In 1982, Steve Tullman and Wolf Wolfensberger reformulated the Normalization principle, stating that Normalization hinged upon the attributions of valued social roles to otherwise devalued individuals and classes of people. It was "the insight that the creation of valued social roles for people at risk of social devaluation was the epitome of Normalization" (Wolfensberger, 1983, p. 237). A year later Wolfensberger concluded that this new formulation ; was such a drastic departure from traditional Normalization theory that he decided, for a variety of . reasons, to rename the principle and push even further ~ its relationship to role theory. Thus it is the access to valued roles that will enable individuals to have access ; to the good things in life (Wolfensberger & Thomas, ,1994).

This new direction in theorizing has led to some confusion and also to a great deal of debate. For some phis has meant that Social Role Valorization (SRV) is more reductionist formulation than Wolfensberger's ;1972) classic Normalization definition.

From the beginning, North American Normalization to a lesser extent Scandinavian Normalization have ways made some reference to role concepts. But with V, roles have become the focal point of the definition as well as the defining term included in its . Some of the confusion undoubtedly stems from fact that Wolfensberger calls into play a vast new area of research and theorizing that up until no-, has remained virtually unknown for SRV and Normalization aficionados.

The following aims to chart Normalization's and SRV's historical relationship with role theory, to selectively review the considerable work that has gone on over the past years in the realms of sociology and social psychology that has been termed "social role theory."

This review will also attempt to answer some very basic questions that will hopefully inform the ongoing debate concerning SRV's new formulation and its research, practice, and training implications.

l. Is SRV's reference to role theory in keeping with the formulations now present in social science literature? Is Wolfensberger's use of the terms "role" and "social roles" in keeping with the current definitions found in the literature of psychology and sociology, or is his use idiosyncratic? At the outset, though, Wolfensberger' s own claims to theory building should lead us to believe that he is here, in the new SRV synthesis, speaking of role theory as it is generally accepted in the social sciences literature.

2. Does social science research and theorizing support SRV's contention that social roles are fundamental? Do social roles, for instance, have an effect upon positive or negative valuation and one's access to the good things in life? Does the literature support that the attribution of positive roles is the way

to assuring the valorization of the individual and should therefore be the end and means of human service endeavor? Does role theory and do social roles have the conceptual breadth and power to subsume all that is, on the one hand, the experience of devaluation, and on the other, the possibility and strategy of redressing that which we agree is a great social wrong? Do other researchers and theorists share Wolfensberger's view that social roles can play an important conceptual role in building a theory of psychosocial intervention?

ROLES IN THE 1969 BOOK CHANGING PATTERNS IN RESIDENTIAL SERVICES FOR THE MENTALLY RETARDED

The term "roles" and the concepts associated with social roles are almost entirely absent from the Scandinavian formulations of Normalization (e.g., Nirje, 1969; Bank-Mikkelsen, 1969). Though these early articles give the impression of individuals and groups having things done to them and for them, from a roles perspective one can reread these articles and see how roles fit between the lines, so to speak. By having access to a normal rhythm of day and normal routine of life, the attribution of certain roles are certainly assumed. Being in one's home assumes that one would be at least a resident or tenant, if not a homeowner. Participating in leisure time activities would make one a player, or at least a participant. Certainly Nirje (1969) proposes that mentally retarded individuals should have sex roles and of course that their roles should be related to their chronological ages, and he also raises the notion of roles in the context of employment or vocational services.

From the beginning, social roles have been highlighted in North American Normalization. The 1969 Changing Patterns in Residential Services for the Mentally Retarded (Kugel & Wolfensberger, 1969), which first gave prominence to Normalization, also included Wolfensberger's (1969) "Origin and Nature of Our Institutional Models," which, among other things, surveyed the negative historical roles that

defined the lives of devalued classes of individuals. Wolfensberger gave a far-reaching exposition on how these roles were created and then maintained by complex feedback systems that included stereotypes and expectancies, which were conveyed by language and physical environments. In his 1969 monograph, Wolfensberger had only one specific positive role to propose for mentally retarded individuals, and that was of the role of a "developing individual."

Changing Patterns contained many important contributions by some of the then leading lights in the social sciences and services to persons with mental retardation. Few of the authors make more than a passing reference to "roles" and then usually in relation to work. Seymour Sarason (1969), who later became president of the American Psychological Association, wrote a suggestive article about the problems of creating healthy settings that echoed Wolfensberger's discussion on the "meaning of a building." Sarason tied his discussion on settings to Blatt and Kaplan's (1966) pictorial essay Christmas in Purgatory, which graphically described the scandalous failure of contemporary settings by concluding: "if one thinks that defective children are almost beyond help, one acts toward them in ways which confirm one's assumptions" (p. 7). This evocation of expectancy effects is very suggestive of role theory, to which it is intimately tied.