Abstract
This article posits an updated, broader perspective on the concept of learning disabilities (LDs) than that accepted in the local Israeli literature, revealing how it is immersed in class, ethnicity, and culture. This is shown through historical description, accreditation, and contrasting of the two special education discourses: the “cultural deprivation” discourse and the “LDs” discourse. There are three sections. Part One presents the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological background of the sociological and discursive debate about LDs. The social-constructivist model used in an analysis of the two categories is proposed as an alternative to the clinical–medical model. The definitions of LDs and cultural deprivation accepted in the Israeli discourse are presented in Part Two. The metamorphoses in the discourse about the category of LDs are uncovered through reference to their conceptual and historical antecedents. This part discusses the various understandings and constructions of learning difficulties. Part Three examines the textual representation of parents of children with disabilities in both cases, exploring the meanings of guilt, responsibility, and agency in each discourse. The conclusion clarifies the social and political significance of the distinct textual and rhetorical representations. It becomes evident that the discourse on LDs and the discourse on cultural deprivation are two special education tracks directed at different target audiences: the culturally enriched audience, well-off and educated on the one hand, and the Mizrahi audience of limited means and education on the other hand.
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Notes
Israel Jewish population was divided from the onset of the state into two distinct ethnic groups: Ashkenazi Jews and Mizrahi Jews. During the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and most of the 1970s, the political, economic, and cultural establishments in Israel were governed by Ashkenazi elites. The Mizrahi immigrant population suffered from practices of marginalization and exclusion within the Jewish population in Israel (even though the two populations were about the same size). Moreover, since 1969, the marginalized Mizrahi population outnumbered the Ashkenazi population. For relevant statistical and demographic data of the aforementioned decades, see Peres (1976). For concurrent data and analysis of ethnic relations in Israel, see Shitrit (2004).
The term Mizrahi (pl. Mizrahim) is a common appellation in Israel for Jews of Middle-Eastern and North African (mostly Arab) origin. Ashkenazi (pl. Ashkenazim) commonly refers to Jews of Western (mostly European) origin. These terms are often used by Israelis in order to draw cultural, hierarchical distinctions between the two groups. Traditionally, the term Ashkenazim designated a better symbolic status, while the term Mizrahim had negative cultural connotations.
The present article focuses on the claims made by clinical experts and by authoritative texts.
It should be mentioned that there is also a considerable amount of writing that tries to problematize clinical “objective” categories by bringing back to the discussion the voices of the labeled themselves. This writing stems from the academic field of “Disability Studies.” For major contributions to that field, see Linton (1998) and Oliver (1990). The voices of the labeled themselves (and their practices of resisting and deconstructing the authoritative texts) are the concern of a forthcoming article of mine.
Among these are texts which belong to the earliest publications about learning disabilities in Hebrew (even though they are not necessarily identified in the learning disabilities discourse as canonical. example of such a text: Roswell and Natchez 1969).
Brain damage was one of the most popular terms that predated the learning disabilities terminology in Israel.
Among the most prominent of these writers are Rivka Kidron, Shimeon Simpson, Shlomo Sharan, Yael Sharan, Ali Darin, and Rafael Belgor.
Among the most prominent of these writers are Carl Frankenstein, Gina Ortar, Hinda Eiger, and Moshe Smilansky.
The concept of medicalization was framed by Zola (Zola 1978) to signal extensions of medical jurisdiction, authority, and practice into increasingly broader areas of people's lives.
The aforementioned Mizrahi Jews.
And see a specific reference to the cultural deprivation definition on page 11.
Some of these terms were rapidly discarded (such as abnormal children or a-normal children). Others changed from time to time (the terms "children with battered brains" turned into concepts like "children with brain defects" and "children with brain damage". From these, the terms "children with brain disturbances" and "children with minimal brain damage," respectively, developed; and yet others have remained ingrained up to the present time, although their meanings and their related cognitive associations have altered. The latter include, for example, the term "dyslexic children."
The current study does not intend to examine and analyze the conceptual changes themselves (nor the historical circumstances that produced those changes). Such an examination and analysis require the implementation of precise archival-historical research which will require locating the connections between the changing concepts and their historical derivatives, and their professional and conceptual contexts, as well as the broader social and political contexts.
The learning disabilities field was established during the 1960s in the USA. In the year 1962, the US special education professor Samuel Kirk coined the term learning disabilities. Since then, this year has come to signify the starting point of that field in professional historiography.
Extensive reference to the developments and changes in the historical definitions of learning disabilities can be found in Katchergin (2009).
On identity contamination in cases which involve the imprinting of a stigma, see Goffman (1983).
The traditional literature on stigma focuses on identifying factors contributing to the harmful impact of stigmas on the lives of stigmatized individuals and social groups. In the current article, the term positive stigma is suggested for social processes in which medicalized labels do not devalue or discredit those labeled by them and do not spoil their normal identity. On the contrary, in this special case, the medicalized labels can rather empower the stigmatized.
It is interesting to note that a literal English translation of the Israeli term for culturally deprived (teunei tipuach) is “in need of nurturing.” This means that in Hebrew the term blurs the contextual elements (cultural and social) linked to it even more than the English term. Nonetheless, in this article, I chose to use the term culturally deprived which is more widespread in English. As for the Israeli educational notion of nurture (tipuach) and its local version of culturally deprived (teunei tipuach), see Mizrachi (2004).
It is possible that the growing popularity of the learning disabilities discourse played a role in the gradual elimination of the term cultural deprivation. The conjecture by which the learning disabilities discourse swallowed the cultural deprivation discourse which was held to be “problematic” and was extensively criticized should be investigated but this is beyond the scope of the current article.
Darin was among the pioneers of learning disabilities research in Israel. In his writings, he gave only a marginal place to the subject of cultural deprivation. These remarks of his regarding cultural deprivation are taken from a subchapter devoted to “the development and education of children who are cognitively retarded.” A subparagraph in this subchapter is entitled “the culturally deprived child.” This almost anecdotal reference, the laconic definition, the identification of cultural deprivation with a “low mental ability” (both in its formal definition and equally by placing the discussion about cultural deprivation in a paragraph focusing on mental retardation)—all these stand in stark contrast to Darin’s lengthy writings about learning disabilities in the framework of which he emphasized, among other things, the “high mental ability” of the “learning disabled,” their abundance of motivation, and the great importance of developing a “sensitive attitude” to their distress.
See, for example, Eiger (1975) regarding the “lack of motivation” as a characteristic of culturally deprived children.
See Razi (2006) about the task of drawing distinctions during the 1930s and 1940s in the educational field in Israel.
On the criminalization of culturally deprived children through their teachers’ perceptions of them as close to populations of young criminals and as predisposed to deviant behavior, see Chasin (1975).
See also Minkowitz (1969) regarding this defective structure.
Former Israeli authors have already mentioned that the psychological models imposed upon the Mizrahi population in Israel replicated the cultural model of the normal and standard “Northern European Adult Protestant Man,” which was portrayed by Gaines (Gaines 1992), thus serving as this model deviant negative mirror image. Following Gaines's analysis, I further argue that in Israel the psychological standard was based on the image of the “normative” Ashkenazi profile. Interestingly though the same “problematic” symptoms when manifested in Ashkenazi learning disabled children were identified as mere statistical variations of the normative cultural model and not as qualitatively different from it).
A detailed description of the various empathization mechanisms intended to minimize the negative connotations that were identified with dysfunctions of the brain structure and functions in the learning disabilities discourse is forthcoming in an article of mine.
As opposed to psychological and psychiatric moral theories that characteristically blamed parental dysfunction as a central factor in the formation of disabilities. Theories like this include Bettelheim’s “cold mother” theory (1967) and Ling’s schizophrenogenic family (see Hartwell 1996; Singh 2004).
This does not mean that the discourse of disabilities lacked moral aspects, but that these began to take on a different quality. An expression of this can be found in the model of the ideal parent and in the creation of a system of norms obligating the parent of a learning disabled child. For example, the good parent was identified as non-judgmental, inclusive, helping his children with their work, involved in the educational activities of his children, and advancing them by means of private lessons, au fait with the disabilities discourse, and like a student in keeping up-to-date with expert knowledge.
See recommendations of this type in Segal (1969).
See, for example, recommendations for professional reading material together with references to recommended texts for parents in Sharan and Sharan (1969).
More information about this can be found in Katchergin (2009, pp. 45–49) in the discussion about remedial teaching, scholastic strategies, and economic resources.
Explicit models of this type are that of Bettelheim (concerning autism) and of Ling (concerning schizophrenia). For a local list of culturally deprived parental stereotypes, see Sharni (1981). See also note 30 above.
Mainly of an Ashkenazi European origin.
To date, there has been no expression of any correspondence between these two special education discourses. The author of this study wishes to fill in this gap in an article which he is about to publish. For now, it is sufficient to note that explicit correspondence between the two is almost non-existent. The cliques of education experts have organized themselves in such a way that two structured discourses have been created—one of experts in cultural deprivation and the other on learning disabilities. Although experts from both groups have published their studies in the same journals, in general almost no attempt has been made to integrate the two discourses, not to mention to consider the meaning and sources of the separation between the discourses, both of which have dealt with educational problems having similar characteristics.
More about the parental culture of blame and the central role of parents in mediating between the two spheres can be found in Singh (2004).
The indicators of being well-established, culturally nurtured, using standard language, and possessing economic resources hint at the ethnic identity of many of these parents as being Ashkenazi (or at least not Mizrahi).
Procedures of exclusion, segregation, and institutional tracking along ethnic lines of Mizrahi Jewish children elicited hardly any opposition, as they were taking place under the banner of “tipuach” (the Israeli “nurture” version of the Cultural Deprivation discourse). For example, a considerable number of Mizrahi children have been placed in vocational schools by this procedure (Mizrachi 2004; Swirski 1990; Shavit 1990) and referred to special education programs (Tsur 1991). According to these authors, these processes have played a central role in shaping the current stratified social makeup of Israeli society.
These trends are expanded further in Swirsky (1988).
This historical parallel can be understood from the comparison of the category of learning disabilities and that of cultural deprivation in this article as well as from the textual structuring of the target audiences of disability experts in my forthcoming article.
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Katchergin, O. Between Negative Stigma (Cultural Deprivation) and Positive Stigma (Learning Disability): The Historical Development of Two Special Education Tracks. Cult Med Psychiatry 36, 679–711 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9281-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9281-z