Institutional Utopias, Eugenics, and Intellectual Disability in Brazil1

Abstract

This study focuses upon cultural representations of intellectual disability in Brazil with attention to the historical and cross‐cultural transmission of professional theory and ideology in Brazil, the USA, and Europe. The establishment of special education in Brazil is compared to the treatment of intellectual disability in the USA during the same period. In both cases the local eugenics movements greatly influenced the development of educational, vocational, and residential services. However, differing eugenics theories lead to radically different practices by professionals and consequences for disabled people.