Abstract
This article presents data gathered during a participant-observation study of an educational program for adults identified as mentally retarded. The difficulties inherent in trying to make retarded people appear normal (normalization) and the implications of these for the study of social interaction are examined. “Normal” social interaction is shown to depend upon a huge body of tacit knowledge as well as an assumption by the participants that they share a common understanding of the situation at hand.
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I wish to thank Professors Aaron Cicourel and Hugh Mehan for their comments concerning an earlier draft of this paper.
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Rumelhart, M.A. The normalization of social interaction: When shared assumptions cannot be assumed. Qual Sociol 6, 149–162 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987085
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987085