Order,Rules and Social Control in Two Training Centres for Mentally Retarded Adults

Although settings for the mentally retarded accommodate persons of markedly differing social and congnitive competence, everyday activities nevertheless proceed with a considerable degree of order and regulatiry. This paper uses the example of training centres for mentally retarded adults to examine the example the basis of social order in a situaltion where common orientation to a culturally-derived normative framework appears to be absent. It suggests that the orderly appearances of training centre life depend centrally upon the creation of a social environment in which a minority of participants accept a disproportionate share of the interactional work required to keep group behaviour within acceptable limits. The structuring of training centre activities so that ‘feedback'on directions for appropriate behabiour is constantly available for less-able group members and the continual remedial work of staff and fellow trainings, function to provide a partiallremedy for individual incompetence.