Normalisering och kategorisering: om handikappideologi och välfärdspolitik i teori och praktik för personer med utvecklingsstörning

Abstract

The research concludes that physiotherapy is a socially constructed process in which meaning is created from bodily experience. Physiotherapy opens in this process an opportunity to bridge the gap between biomedical and psychotherapeutic alternatives in the rehabilitation of persons suffering from undefined pain and tension. Key Words: Intellectual disability, decentralization, levels of living, normalization, social welfare, special schools, specialeducation, categorization, classification. Language: Swedish (with a summary in English). Address: Department of Social Work, Göteborg University, Box 720, SE 405 30 Göteborg.Distribution: Johansson & Skyttmo förlag. ISBN: 91-888 14 51-3 ISSN 1401-5781The basic issue in this dissertation is the municipalization of the special school and care services. The main objective is to describe and analyse the consequences this local authority take-over has had on the intellectually disabled persons and their living conditions. Through modified levels of living studies light is shed upon the changes in living conditions for intellectually disabled children, adolescents and adults in the county of Halland. In comparison with the rest of the population, intellectually disabled persons had worse living conditions in all areas when the municipalization was carried through in 1991 and these conditions had only changed marginally up till 1995. In the dissertation, levels of living studies are discussed as a way of defining and measuring the disability ideological principle known as normalization. Since intellectually disabled persons have not obtained equal living conditions with the rest of the population, normalization has not been reached. During the work with the study on the consequences of municipalization, it was observed that the number of pupils in special schools had increased considerably. This lead to a qualitative interview study with 20 parents to children registered as so-called individually integrated pupils on their experiences of the special school registration. From the experiences of these parents an analysis is made of the expansion of the special school as a sign of increased social categorization of pupils with difficulties at school mainly due to lacking resources in comprehensive school. Simultaneously with the reduction of resources in school a boom has taken place for biological and individual explanations to children's school-related difficulties, which strengthens the categorization process. The increased registration into special school may be seen as a disability-creating process with consequences both to individuals and to school in general.