Dyslexia: the government of reading

Dyslexia: The Government of Reading is an extremely interesting and welcomed book that conceptualises a genealogy of dyslexia. The text is somewhat unique because there is very little research published that applies a Foucauldian approach to the study of dyslexia. Interestingly, in Chapter One, the author argues for the formulation of a ‘sociology of impairment’. From this perspective, impairment becomes a technology of power that regulates particular individuals/populations defined as ‘abnormal’. Campbell suggests that impairment is not fixed but is constructed within a particular historical and cultural setting. What is exceptional about Campbell’s writing is that, rather than apply a genealogy to the rise of a specific discipline (e.g. ‘psychiatry’), he applies this form of analysis to that of a singular diagnosis (e.g. ‘developmental dyslexia’).

In the first three chapters of the book, Campbell is initially concerned with the historical conditions that result in the formulation of the label dyslexia. He suggests that there was a fundamental reorganisation of society during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that led to the rise of modern medicine and mass education as institutions of power. During the nineteenth century, medicine introduced new techniques of measurement (i.e. statistics) that construct and regulate individual bodies in new and different ways. The book links the rise of modern medicine with that of the emergence of the new industrial political economy during this period.

During the nineteenth century, the author suggests, there is a strong relationship between ‘bodies’ that are viewed as economically productive and ‘bodies’ that are viewed as economically inefficient with that of emerging medical discourses of normality and abnormality. Hence, during this period, medical discourse constructs new dichotomies of anatomical normality and abnormalities transforming how the body is conceptualised. Furthermore, Campbell plots a history of literacy from early religious transcribers, to Gutenberg’s printing press, to that of mass education in the late nineteenth century. From this perspective, it is the schooling system that becomes a capillary (i.e. channel) of power which uses literacy skills as a mechanism to control populations through moral discourses. Again the author emphasises how, by the twentieth century, literacy ability becomes an essential skill within the new complex systems of employment. This book suggests it is these occurrences that create the conditions for a label of dyslexia to emerge as a technology of power in contemporary society.

In Chapters 4 and 5, Campbell documents a history of dyslexia from its early medical origins of aphasia (i.e. language difficulties through brain injury) to that of acquired word blindness (i.e. reading difficulties through brain injury). The author suggests it is in these late-nineteenth-century studies by William Henry Broadbent and Adolph Kussmaul where an early medical diagram of dyslexic symptoms are characterised. Yet Campbell states that it is research by James Hinshelwood, an ophthalmologist writing in the early twentieth century, which constructs our contemporary understanding of developmental dyslexia. It is in his writings that symptoms of acquired word blindness are extended to include individuals born with the condition under the label of congenital word blindness. Campbell suggests it is research by Hinshelwood that defines a unique group of deserving individuals with learning difficulties. Hence, children with word blindness were seen as treatable, and deserving, due to educational intervention, whereas feebleminded children were conceptualised as untreatable, and therefore undeserving.

In Chapters 6 and 7, Campbell explains how the discourse of dyslexia went beyond the borders of medicine and ophthalmology to that of psychology and education in the twentieth century. The book implies that early-twentieth-century psychologists, such as Lightner Witmer, had greater access to additional research subjects than the ophthalmological clinicians due to links with schools, hospital schools and schools for the feebleminded. For Campbell this is a crucial factor in the expansion of the label of dyslexia in the twentieth century. Although Campbell suggests that psychology succeeded over ophthalmology as the dominant discipline that eventually defines the condition of dyslexia, this was only achieved because of its established links with education.

Because of these links, Campbell demonstrates how the sub-categorisation of reading skills became a central focus point for psychologists and educationalists during the twentieth century. It is this period where the early concept of remedial education is developed that was hospitable to the discourse of word blindness. As the twentieth century progressed, pupils reading abilities were categorised and measured by educationists in similar ways to how the body was categorised and measured within medicine. Within the work of Clara Schmitt and later in research by Anderson and Merton, new mechanisms of remedial literacy interventions were developed to overcome the problems associated with this condition. For Campbell, once education became hospitable to the concept of dyslexia, it became a significant capillary of power constructing the concept of normality and abnormality with reference to literacy ability.

In the concluding chapter, Campbell states this book is not just a critique of power, because he considers the notion of power transpiring as merely negative is somewhat a misconception. In this chapter he advocates that the operation of power is neutral in the sense that there are positive and negative aspects to its operation. Campbell asserts that he is not rejecting the label of dyslexia, but his aim is to reveal how bio-politics have significantly shaped the development of this particular condition, and impairment in general. Again Campbell concludes by suggesting that this book develops a new type of genealogy that has the potential to transform our understanding of impairment.

From my perspective, Dyslexia is a must-read book for anyone who is researching in the field of dyslexia. I feel the strengths and weakness of this book are that it will be used on both sides of the current dyslexia labelling debate. This is a highly recommended book that will be of particular importance to anyone interested in cultural disability studies, dyslexia studies, educational psychology and the social history of learning difficulties.

Stephen J. Macdonald
University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK
[email protected]
© 2014, Stephen J. Macdonald
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2014.964508