Racism and Ableism in Early Behaviorism's "Quiet Revolution": Control Society as Curriculum

• In Event: "What's Disability Got to Do With It?" Social Contexts of Education and Its Intersectionalities

Abstract

In the 1960’s and 70s, behaviorism, the science of manipulating behavior through operant conditioning, was marketed to US school teachers as an antidote to “overcrowded classrooms, racial strife,...children whose fathers [were] gone, children who barely [spoke] standard English, and others whose behavior patterns reflect[ed] the tensions of our society” (Sarason, Glaser and Fargo, 1972, p. 1). Using an economic sociological framework, this presentation explores behaviorist curriculum documents from the era. I use these curriculum documents to argue that behaviorism, as a technology of social control, leveraged ableism and racism to expand a burgeoning industry, one that promised a post-war “return to prosperity” to the white, hegemonic majority. Using multiple examples from behaviorist curriculum publications and teacher-training documents, I demonstrate how early behaviorists mobilized racist and ableist tropes to expand their market, with deleterious effects to those at the intersections of social difference. Finally, I make connections to present-day organizing by disabled POC against behaviorist institutions such as the Judge Rotenberg Center.

Author

• Robin Roscigno, Rutgers University