The Quality of Life in the ‘Independence’ Curriculum

ABSTRACT

The move towards community care as a humane alternative to institutional provision has brought complications in its wake. Integration, both into community living and into mainstream education, has generally entailed an elaborate process of the selection of those most easily assimilated. I am concerned to examine the opportunities available for those young people who are often rejected within the integration movement, yet who find themselves the recipients of training for independent living in the community. My hypothesis is that such a training can actually impoverish their quality of life.