A Basic Study Concering the History of How Mentally Retarded Children Have been Treated in Nara Prefecture

今日、障害児教育は、単に学校教育の枠内だけのものではなく、広く福祉、医療、労働等の多面的視点からの総合的検討が求められ、その事は、障害児・者問題の構造的把握と深く関わっており、その問題構造の解明と共にとりくまれる必要がある。これらの複合的問題構造の解明に、従来よりの障害児・者処理史から学ぶべき点が数多く存在している。その中で精神薄弱者問題は、歴史的に見て施設(学校を含む)教育として成立・展開し今日の公教育体系に位置ずいたのである。戦前における施設史研究は、総合的に進められており、今後地方史研究と共に戦後の施設史を含めた処遇史研究が求められる。本研究では、奈良県における精神薄弱児・者処遇史の基礎的研究として最初の精神薄弱児施設成美学寮(昭和24年設立)をとりあげ、戦後当初の成立状況とその対象分析を通して奈良県の精神薄弱児・者問題史の一端を明らかにすることを目的としている。成立状況としては、戦後の混乱期の施設設置の状況がクリアーに現われており、精神薄弱児をかかえる家庭の持つ問題構造が、戦前の総合的施設の対象分析の状況とかなり近接したものであったことが明らかとなった。The aim of this study is to elucidate part of the problem about the mentally retarded living in Nara Prefecture through examining how Seibi-Gakuryo, the first-founded institution for the mentally retarded children in Nara Prefecture, was founded immediately after World War II and analyzing the process of how they have been treated in that institution. Concerning the process of its foundation, it can be said that the process of its postwar foundation based on the legal grounds is quite different from that of its prewar foundation. Concerning the roles played by the institution, it can be said that the institution has been playing, since the time of its postwar foundation, quite the same main role as it had played before and during the War. That role is as follows: 1. To present a substitute of 'home' for the mentally retarded children belonging to families in a critical state due to their poverty and the resulting absence of the children's parents 2. To have become a strong motive power to promote the organization of "Oya-no-kai (the Association of Parents)" when more and more of the extremely retarded children came into the institution and there arose thg problem of how and where to accomodate those grown-ups of the mentally retarded in the institution who were no more allowed to stay in it