Questions of Competence Culture, Classification and Intellectual Disability

Questions of CompetenceCulture, Classification and Intellectual Disability\nAuthor(s): Richard Jenkins\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521626620, 978-0521626620\nSynopsis\nIntellectual disability - ranging from what is more commonly described as 'mental retardation' to 'learning difficulties' - is a socially constructed phenomenon that varies in important respects cross-culturally. This collection of original essays examines the classification of people as competent and incompetent in the United States, England, Wales, Greece, Greenland, Uganda, and Belize. The contributors, anthropologists and sociologists, argue that it is time for a new understanding of intellectual disability. In contrast to medical and psychological models, a social model of intellectual disability emphasises the cultural and individual variability of incompetence, the intimate relationship between cultural categories of.