Special Education and Social Structure: The Commonality of “Exceptionality”

Abstract

Although special education classifications have been frequently divided into “subjective” and “objective” categories of disability, the dominant paradigm sees the two types of classifications as occupying opposite ends of a continuum that ranges from mild learning impairment to severe physical and mental disability. The appropriateness of the objective disability paradigm for mild learning problems was tested by correlating the prevalence of subjective and objective disability with 13 social demographic variables using the 50 states and Washington, DC as cases. Multiple regression analyses using aggregates of social variables as predictors were conducted for classifications that were significantly related to social variables. None of the objective classifications could be related to social structure, but two subjective classifications, educable mental retardation and learning disabilities, were strongly and inversely associated with socioeconomic indicators. These classifications appear to be qualitatively distinct from objective disability classifications. Policy should be changed to direct attention away from presumed deficits of individuals and toward identification and treatment of the full range of factors that may cause mild learning problems.