Disability-Based Inequalities

How do institutional and policy changes impact the lives of people with disabilities, and how does these impacts affect other intersecting forms of inequality in our society?

Principal Investigator

David Pettinicchio is a sociologist whose research primarily focuses on politics, public policy, and social movements, with a particular emphasis on disability-based inequalities. His work explores how institutional and policy changes impact the lives of people with disabilities, emphasizing the intersections of disability with various forms of inequality, such as economic disparity, labour market dynamics, political representation, and representation in popular culture.

Pettinicchio also investigates the role of advocacy and social movements in driving policy changes and highlights how structural barriers and social attitudes contribute to the marginalization of disabled individuals.

His first book, Politics of Empowerment: Disability Rights and the Cycle of American Policy Reform (2019, Stanford University Press), offers a timely explanation for how the United States is both policy innovator and laggard in disability rights. He charts the symbiotic relationship that developed between policymakers and activists. By placing the movement in a broader sociological, political and historical context, the book helps redefine the relationship between grassroots advocacy and institutional politics, revealing a cycle of progress and back-stepping embedded in the American political system.