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Assessment and Communication for People with Disorders of Consciousness
Published on: August 1, 2017
Believing is seeing: visual conventions in Barr's classification of the "feeble-minded"
1Bucks County Association of Independent Support Brokers, 1282 Estate Dr., West Chester, PA 19380, USA. MartinElks@aol.com
Abstract:
The eugenics era (c. 1900-1930) produced a strong desire among mental retardation professionals to recognize and control "the feeble-minded." Some eugenicists believed it was possible to classify individuals visually by learning to recognize what they believed to be observable characteristics of idiocy and imbecility. In this paper I used qualitative methods to examine the visual classification scheme developed by Martin Barr and conclude that most of this classification scheme is a social construction that was reliant on modes of presentation, such as clothing and photographic style, which had very little to do with any inherent feeble-mindedness.
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