Field teacher: Romance and reality‐a response

Abstract

Social activism by those concerned with handicapped children has long been channeled into socially acceptable avenues by socially acceptable people. The promotion of education for the mentally retarded is typical. Middleand upper-class parents of retarded children banded together to obtain education services for their children. The parents sought help from and were joined by professionals concerned with bettering the lot of the retarded. This coalition proved sufficiently powerful that a special bureau within the United States Office of Education was eventually formed. Now a new and more fundamental social activism has developed within and around special education. With its roots in the civil rights movement, the new social activism reflects a growing awareness that economic and social inequality creates handicapping conditions which result in maintaining individuals within the surplus population. Social and economic inequality operate in two fundamental ways. First, those individuals who have authority over the distribution of resources (including services) often label non-modal behavior as deviance although the non-modal behavior is often adaptive within the private culture to which the deviants are relegated. Second, by default those individuals who have authority within the public culture allow conditions to exist which can ultimately lead to handicapping conditions-from lax enforcement of building codes which allows lead poisoning to needlessly occur in