The Social Meaning of Mental Retardation: Two Life Stories (Special Education Series)

What does it mean to be "mentally retarded"? Robert Bogdan and Steven J. Taylor addressed this question over a decade ago in a riveting account (originally published under the title, Inside Out) by interviewing two experts, "Ed Murphy" and "Pattie Burt," for answers. Ed and Pattie, former inmates of institutions, tell us in their own words. This important study is now being reissued by Teachers College Press.
Ed and Pattie's autobiographies are not always pleasant reading. They describe the physical, mental, and emotional abuses heaped upon them throughout their youth and young adulthood; being spurned, neglected, and ultimately abandoned by family and friends; being labeled and stigmatized by social service professionals armed with tests and preconceptions; being incarcerated and depersonalized by the state.
Ed and Pattie survived these experiences - evidence, perhaps, of the indefatigable will of the human spirit to assert its essential humanity - but wounds like the ones they suffered and the scars that result cannot be fully overcome. They became contributing, independent members of society, but the stigma of "mental retardation" remained.
Their stories are both true and revealing - powerful indictments of our knowledge of, our thinking about, and our ministrations to people labeled mentally retarded. The interviewers argue that Ed and Pattie challenge the very concept of "mental retardation." Retardation, they assert, is an "imaginary disease"; our attempts to "cure" it are a hoax. Read Ed's and Pattie's accounts and judge for yourself.
This new edition concludes with a poignant postscript that discusses what happened to Ed and Pattie in the ensuing decade. A groundbreaking study that has now stood the test of time, The Social Meaning of Mental Retardation will be mandatory reading for special educators, qualitative researchers, and mental health professionals.