Beyond normalisation and impairment revised drI 250607

Normalisation/SRV therefore calls for the integration of devalued individuals into society sothey live in normal housing, have normal jobs and education and engage in a positive waywith

Since its inception, normalisation – and its reclassification as social role valorisation (SRV) –has played a central role in shaping theories, policies and practice relating to learningdifficulties In learning difficulties (in contrast to disability studies and the disabled people’smovement in general) normalisation is still perhaps the key theoretical position Despite acontroversial history, it remains the position of ‘orthodoxy’ (Deeley, 2002) (even ifmisunderstood or inconsistently applied) in residential care (Deeley, 2002), supportedemployment (Wilson, 2003), and day care (Henley, 2001)

Normalisation/SRV has been criticised (especially by proponents of a social model ofdisability) for many reasons, and its theoretical underpinnings continue to be questioned (e.g.Culham & Nind, 2003) and defended (e.g Race, Boxall & Carson, 2005)

We broadly accept Race et al’s (2005) argument that criticisms of normalisation/SRV from asocial model perspective often overlook the nuanced way it is applied in practice and thatmany laudable changes are attributable to these theories However, we also follow Culhamand Nind (2003) in proposing that, whilst necessary in its time, the modern legacy ofnormalisation is largely a force maintaining the status quo, and a theoretical deconstruction isoverdue

Beginning with a brief restatement of the influential North American version ofnormalisation/SRV (re)formulated by Wolfensberger (e.g 1972, 1983) and a consideration ofsome key criticisms, this paper will undertake a Foucauldian deconstruction of normalisation

We argue that the theory founders on an unexamined and problematic individual-society

dualism, and the (hidden but implied) notion of the individual with impairments existing prior

to socialisation Foucault’s work is key to addressing these problems and accounting for theformation of subjectivity in relation to systems of knowledge within which impairments areconstituted This approach has the ability to address a number of criticisms of the socialmodel of disability and it takes seriously Goodley’s (2001) timely call for a ‘challengingepistemology’ that overturns ‘social-individual distinctions,’ and acknowledges ‘thesociological core of living with the label “learning difficulties”’ (p.225)

Normalisation/Social Role Valorisation

Originating in Scandinavia in the 1960s (e.g Nirje, 1969), normalisation embodied the idealthat people with learning difficulties should enjoy ‘patterns and conditions of everydayliving’ as close as possible ‘to the norms and patterns of the mainstream of society’ (Nirje,1969; p.181) The concern was to make as normal as possible the places in which people withlearning difficulties lived and worked, their education, leisure activities, and human rights.Normalisation called for a move away from special treatment, isolation andinstitutionalisation (Bank-Mikkelsen, 1980) towards ensuring that people with learningdifficulties enjoyed the same rights, freedoms and choices as non-disabled people

In the 1970s and 1980s, Wolfensberger reconceptualised normalisation (later reclassified asSRV) as a major principle in sociology (Emerson, 1992) It is now most associated with thisreworking, through which it represents the ‘the use of culturally valued means in order toenable, establish and/or maintain valued social roles for people’ (Wolfensberger & Tullman,1989; p.211) Wolfensberger argued that concepts of role expectancy, deviancy and publicperception should be central, reflecting his concern that certain groups in society (people with

learning difficulties especially) had devalued social roles Their relative place in society andthe contribution they are deemed capable of making reflected negative ways of thinkingabout them, and this has affected how they are treated.

Key concerns are individuals’ “personal competencies” to integrate with valued social circles,pursue valued and fulfilling activities, have normal personal possessions, and so on, and their

“social image” in relation to the appearance of settings in which they live, the rights andabilities they are credited with, their language, dress, personal appearance, etc.(Wolfensberger, 1983) These factors affect how people are perceived, and the roleexpectations thus placed upon them Devalued groups tend to be cast into negative roles such

as ‘subhuman… an object of dread… an eternal child’ (ibid.; p.16), and these socialexpectations cause devalued individuals live up – ‘or down’ (Wolfensberger & Thomas,1983) – to them

Normalisation/SRV therefore calls for the integration of devalued individuals into society sothey live in normal housing, have normal jobs and education and engage in a positive waywith socially valued activities, thus giving people a positive social role, enhancing theirpersonal competencies and bolstering their social image (Wolfensberger, 1983;Wolfensberger & Thomas, 1983) ‘Culturally valued means’ (Wolfensberger & Tullman,1989) are required to enable this, entailing the use of services ‘from generic agencies whichserve the general public’ (Wolfensberger, 1972; p.45) rather than speciality ones for specificgroups – e.g apprenticeships and on-job training in place of unnecessary work or game-playing This, it is argued, will transfer appropriate valued images and thus elicit competentbehaviour, skills and relationships

This implies action on three levels: on the individual in eliciting positive and usefulbehaviour and social competencies, and presenting and labelling people in a way which willcreate positive roles for them – emphasising similarities rather than differences; on the level

of primary and secondary social systems, by using positively valued systems like schools,work and normal community services, and ensuring that these systems are perceived asvalued; and on a societal level, including such things as the entire school system, laws andrights, and combating negative social stereotypes (Wolfensberger & Tullman, 1989)

Normalisation generated considerable debate, but it was such a major influence on servicesand policy that 15 years ago Tyne (1992) commented that ‘there is seldom a post advertised

in services for people with learning difficulties that does not claim adherence tonormalisation’ (p.44)

Criticisms – and deconstruction

However, normalisation and SRV have been subject to criticism from other positions Theemphasis on avoiding negative stereotyping and promoting positively valued roles andappearances has been criticised for assuming that conformity is ‘a condition of acceptance’(Brown & Walmsley, 1997) into society Normalisation/SRV actually imposes stricterconditions of conformity and normality on “devalued” people – with the ideal of being morethan ‘merely neutral’ in ascribed social value (Wolfensberger & Tullman, 1989) It has thusalso been attacked for making the assumption that being “different” was less desirable thanbeing “normal” and that disabled people should strive to be other than what they are (e.g.Morris, 1991) There have also been criticisms that the theories require that “devalued”

people adapt to a hostile environment rather than challenging the thinking and policiescontributing to negative perceptions (e.g Culham & Nind, 2003).

It should be noted that Wolfensberger (1983) saw these criticisms as a result of confusionover normalisation, and reclassifying it as SRV was partly an attempt to distance it from suchallegations (Culham & Nind, 2003) Race et al (2005) point out that in practicenormalisation/SRV does not simply emphasise moulding individuals into socially accepted,

“normal” forms, but is more ‘nuanced,’ balancing ideals of decreasing devaluation and

respecting the choices of people with learning difficulties themselves They also highlightthat actions relating to individuals were only one aspect of SRV’s multi-faceted approach, andthat change at a societal level is also important

With respect to this defence of the theory, however, we contend that a (Foucauldian)

deconstruction of the theoretical position underpinning normalisation/SRV reveals somefundamental problems with its conceptual foundations This will highlight an important set ofproblems to be addressed in theorising a position for understanding learning difficulties

We will focus primarily on the status of the individual subject in the theory Foucault’s body

of work can perhaps best be conceptualised as a history of ‘problematizations’ (Foucault,1997a) of the ways that human beings are made into subjects He explicitly wanted to doaway with the notion that the human subject is transcendental, with essential properties (orpotentials) conceptually separable from the social domain (e.g Foucault, 1988b) This is not

to say that there is nothing about human beings that exists prior to their constitution in a

social context, and that our biology, for instance, has no effects However, what Foucault was

concerned with, and what we are interested in here, is how human beings become subjects.

Foucault’s analyses demonstrated different ways that subjectivity is constituted in andthrough specific systems of knowledge from which it cannot be conceptually separated, andwhich create individuals as subjects of knowledge, position them as potential subjects ofpower, and tie them to particular identities which they are obliged to recognise in themselves.

The individual as subject is not the ‘vis-à-vis’ of these forces Subjectivity does not exist

conceptually prior to them, but is one of their prime effects; it is brought into being throughtheir articulation (Foucault, 1980)

Henriques et al (1998) draw on Foucault to argue that the social sciences commonly(mistakenly) base theories upon a notion of the individual (as a potential subject ofknowledge) as conceptually separable from, and prior to, aspects of the social world withinwhich knowledge about him/her is constituted It is precisely because this problematicconception of individuals and the social world is reproduced in normalisation/SRV that aFoucauldian analysis of the theories is called for In normalisation/SRV the emphasis is onsocial influences that act on the individual, limit “personal competencies”, impart roles andshape behaviour, and on the ways that these competencies and behaviours subsequently affectthe social perception of devalued groups Social conditions determine the scope ofindividual’s self-concept, personal competencies and behaviour, and the displayedcompetencies, presentation and behaviour of the individual in turn determine socialresponses Hence the need for normalisation/SRV to break this cycle, ascribe valued socialroles, and impart appropriate personal competencies, leading to positive socialrepresentations and responses – replacing a negative cycle with a positive one

This leads us to pose an important question: what is the individual in the theory? As we have

begun to discover, it exists primarily as an embodiment of socially-formed roles and

competencies that it then presents back to the social domain The individual qua subject is

hidden, as indeed are any aspects of the individual not conceivable within an economy ofsocialisation and presentation of roles, competencies and behaviours Because the individual

in normalisation/SRV is largely hidden and not conceptualised as anything more than aprocessor and bearer of aspects of the social, there is the possible conclusion that:

Handicapped [sic] people are not handicapped, that retarded [sic] people are not retarded,

and that every handicapped person could do and be almost anything if only provided

sufficient role expectancy and opportunity (Wolfensberger, 1980; p 97)

Wolfensberger (1980) argued that this is a mistaken conclusion made only by ‘overzealousproponents’ of normalisation, but it is directly related to the ways that normalisationconceptualises individuals and processes of socialisation It is perhaps therefore notsurprising that this conclusion has been common enough that Wolfensberger was obligedexplicitly to refute it Implicit in his statement (but not actually stated) is the presence of theindividual with some form of impairment(s) (“handicap” or “retardation”) that prevent

him/her from doing or being ‘almost anything’ – or, more accurately (since nobody can be just anything!) from being not “handicapped”.

This is a rather roundabout implication of the presence in the theory of an individual withessential impairments that exist pre-conceptually, as part of biological “reality” This waslater (also rather indirectly) restated as the notion that people with learning difficulties have

‘competency impairments’ (Wolfensberger, 2002) which impact upon their ability to makeappropriate, or sensible choices about their own lives – which (of course) everybody, havinglearning difficulties or not, fails to do on occasion (Race et al., 2005) As Foucault shows us,these impairments and the “impaired individual” are emergent as objects of thought onlywithin specific systems of knowledge However, normalisation/SRV cannot acknowledgetheir status as constructed and contingent because of the manner in which it conceptualisesthem.

There is a paradox here The pre-given subject with essential and unchallenged impairments

is implicit, but un-stated (at least until its status becomes problematic) However, the hiddennature of the subject in relation to the social forces that act upon it leads to possible untenableconclusions that must be co-opted – that socialisation of competencies, behaviours and roleshas an all-encompassing effect such that any “impairment” is conceptually absent (with thepossibility that “handicapped” people are thus not “really” “handicapped”) Attempts toaddress this issue then rely on (re)asserting the conceptual existence of the individual withimpairments existing prior to socialisation However, the existence of these unexamined andessential “biological impairments” is problematic for normalisation/SRV in their potential togain precedence and thus provide an essential (biological) explanation of “impairment” thatwould over-ride the social influences upon which the theory is founded So, the presence of

an “impaired individual” is not explicitly present in the theory, and, when necessary, isloosely (re)asserted through a definition of what the theory cannot claim or through a framing

of “competency impairments,” obliquely referred to and rather vaguely defined

Normalisation and SRV are thus stuck on their constructions of the individual and the social,whose constructed and problematic nature they are unable to interrogate or acknowledge

This situation persists in the social sciences in general, Henriques et al (1998) argue,because:

Certain norms have become so much part of our common-sense view of reality that we

have been able to forget that they are the result of a production… they have become

naturalized as indisputably biological or social (p.22)

So, whilst normalisation/SRV emphasises social forces which devalue people and contribute

to oppression, it is unable to move beyond concepts of “impairment” or “difference” asessentially, indivisibly biological, as a part of the pre-social “impaired” individual which isimplicit within it, but also conceptually problematic The constructions of “difference”,

“handicap” or “impairment” are not acknowledged as such, but exist (albeit implicitly) asindisputable parts of reality This largely hidden, implicit nature of the individual and his/her

“impairments” and the conceptual problems associated with it is what gives rise to criticismsthat ‘nowhere is disability spoken of as something which could be valued in its own right’(Szivos, 1992; p.126)

Given the focus on the negative effects of devaluation and limitation of competencies, theimplication of internal, pre-social “handicap” or “competency impairments” is also inherently

a negative one (hence, one might argue, its hidden nature) It is this that leads to the theoriesbeing trapped in ‘hostility to and denial of “differentness”’ (ibid.; p.126) Despite its concernswith the social problems of learning difficulties, normalisation/SRV cannot offer a contestedproduction of difference or impairment on which to base its aims It therefore ends upessentialising a negative conception of difference, in opposition to “normality” or “socialvalue.” This is a consequence of the theories’ inability to attend to their own constructed

positions, stemming from the conceptual confusions that we have been deconstructing here.

As long as these problems, raised by theories situated within an under-theorised dualisticframework, are unacknowledged, a coherent social theory of individuals and learningdifficulties will remain elusive

These criticisms may not seem substantively new, but we have aimed to demonstrate thatthey relate to conceptual issues fundamentally embedded in the theories This hasimplications for how we are to propose ‘challenging epistemologies’ (Goodley, 2001) uponwhich to base ‘inclusive social theories’ of learning difficulties It is relevant to note, beforetaking up this task, that these criticisms of normalisation/SRV resonate to some degree withsome criticisms of the social model of disability For instance, it has been argued that theexclusive focus on social influences in the production of disability ‘consigns the bodilyaspects of disability to a reactionary and oppressive discursive space’ (Hughes & Patterson,1997; p 328), and that impairments, conceptually distinguished from socialised disabilities,remain medical or psychological problems ‘to be eradicated or rehabilitated’ (Goodley, 2001;

p 209)

We shall not build explicitly on these critiques begun by others, but this paper should be seen

in the context of a growing set of challenges drawing on post-structuralist and other criticalwriting (including Foucault, Deleuze and Guatarri, Bataille, and so on) to present newchallenges to the ways that disability is conceptualised – for example, Tremain (2000),Goodley (2007), and others We focus on normalisation because it retains a position oforthodoxy in much practice relating to learning difficulties, and it has recently re-entereddiscussion with its intentions and impact (if not always its interpretation and application)being defended (e.g Race et al., 2005; Wilson, 2003; Deeley, 2002; Henley, 2001) These

other critical moves, however, are an indication that the types of criticism we have made, andthe responses we propose potentially have a wider relevance beyond learning difficulties, andmesh with work and criticism begun by others.

As Henriques et al (1998) argue, Foucault’s work is key for overcoming many of theproblems discussed For Foucault, the concept of a prior, essential subject is anathema – itmakes no sense to posit a social theory on a notion of subjectivity conceptually separate from,and having primacy over, those systems of knowledge within which it is constituted(e.g.Foucault, 1981, 1982) We therefore draw upon Foucault to return a concern for theindividual-as-subject to social theories, including his/her experiences and actions in relation

to his/her own life and social domain This will include recognising the “truth” thatconstitutes individual as subjects – as subjects of knowledge that define them, subjects actedupon in particular regulated ways by others, and ethical subjects obliged to recognise the

“truth” in themselves and govern their conduct appropriately

As we have argued, normalisation/SRV obviates about the “truth” of learning difficulties,consigning it to the realm of pre-social individual characteristics as an ill-defined (biological)

“impairment” or “handicap.” Instead, we must recognise that the “truth” of learningdifficulties is not (or never was) simply ‘lying in wait’ (Foucault, 1972) outside of realms ofdiscourse or systems of knowledge, awaiting its discovery by biological or psychologicalsciences No, its emergence as “truth” takes place within specific delimited and historically-contingent systems of knowledge, and is linked to relations of power, subject positions, and a

“cost” for people to tell and recognise it in themselves (Foucault, 1989)

One of Foucault’s (1989) questions was ‘how much does it cost the subject to be able to tellthe truth about itself?’ (p.355) For instance, at different times Foucault was concerned withhow much it costs the subject as delinquent or mad(wo)man or pervert to be able to tell thetruth about itself, to relate to the truth of their “condition” they are obliged to recognise inthemselves This is an active process Although Foucault often focused on how people arepositioned and constituted as subjects within forces not of their own making, he noted alsothat they are not passive, but actively engaged in these processes themselves (Foucault,1988a) This is an important realisation for our aim to return the subject to social theories oflearning difficulties – although, of course, it is not only in relation to “learning difficulties”that people become subjects, and others have studied, for instance, forms of gendered,racialised, and sexualised subjectivity (e.g Doy, 1996; Marks, 1999).

Theorising subjectivity and “challenging epistemologies”

Foucault’s work, often seen as disparate, shifting and even contradictory, can productively bethought of as unified by a concern with how people become subjects, and as comprising threedomains of critical inquiry relating to this question, which he concentrated on at differenttimes: (1) the domain of truth through which we become constituted as subjects of specificforms of knowledge; (2) the domain of power through which we are constituted as subjectsacting upon others and acted upon by others in particular regulated ways; and (3) the domain

of ethics, ‘through which we constitute ourselves as moral agents’ (Foucault, 1997b; p 262),and assign meaning and value to our lives and conduct, governing them in line with particularideals