Common, Delinquent, and Special: The Institutional Shape of Special Education

This book explores the historical origins and institutional shape of special education across the American states. It begins with the decade of the 1840s as states anticipated the legislation of compulsory attendance laws. With these laws, the institutional beginnings of special education emerge defined by the exemption of physically and mentally handicapped youth and by the power of schools to exclude juvenile delinquent youth as well. With the passage of these laws states formalized the r...