Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Half-wits, dunces, dullards, and idiots: though often teased and tormented, the feebleminded were once a part of the community, cared for and protected by family and community members. But in the decade of the 1840s, a group of American physicians and reformers began to view mental retardation as a social problem requiring public intervention.
For the next century and a half, social science and medical professionals constructed meanings of mental retardation, at the same time incarcerating hundreds of thousands of Americans in institutions and "special" schools. James W. Trent uses public documents, private letters, investigative reports, and rare photographs to explore our changing perceptions of "feeble minds.
.
From local family matter to state and social problem, constructions of mental retardation represent a history of ideas, techniques, and tools. Trent contends that the economic vulnerability of mentally retarded people and their families, more than the claims made for their intellectual or social limitations, has determined their institutional treatment.
He finds that the focus on technical and usually psychomedical interpretations of mental retardation has led to a general ignorance of the maldistribution of resources, status, and power so evident in the lives of the retarded. Superintendents, social welfare agents, IQ testers, and sterlizers have utilized these psychological and medical paradigms to insure their own social privilege and professional legitimacy. Rather than simply moving "from care to control," state schools have made care an effective and integral part of control.
In analyzing the current policy of deinstitutionalization, Trent concludes it has been more successful in dispersing disabled citizens than in integrating them into American communities. Inventing the Feeble Mind powerfully shatters conventional understandings of mental retardation. It is essential reading for social workers, psychologists, historians, sociologists, educators, and all parents and relatives of mentally retarded people.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Subjects
History, Institutional care, Institutionalization, Mental retardation, People with mental disabilities, Social conditions, People with mental disabilities, institutional care, Intellectual Disability, United states, social conditions, Personnes ayant une déficience intellectuelle, Histoire, Déficience intellectuelle, POLITICAL SCIENCE, Public Policy, Social Services & Welfare, Social SecurityPlaces
United StatesShowing 3 featured editions. View all 3 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1
Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Intellectual Disability in the United States
2017, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, Oxford University Press
in English
0199396183 9780199396184
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
2
Inventing the feeble mind: a history of mental retardation in the United States
1994, University of California Press
in English
0520203577 9780520203570
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
3
Inventing the feeble mind: a history of mental retardation in the United States
1994, University of California Press
in English
0520082435 9780520082434
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-345) and index.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?July 24, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
July 30, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
November 16, 2020 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
October 11, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
December 10, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |