Historically, people with disability have not been treated well.

In the early part of the twentieth century,

people with physical, intellectual and psychological disability were the first minority targeted by the
German Nazi regime, which exploited the public attitudes, pseudosci-entific beliefs and economic
tensions of the era. This beginning of what eventually became known as the Holocaust was insidious and
quiet. A reallocation of resources from German asylums during World War I led to higher mortality rates
among asylum inmates due to hunger and disease (Mostert 2002). Widespread acceptance of this shift
in resources highlighted an implicit public view that people with disability contributed less to society and
were therefore less valuable than their able fellow citizens (Mostert 2002). In 1920, Karl Binding and
Alfred Hoche published their influential work, Permission for the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life,in
which they asserted that the right to life was not intrinsic; rather, it was earned by an individual’s
economic contri-bution to their community (Hudson 2011). According to Binding and Hoche, people
with disability were ‘useless eaters’ whose lives should be sacrificed in order to safeguard the state’s
resources (Mostert 2002).This brutal form of economic rationalism was supplemented by the
pseudoscientific ideas of Social Darwinism and eugenics. Social Darwinism expanded upon Charles
Darwin’s biological theory of evolution to assert that biological and social characteristics were herita-ble.
It was believed that these characteristics had the power to influence the population’s overall ‘quality’, if
allowed to be passed down through the generations.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

Linda Graham. Inclusive Education for the 21st Century : Theory, Policy and Practice. Routledge, 2020.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)

Linda Graham. (2020). Inclusive Education for the 21st Century : Theory, Policy and Practice. Routledge.