the state of the art of the main researches which, in the field of pedagogy and sciences of education, have adressed the self-determination by providing definitions and operational approaches, the work intends to offer a preliminary literature review of the international debate. In particular, it tries to frame the construct of self-determination focusing on intellectual disability by highlighting those anthropological and epistemological dimensions that make it a theoretical reference model for pedagogy and sciences of education.