Handicaps et inadaptations

Abstract

This article examines various methods of assessing social policies with regard to the integration of handicapped or maladjusted children and adults in France. It begins with an account of the existing system of policies and services for handicapped or maladjusted children and adults in France today. By following the progress of an educationally retarded child (with minor mental handicap or retardation plus behavioural problems), noting the various instructions with which the child is involved, the reader will come to realise the limited nature of the facts available concerning the effectiveness of social integration schemes for the handicapped and maladjusted. The paper then examines the statistical data issued by the ministries of health and education as well as from separate institutions. These data indicate a lack of awareness of the various passages from childhood to adulthood, a bridge between institutions coinciding with the passage into adult life. Educational statistics are completely independent of other statistics on adult services. Measurements focus on institutional activity and often ignore the effects on the individual of the various measures taken. In 1975, France passed legislation concerning integration but little has been done to evaluate the effects of this law. Based on observations in one department of France, the author has found unequal development of the policy for educational integration on the one hand and vocational rehabilitation on the other. Such inequalities are producing increasing difficulties. Integration of physically handicapped children into an ordinary school environment has met with some success. However educational maladjustment, as manifested by children with minor mental handicap or retardation and those with behavioral problems, remains largely beyond the scope of legislation on educational integration. Increasingly, educationally maladjusted children are sent so special schools. Since job opportunities for the handicapped and maladjusted are in short supply, employment inequalities exist. As a result transitional measures or other programmes designed to occupy time have increased whereas employment in ordinary work settings has declined. More often than not, women are employed in "Centres d'Aide par le Travail" (Employment centres for the handicapped). Access to ordinary jobs tends to be mainly available to men whereas specialised employment is mainly for women.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)