REHABILITATION ENVIRONMENT FOR THE DISABLED: CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT IN SOCIOLOGY

The article discusses the research approaches applied in sociology and the ideas of authors from other fields of scientific knowledge with regard to the problem of people with disabilities and understanding of the essence of the rehabilitation environment for them. The humanization of modern society, its orientation towards the development and activation of weakly protected social groups, traditionally considered discriminated, requires, in this regard, a rethinking of scientific approaches to the problem of the disabled and the creation of full-fledged living conditions for their functioning, including the possibility of timely reception of social services and rehabilitation technologies within the framework of rehabilitation environment. The practical absence of the concept of «rehabilitation environment for a disabled person» in modern sociological science enables us to conduct an appropriate analysis and substantiate the essence of this category based on the structural-functional, institutional, systemic, constructivist, phenomenological, and other approaches. Following the results of this analysis, we present the levels and structure of the rehabilitation environment for people with disabilities, formulate its main functions and principles, and also determine the internal and external factors that influence its functioning. We conclude that the rehabilitation environment for a disabled person is the interaction of various forms of social and rehabilitation relations based on the presence of special conditions and resources for the implementation of vital needs and rehabilitation requests focused on the actualization of the rehabilitation potential, on a decent quality of life. The main elements of the rehabilitation environment are rehabilitation institutions at different levels of management (macro-, meso-, microlevel) with clearly expressed functions of subject-object regulation, etc.