Learning Disabilities: The Social Construction of a Special Education Category

Abstract

This article reinterprets the history of learning disabilities, situating it in the context of the movement to reform education after Sputnik. After Sputnik, standards for reading achievement were raised and students were tested more rigorously and grouped for instruction based on achievement level. Students unable to keep up with raised standards were placed into one of five categories. Four of the categories were used primarily to explain the failures of lower class and minority children; learning disabilities was created to explain the failures of white middle class children in a way that gave them some protection from the stigma of failure. Events during the late 1960s and early 1970s prompted a shift in the use of a category of learning disabilities, and subsequently in the category's membership. Implications of this reinterpretation for today's education reform movement are suggested.