ABSTRACT

Beyond events, actors, and artifacts, human history represents the evolution of human culture and the attitudes, beliefs, and ideas that evolve, are for some time shared, discarded and replaced with new attitudes, beliefs, and ideas. In some sense, the timeline of events, actors, and artifacts that most equate with history are themselves the products of the succession of attitudes, beliefs, and ideas that form the psychological and emotional backbone of communities and societies. Ideas animate people and the events they produce, and new ideas emanate from the efforts and inventions of those same people. The history of special education is no different, and this chapter will take that perspective.