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Articles 1 - 15 of 15

Full-Text Articles in Education

Abandoned To Their Fate: A History Of Social Policy And Practice Toward Severely Retarded People In America, 1820-1920, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

Abandoned To Their Fate: A History Of Social Policy And Practice Toward Severely Retarded People In America, 1820-1920, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

This study examines the history of severely mentally retarded people from 1820 to 1920 in America, and their relationship with an emerging class of professionals newly charged with their care. The early history of one specialized asylum in Rome, New York, receives particular attention as an illustrative case study of the processes that influenced institutional development throughout the last half of the nineteenth century. The notion of "chronicity" is adopted to refer to a process of social construction whereby multiple dimensions of social failure (aesthetic, moral, and economic) in the lives of people called "idiots" and "imbeciles," were subsumed under …


Forum Introduction: Writing The Global Family: International Perspectives On Disability Studies And Family Narratives, Janet Sauer, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

Forum Introduction: Writing The Global Family: International Perspectives On Disability Studies And Family Narratives, Janet Sauer, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"We live in the Golden Age of the memoir. Everyone has a story to tell, and a growing number are finding their way to publication. The disability memoir has certainly been a part of this growth. It is refreshing to note how many of these recent narrative accounts of living with a disability have been written from what might be broadly termed a "disability studies perspective" taking on a more critical, socio-cultural orientation than the traditional 'inspiration in the face of personal tragedy' motif."


Winks, Blinks, Squints, And Twitches: Looking For Disability And Culture Through Our Son’S Left Eye, Philip M. Ferguson, Dianne L. Ferguson Jun 2015

Winks, Blinks, Squints, And Twitches: Looking For Disability And Culture Through Our Son’S Left Eye, Philip M. Ferguson, Dianne L. Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

In this article, we argue that while an appreciation of disability's cultural context is fundamental, we should be careful not to replace one essentialist version of disability with a new one. We look at the relational patterns that emerge from the specific circumstances of significant intellectual disability. This article follows Clifford Geertz’ well‐known account of the multiple layers of cultural context and interpretive richness raised by even a seemingly simple act such as winking. By exploring the meaning of son's ability to wink, we argue that intellectual disability may be interpreted as the absence of culture. The article goes on …


Creating The Continuum: J. E. Wallace Wallin And The Role Of Clinical Psychology In The Emergence Of Public School Special Education In America, Philip M. Ferguson Jun 2015

Creating The Continuum: J. E. Wallace Wallin And The Role Of Clinical Psychology In The Emergence Of Public School Special Education In America, Philip M. Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

This paper reviews the history of the continuum of services in intellectual disability programs. The emergence of public school special education in the United States in the first two decades of the 20th century is used as a case study of this history by focusing on events and personalities connected to the St. Louis Public Schools. Using Annual Reports from the era along with the abundant publications and personal papers of J.E. Wallace Wallin, the author explores how the growing class of specialists in clinical psychology and psychometrics gained a foothold in the schools as educational gatekeepers for student placements …


The Policy/Parent Gap, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

The Policy/Parent Gap, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"[T]here is probably no area where the rhetoric and the reality are so far apart as in the inclusion of children with disabilities in general education classrooms. Despite official national and state education policies (embodied in laws, regulations, and court decisions) supporting inclusive education for students with disabilities, access to the general curriculum, and a massive commitment of public funds, data from the Department of Education shows that urban schools consistently place such students in more segregated settings for greater parts of the day and year than do school systems generally."


The Experience Of Disability In Families: A Synthesis Of Research And Parent Narratives, Philip Ferguson, Alan Gartner, Dorothy Lipsky Jun 2015

The Experience Of Disability In Families: A Synthesis Of Research And Parent Narratives, Philip Ferguson, Alan Gartner, Dorothy Lipsky

Philip M. Ferguson

This chapter focuses on the difficulties parents of those with intellectual disabilities face.


The Promise Of Adulthood, Philip M. Ferguson, Dianne L. Ferguson Jun 2015

The Promise Of Adulthood, Philip M. Ferguson, Dianne L. Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"How do we assure ourselves that [our severely disabled son] Ian is somehow contributing to all the choices that get made about what constitutes a good adult life for him? We have created new options for Ian and others as we have struggled to answer these ques-tions. We have also increased our understanding of what it means for someone who has a variety of severe disabilities to be adult."


From Giving Service To Being Of Service, Philip Ferguson, Patricia O'Brien Jun 2015

From Giving Service To Being Of Service, Philip Ferguson, Patricia O'Brien

Philip M. Ferguson

This chapter focuses on the place of those with intellectual disabilities in the Western world.


Family Portraits: Past And Present Representations Of Parents In Special Education Text Books, Dianne L. Ferguson, Philip M. Ferguson, Joanne Kim, Corrine Li Jun 2015

Family Portraits: Past And Present Representations Of Parents In Special Education Text Books, Dianne L. Ferguson, Philip M. Ferguson, Joanne Kim, Corrine Li

Philip M. Ferguson

This paper analyses the descriptions of families of children with disabilities as contained in introductory special education texts over the last 50 years. These text books are typically used in pre-service teacher education courses as surveys of the education of ‘exceptional children’. The textbooks reflect the mainstream professional assumptions of the era about topics such as disability, special education, inclusion, and family/school linkages. However, they also shape the assumptions of the next generation of educators about these same topics. The paper summarises the results of a qualitative document analysis of a sample of these textbooks from two different eras. The …


Finding A Voice: Families’ Roles In Schools, Dianne Ferguson, Amy Hanreddy, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

Finding A Voice: Families’ Roles In Schools, Dianne Ferguson, Amy Hanreddy, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

Every day, around the world, families of children with disabilities experience a wide range of settings and services meant to provide support for the challenges they face.


Winks, Blinks, Squints And Twitches: Looking For Disability And Culture Through My Son’S Left Eye, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

Winks, Blinks, Squints And Twitches: Looking For Disability And Culture Through My Son’S Left Eye, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

This chapter focuses on the culture and human experience of having an intellectual disability.


Place, Profession And Program In The History Of Special Education Curriculum, Scot Danforth, Steve Taff, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

Place, Profession And Program In The History Of Special Education Curriculum, Scot Danforth, Steve Taff, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"This chapter explores how three topical threads: place, professionalism, and program, have woven their way through the history of special education. The authors argue that these themes have played out over the last 200 years in the United States in a way that provides a helpful explanatory narrative for the evolution of policies and practices for children with disabilities. The authors' narrative looks at three key eras. First, they look at the influence of the French Enlightenment on American social activists in the middle of the 19th century. This was a time when the theme of place held sway as …


The Present King Of France Is Feeble-Minded: The Logic And History Of The Continuum Of Placements For People With Intellectual Disabilities, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

The Present King Of France Is Feeble-Minded: The Logic And History Of The Continuum Of Placements For People With Intellectual Disabilities, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

This chapter focuses on the logic and history of the continuum of placements for people with intellectual disabilities.


“First Grub, Then Ethics”: The Place Of Research In A Time Of Crisis, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

“First Grub, Then Ethics”: The Place Of Research In A Time Of Crisis, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

A reflection on school's failures to meet the needs of students with disabilities and their families in light of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.


Creating The Back Ward: The Triumph Of Custodialism And The Uses Of Therapeutic Failure In Nineteenth Century Idiot Asylums, Philip M. Ferguson Jun 2015

Creating The Back Ward: The Triumph Of Custodialism And The Uses Of Therapeutic Failure In Nineteenth Century Idiot Asylums, Philip M. Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"My focus in this chapter is on the origin of the back ward rather than its demise. Where did the “back wards” that [Burton] Blatt and [Senator Robert] Kennedy witnessed come from in the first place? What 3 exactly were those “antecedents of the problems observed” that Blatt cited? This chapter reviews that history and argues that, in fact, there is a specific narrative to the evolution of the institutional “back ward” as an identifiable place where people with the most significant intellectual disabilities were to be incarcerated and largely forgotten."