ACCOUNTING FOR THE SOCIAL DISTRIBUTION OF MILD MENTAL SUBNORMALITY: DETERMINISM, PROCESS AND STRUCTURE Available to Purchase

The more severe cases of mental subnormality have shown a fairly random social distribution, but mild subnormality is typically a lower‐class phenomenon. Various deterministic formulations have been offered in explanation of this, ranging from hereditarian notions of “bad stock” among the lower classes to environmentalist em‐phasis upon the debilitating effect of poor social circumstances. This article argues that such attempts to account for the social distribution of subnormality in terms of aetiology are premature, because the processes whereby people come to be labelled as subnormal are largely unexamined.