This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Smith, P. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Drawing New Maps: A Radical Cartography of Developmental Disabilities

University of Vermont

Developmental disability is explored using a post-disciplinary approach through social construction and cultural cartography metaphors. It is drawn on social maps as a cultural territory created by the totalizing, mystifying science of positivism. People described as "having" developmental disabilities inhabit landscapes that are pathologized and marginalized, surrounded by impermeable label borders created by processes of quantification and numbering. Although seen as necessary by some in order to obtain adequate services for their survival in schools and other institutions of modernist society, these borders do not benefit those they contain. Instead, cartographies created by special education and other human service practices become reified, commodified, and objectified, providing a rationale for continued de-humanization and oppression. Alternative metaphors to labeling and other educational practices are suggested as new ways of drawing cultural maps. Policy implications for those educational and research sites seeking to change professionalized discourse to include labeled, otherized persons are discussed.

Review of Educational Research, Vol. 69, No. 2, 117-144 (1999)
DOI: 10.3102/00346543069002117


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				G. Roets, R. Roose, L. Claes, M. Verstraeten, and C. Vandekinderen The Pointer Sisters: Creating Cartographies of the Present Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, December 1, 2009; 38(6): 734 - 753. [Abstract] [PDF]

				P. Smith an ILL/ELLip(op)tical po--ETIC/EMIC/Lemic/litic post(R) uv: ed DUCAT ion recherche repres(C)entation Qualitative Inquiry, July 1, 2008; 14(5): 706 - 722. [Abstract] [PDF]

				W. L. Heward Ten Faulty Notions About Teaching and Learning That Hinder the Effectiveness of Special Education Journal of Special Education, January 1, 2003; 36(4): 186 - 205. [Abstract] [PDF]

				W. E Morrison and H. A. Rude Beyond Textbooks: A Rationale for a More Inclusive Use of Literature in Preservice Special Education Teacher Programs Teacher Education and Special Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, April 1, 2002; 25(2): 114 - 123. [Abstract] [PDF]

				G. M. Sasso The Retreat From Inquiry and Knowledge in Special Education Journal of Special Education, January 1, 2001; 34(4): 178 - 193. [Abstract] [PDF]