＜Special Issue： Rediscussing for the Future of Volunteer＞ The Future of the Voluntary Action

From the Perspective of Social Entrepreneur in the Disability Policy

Abstract

In order to consider the future of voluntary action, this paper analyzed the process of one social entrepreneur in a disability policy. Bengt Nirje is the practitioner who conceptualized “the Normalization principle” and brought the global paradigm shift to the disability policy: of those days 1970’s. Those days, while the exclusion in with a total institution was considered to be “Normal”, it was in the state of an “immature system” without any other support policy. In order to change the problematic situation, he visited those institutions repeatedly and sensed the essence of the problems from the field. He discovered the essence of “the Normalization principle” while contrasting with the life with a “normal” average citizen from sensing from the field. Through telling comparison of both lives, he crystallized the concept, made a prototype called eight principles, and spread them all over the world. This process was able to be regarded as the practice of the social entrepreneur who brought about the social change, when interpreted in a complexity system model or Theory U. How should it be with the future of voluntary action which fights against “immature system” today? The hint has been held through the re-interpretation of Nirje’s practice.