Educational Psychology

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rewarded activity. Those with power have placed others,

usually the downtrodden, into ability and disposition

groups that they cannot escape... People who live

together in a culture must struggle constantly with the

constraints...of systems of classification and

interpretation used in the culture.

classification systems (such as categories for

disabilities) may create problems for individuals. But

the tone of the paragraph sounded more severely

critical than Kelvin had expected: it was saying that

power governed all classifications, implying that

misclassifications may be widespread or even universal.

Kelvin’s initial hunch was therefore that the article would express a radically critical view of disability

classifications—particularly as they affect the “downtrodden”, which presumably included children from

minority ethnic groups. His expectation proved correct as the authors explained their point of view, which

they called a cultural approach to understanding disability. Using learning disabilities (LD) as an example,

here is how they explained their position:

We are not as interested in LD behavior as in the

preoccupations—as seen from the level of classroom

organization—of all those adults who are professionally

poised to discover LD behavior. We are less interested

in the characteristics of LD children than in the cultural

arrangements that make an LD label relevant.

At this point Kelvin was not sure if he wanted to

continue reading the article because it seemed like it

might not be relevant to classroom life specifically. It

also implied a severe criticism of professional educators

—implied that they are too eager to find examples of LD

and for this reason may misclassify students. On the

other hand, Kelvin was already aware that LD are an

especially ambiguous category of disability; maybe the

article would help to show why. So he kept reading.

The authors continued by outlining the history of LD as a category of disability, describing this category as an
outgrowth of the general intelligence testing movement during the twentieth century. By the 1970s, they argued, the
concept of LD offered a way to classify children with academic difficulties without having to call the children
mentally disabled. Because of this fact, the LD category was needed—literally—by well-off parents who did not want
their children treated or educated as children with mental disabilities. LD as a concept and category came to be
applied primarily to children from the white middle-class, and mental disability became, by default, the equivalent
category for the non-white and poor.

To support this assertion, the authors reported a classroom observation of three non-white boys—Hector,
Ricardo, and Boomer—while they worked together to design an imaginary research station in Antarctica. Citing
actual transcripts of conversation while the boys worked, the authors concluded that all three boys showed
intelligence and insight about the assignment, but that the teacher was only aware of the contributions of one of the
boys. Hector systematically hid his knowledge from the teacher’s view by getting Boomer to speak for their group;
Ricardo participated well in the group work but was rarely acknowledged by the other two boys. Boomer received
considerable praise from the teacher, thanks to his speaking for the group. Yet the teacher was never aware of these
subtleties. The authors blamed her oversight not on the teacher herself, but on an educational and cultural system
that leads educators to classify or typify students too quickly or easily. Here is how they put it:

Educational Psychology 363 A Global Text