Can the goals of rehabilitation and disability be reconciled? A discussion paper

The objective of this short note is to ask How can we make sense of and reconcile these two societal trends? Our aim is not to provide our own definitive answer, supported by argument and evidence, but to interest the research community to weigh in and either reject the premise that there is a tension, or propose approaches to reconciliation. With that in mind, we begin by providing two, very general, reasons for thinking there is a tension – mindful that there is diverse academic literature here that we cannot adequately summarize – and then making a suggestion about one possible approach to reconciliation.