This study investigates the interactions of students with teachers and aides in a classroom for mentally retarded adults. Based on a year of participant observation in and out of the classroom an analysis of trouble management and its consequences for retarded students is offered. Constrained by organizational definitions and expectations, teachers and aides engage in practices aimed at maintaining order and keeping up the appearance of a classroom. These practices result in a social order which paradoxically teaches retarded adults to be incompetent and to attend to the appearances of social order without understanding it.
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