Special Education and Globalisation

Sheila Riddell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367892234
• eBook ISBN: 9781351358736
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Special Education and Globalization illustrates the way in which inclusive education has become the dominant discourse across Europe and the wider international context. Contributions to this book highlight the tensions evident within each jurisdiction, related to the construction of disability within specific historical and cultural antecedents. These tensions often involve the relationship between official policy discourses and grassroots practices based on the assumptions of classroom practitioners who may have strong views on individual deficits. Parents and voluntary organisations may also have an interest in asserting the 'specialness' of specific conditions which require provision outside the mainstream. Finally, the emergence of new bureaucratic structures in an era of heightened national and individual competition often run counter to the ethos of co-operation which informs inclusive practice.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Additional support needs policy in Scotland: challenging or reinforcing social inequality?

Sheila Riddell and Elisabet Weedon

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on Scottish policy on additional support needs and its material outcomes. The central question addressed is the extent to which the Scottish additional support needs system undermines or reinforces existing social and economic inequalities. Administrative data highlight the inflation of the additional support needs category, particularly in relation to non-normative sub-categories such as social, emotional and behavioural difficulties which are strongly associated with social deprivation. Strategies in navigating the additional support needs system by families from different social class backgrounds are illustrated through short vignettes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the way in which sociological theory may help us to understand recent developments in Scottish additional support needs policy and practice. It is argued that the expansion of the umbrella category of additional support needs has been accompanied by an intensification of its association with social class, particularly in relation to categories which carry high levels of social stigma.

Introduction

In the context of the referendum on Scottish independence, which took place in September 2014, there has been an emphasis on the distinctiveness of Scotland’s social, cultural and political traditions. For example, the White Paper on Scottish independence (Scottish Government, 2013a) highlighted the absence of tuition fees for students living in Scotland as an example of the differences between the English and Scottish education systems, with the former driven increasingly by the market and the latter informed by principles of social justice. Although the White Paper had much less to say about school education, an underpinning assumption was that the Scottish comprehensive school system was inherently more socially inclusive than the heterogeneous English school systems. Despite this emphasis on difference, it appears that the Scottish and English systems produce very similar levels of social inequality in terms of educational outcomes (Social Mobility & Child Poverty Commission, 2014; Wyness, 2013). This paper focuses on Scottish policy on additional support needs, which, at least in theory, reflects the redistributive premise that some children require additional provision in order to flourish, and that need rather than merit or background should be the basis of resource allocation. The central question addressed is the extent to which the Scottish additional support needs system undermines or reinforces existing social and economic inequalities. The paper also considers the changes which might be needed in order to make the system more socially redistributive.

The paper begins with an overview of the sociological literature on special and additional support needs in relation to the reproduction of social inequalities. Following an overview of recent developments within Scottish additional support needs policy, we then provide an analysis of administrative data, highlighting the recent expansion in the proportion of children identified as having additional support needs, particularly in some non-normative categories such as social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Finally, we present three vignettes of parents from different social class backgrounds to illustrate the way in which social location shapes the way in which families navigate the additional support needs system. The paper concludes with a discussion of the way in which sociological theory may help us to understand recent developments in Scottish additional support needs policy and practice.

Social justice and additional support needs

Over the past half-century, social theorists have disputed the relative emphasis which should be placed on the eradication of cultural and economic injustices in order to create a more socially just society (Fraser, 1997; Honneth, 1995; Sen, 1985; Young, 1990). During the 1980s and 1990s, the ‘cultural turn’ in sociology saw greater emphasis placed on social identity as a major source of inequality, although the continued relevance of social class analysis was maintained by some political theorists (Fraser, 1997; Phillips, 2004). Since the global economic crash of 2007, there has been a resurgence in analysis of economic inequality, with social class resuming centre stage. For example, in the UK, Hills et al. (2010) and Hills, Cunliffe, Obolenskaya, and Karagiannaki (2015) used survey and administrative data to analyse the intersection of social class with protected equality characteristics in areas associated with the distribution of income and wealth such as education and employment. Recognising the link between economic turbulence and the rise of the right across the developed world, Standing (2011) suggested that a new social class was in the process of formation, which he termed the precariat. Different social groups were likely to fall into the precariat, including immigrants, young educated people without work, members of the old industrial working class and disabled people. Overall, there is a renewed interest in social class and its intersection with a range of other social variables such as disability.

The field of special educational needs has tended to be dominated by psychological rather than sociological analysis, with a focus on the identification of individual differences and deficits, rather than the impact of social structures. Tomlinson (1985) was one of the first sociologists to theorise the relationship between the growth of the special education system and changes within the youth labour market. In the wake of the 1978 oil crisis, which saw a rapid rise in youth unemployment across the developed world, she argued that the identification of previously undiscovered special educational needs amongst swathes of working class young men served as a device to justify their exclusion from the labour market. What was in reality a failure of the demand side of the labour market (lack of jobs) became rebranded as a failure of the supply side (lack of appropriate skills and attitudes, which could be remedied by further training). Following the 2007 economic crisis, Tomlinson (2013) suggests that young people with low educational qualifications across the developed world are once again held responsible for their economic exclusion. She argues that efforts need to be focused on remedying labour market failures rather than on the identification of a growing population of children and young people with special needs, drawn disproportionately from marginalised social groups (Armstrong, 2005; Dyson & Kozleski, 2008). Research on education in socially disadvantaged areas has also suggested that additional resources should be used to address systemic inequalities, since most learning difficulties are a consequence of poverty rather than inherent physiological or neurological impairments. Better indicators are therefore required to capture the impact of children’s material circumstances on their educational development, rather than focusing exclusively on the identification of individual special needs (Ainscow, Dyson, Goldrick, & West, 2012; Lupton & Thrupp, 2013).

Research methods

This paper uses a range of data on additional support needs policy and social inequality drawn from two projects. The first project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (RES-062-23-0803) between 2007 and 2009, focused on alternative dispute resolution in the field of additional support needs (Scotland) and special educational needs (England). The project used a mixed methods approach comprising: (i) analysis of policy documents and administrative data; (ii) key informant interviews; (iii) surveys of local authority respondents and parents of children with additional support needs and (iv) case studies of 49 families in 6 local authorities. The three case studies of Scottish families presented later in this paper are drawn from this project. Further details of methods are provided in Riddell and Weedon (2009, 2010). The second project, funded by the Leverhulme Foundation (IN-089) between 2012 and 2014, took place in six jurisdictions (England; Scotland; the Netherlands; Sweden; New South Wales, Australia and California, USA). In the Scottish element of the research, we analysed policy and administrative data and conducted interviews with seven key informants from Scottish Government, local authorities, voluntary organisations and dispute resolution services to interrogate and validate our findings.

Social inclusion in Scotland: the gap between rhetoric and reality

Since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, promoting social inclusion has been a major preoccupation of successive administrations. However, Scotland remains a highly unequal society, with social background strongly associated with educational outcomes. Scotland scores highly on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2007), but is in the middle range of countries with regard to equity. In Canada and Finland (the most equal countries) only 11% of the variance in PISA scores is explained by pupils’ socio-economic status (SES), compared with 18% in Scotland. In other countries, SES exerts an even stronger influence on pupil outcome, accounting for 20% of variance in France, 23% in Belgium, 27% in Hungary and 24% in Belgium. Whilst the attainment gap between pupils in the most and least deprived Scottish neighbourhoods has narrowed slightly over recent years, it continues to be significant (Table 1).

Table 1. Average tariff score of S4 pupils by SIMD.

Note: SIMD of pupil’s home address.

Source: Scottish Government (2014).

Figure 1 illustrates the pattern of educational inequality experienced by all pupils and those who are deaf, a category of additional support needs which is identified fairly evenly across all social groups. As is the case for the general population, deaf pupils living in the most deprived areas have much lower attainment than those living in more advantaged areas. However, on average their attainment is significantly lower, illustrating the intersection of disability and deprivation. Educational inequalities contribute to the reproduction and amplification of social inequality across generations. The UK is currently the fourth most unequal country amongst the OECD 34, with the top fifth taking 60% of income, whilst the bottom fifth receives a hundred times less. Over the past 30 years, the share of national income taken by the top 1% has increased from 6% to 14% (Parker, 2013). This intensification of economic inequality has particularly adverse effects on disabled people, including young people with additional support needs (Fordyce, Riddell, O’Neill, & Weedon, 2013; Riddell, Edward, Weedon, & Ahlgren, 2010). As discus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Additional support needs policy in Scotland: challenging or reinforcing social inequality?
• 2 Special education and minority ethnic young people in England: continuing issues
• 3 Exclusion from school and recognition of difference
• 4 The narrative of special education in Sweden: history and trends in policy and practice
• 5 Fighting segregation in special needs education in the Netherlands: the effects of different funding models
• 6 Reconceptualising inclusion as participation: neoliberal buck-passing or strategic by-passing?
• 7 Social justice and technocracy: tracing the narratives of inclusive education in the USA
• 8 Moving forward or standing still? A reflection of ‘special’ educational provision in Malaysia
• Index