ABSTRACT
The present article displays a research on the concept of abnormal child disclosed in a set of articles published in Minas Gerais Revista do Ensino (Journal of Teaching), in the 1930s. Articles that express the way an abnormal child was understood by their contemporaries were outlined. From the analysis of the texts, two categories turned out: classification of abnormal children, their characteristics and causal explanations of the abnormality, and the role of the school in the education of abnormal children. We used contributions from Koselleck’s conceptual history, whose concepts express aspects of experience and the theoretical dimension of subjects in specific historical contexts and times. The research showed that the articulation of this assumption included concepts based on debates about environment and heredity, on the knowledge developed by psychology, and on the debate about the role of the school and the education of new generations.
KEYWORDS:
special education; abnormality; psychology history