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Project

Working while incapacitated? Re-education and employment assistance for children and adults with physical disabilities in Belgium, 1908-1958.

This doctoral research explores how (potentially) physically disabled labourers were perceived, treated and reintegrated in society through (re-)educational, allocative and employment support initiatives in Belgium between 1908 and 1958. Three large groups are at the heart of the analysis: children and young adults with congenital impairments or illnesses, victims of work accidents, and disabled soldiers and civilians of the First and Second World War. Limited research has already been published on the rehabilitation and re-education of Great War, but detailed information about the financial and medico-social consequences of their injuries is missing. The situation of Belgian disabled civilians, children and work accident victims however remained almost completely unexplored.

In the international historiography, on the contrary, rehabilitation, education and labour for individuals with divergent types of disabilities are popular topics of scholarly attention but - until today - have never been thoroughly integrated as interconnected issues within a single academic book. This research is therefore exceptional and innovative in its threefold intention 1) to study physically impaired people throughout the life course from childhood to retirement no matter the cause of their difficulties, 2) to offer a comprehensive overview of the ways in which educational policies marked the individual school lives of those in need of special medical and didactic care and 3) to pragmatically analyse in what way various compensatory measures and protective employment strategies characterised the working prospects and subsequently also the family lives of people with congenital, accidental and war impairments. As such, this PhD intertwines four important, and usually distinct academic theme areas: the history of special schooling and re-education, the history of orthopaedic devices and rehabilitation, the history of invalidity assessment and the history of disability policymaking.

First of all, this dissertation uses the concept of “problematisation” by the philosopher Michel Foucault (1954-1984) to examine how persons with physical disabilities were identified as a separate category with own support needs within the wider group of vulnerable, ill and older people in our society. Then, it applies the theoretical perspective of interdependence to study how the government, medico-pedagogical experts and advocacy associations of military and civilian invalids tried to develop a suitable support policy consisting of financial measures, special schooling with medical care and employment assistance. More specifically, it relies on the theoretical frameworks of the mixed economy of welfare (1980s) and the five phases of care by the political scientist Joan Tronto (1993; 2013).

Subsequently, this PhD research examines the impact of these policy decisions on the employment prospects, career choices and the working lives of people with disabilities in practice. Finally, in an epilogue, this dissertation uses the concepts of “reproblematisation” and
the “history of the present” of philosopher Michel Foucault to shed light on how the history of (in)capacity for work has influenced our current ideas about physical disability. In this way, it aims to encourage a new outlook on work and employment support measures.

Date:1 Oct 2016 →  1 Oct 2020
Keywords:disability, history, education, labour
Disciplines:Education curriculum, Education systems, General pedagogical and educational sciences, Specialist studies in education, Other pedagogical and educational sciences
Project type:PhD project