Dis/Ability, Age, and Gender in Socialist Czechoslovakia: The State System of Childcare and Experts’ Discourses

• In Event: Gender, Dis/ability, and Society in Postwar Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The paper analyzes the intersectionality of gender and dis/ability with reference to children in socialist Czechoslovakia from the early 1950s to the 1980s. It asks not only for age- and gender-specific ascriptions of “disability”, but also whether there were gender-specific clusters of “abilities” that were to be rehabilitated and trained. Which characteristics did Czechoslovak experts in educational science, psychology and pediatrics attribute to children with mental, physical or behavioral “disabilities” referring to their gender and how did these discourses affect the system of state child care, especially in children’s homes and rehabilitation facilities?

Author

• Frank Henschel, U of Bremen (Germany)