ABSTRACT
People with disabilities enjoy unprecedented participation in today’s society. Yet, exclusion from full employment still exists; as do other forms of discrimination, and, across the country, disabled children may be managed within special classrooms and programs in ways that preclude them from participation with others and from achieving to their full potential (Mehan, Mercer, & Rueda, 1996). In this chapter, I suggest that both inclusion and exclusion depict the experiences of disabled people in general and the children of special education in particular. The dark side of the monumental gains of the last several decades, I show, is the result of the very way that people in the United States think about themselves and others. I argue that through an examination of the shifting meaning of stigma within the context of American individualism, how this paradox forms and persists can be understood.
