Education and the Handicapped 1760 - 1960

Book excerpt: First published in 1998. This is Volume VIII of twenty-eight in the Sociology of Education series. During the nineteenth century and part of the twentieth the children now known as disabled or with accessibility needs were termed physically defective and mentally defective; the schools that they and the blind and the deaf attended were frequently called institutions; the education they received bore the name of instruction. This book is the story of the advance in opinion and outlook from 1760 to 1960, which brought about the change from instruction to education, from institution to school, and from mentally defective to those with special needs, that the book sets out to tell. Written in 1963.