ABSTRACT
For some 200 years in western countries, interest in the education and employment of people considered to be defective, in that they could not or would not adapt to an industrial society, has been a focus of attention. Policy, practice, intervention and literature have alternated between cruelty, charitable or punitive benevolence and, more recently, a conditional inclusion into an unequal society at lower levels. Tea may now be less likely to be blamed for social problems, but women, either working or not, feeding their children unsuitable foods, and the unemployed, are still likely to be linked to producing children considered to be less able, disabled, have special educational needs, or any of the other euphemisms used to describe those regarded as not quite normal and in need of attention from governments, professionals and practitioners of all sorts.
