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Full-Text Articles in Education

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."


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."