This paper uses Margaret Archer’s theory of social morphogenesis/morphostasis which explains the temporal interaction between and within structure, culture and agency that brings about the transformation or reproduction of society (Archer, 1995). This theory is utilized to explain the changing function of the social model of disability. The claim is that the social model, which began as an ‘oppositional device’ (Beckett and Campbell, 2015) for the emancipation of disabled people, has been repurposed in higher education as a policy tool for reinforcing a neoliberal system. The “British social model” of disability (Shakespeare 2014, p.1) was developed in the 1960’s and 1970’s by the disability rights movement (DRM). Disability activists from the DRM challenged the cultural emergent properties of the past which saw disability as a medicalised individual problem or “personal tragedy” (Oliver and Barnes, 2012, p.20), and reconceptualised disability as the social construction of an oppressive society. Originating as a causal relationship at the socio-cultural level (Archer, 1995), the social model framework eventually “took on a life of its own” (Oliver, 2013) becoming a component within the Cultural System (Archer, 1995) with causal powers that bolstered the disability rights movement, underpinned national and international disability rights legislation and was a force for change in the UK (Hunt, 2019). Over time, the social model became commonly recognised as having limitations (Shakespeare, 2004; Oliver, 2013) and a wider human rights model of disability was endorsed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (2022). Despite its recognised limitations, higher education institutions in the UK currently allege that they are taking a social model approach, both in policy and in their aspirations (Office for Students (OfS), 2020; Williams et al., 2019). However, the research underpinning this paper suggests that the extent that policies based on the social model can be effective in universities is constrained by structural, agential and cultural factors inherent in a marketised higher education sector. This paper uses Margaret Archer’s (1995) theory to highlight and explain the mechanisms over time that led to the appropriation of the social model for neoliberal purposes. It also considers to what extent policies based on the social model, a component of the current cultural system, are interacting with agents to reproduce ongoing constraints on disabled staff and students that are empirically evidenced by wide-ranging, persistent and embedded barriers in higher education.

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