Elizabeth DePoy is a disability theorist, professor of interdisciplinary disability studies, social work, and cooperating faculty in mechanical engineering at the University of Maineand also senior research fellow. Ono Academic College, Research Institute for Health and Medical Professions. Kiryat Ono, Israel. She is best known for her work in methods of inquiry, legitimacy theory, and disjuncture theory. Co-authored with Stephen Gilson, DePoy developed Explanatory Legitimacy Theory. They analyze how population group membership is assigned, is based on political purpose, and is met with formal responses that serve both intentionally and unintentionally to perpetuate segregation, economic status quo, and inter-group tension. This theory explains disability as an interactive “ill-fit” between bodies and environments.
Biographical information
DePoy was born in 1950 and grew up in New York. She earned a BS in 1972 and PhD in 1988 from the University of Pennsylvania. She has been teaching in higher education since then in several universities throughout the U.S.
Other professional work
She is a principle in ASTOS Innovations, a non-profit corporation devoted to improving equality of access to community resources in local, national, and global environments.
Publications
In her initial book on disability theoryRethinking Disability, applying legitimacy theory to understanding theories of human description and explanation and their purposive, political use in diverse “helping professional” and engineering worlds. In her most recent writin she andGilson, apply design theory and practice to the analysis of diversity categories, their membership, and their maintenance. She argues that current approaches to understanding and responding to diversity are grand narratives that advantage the market and professional economy while perpetuating difference and inter-group struggle, truncating social justice and limiting equality of opportunity.
Books
DePoy, E., & Gilson, S.F.. Human behavior theory and applications: A critical thinking approach. Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Publications.
DePoy, E. & Gitlin, L Introduction to research: Multiple strategies for health and human services 4th ed. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
DePoy, E. & Gilson, S.F. Studying Disability: Multiple Theories and responses. Thousand Oaks, Sage
DePoy, E. & Gilson S.. Evaluation practice: How to do good evaluation research in work settings. New York: Routledge.
DePoy, E. & Gilson S. The human experience: Description, explanation, and judgment. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
DePoy, E. & Gitlin, L. Introduction to research: Multiple strategies for health and human services 3rd ed. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
DePoy, E. & Gilson S.F. Rethinking Disability: Principles for Professional and Social Change. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks-Cole.
