Education
Studies, Education Studies (Early Childhood)
ES
3304: Imagining alternatives
to exclusion in and from education
Semester
1, 2011 Thursday
MC107
R
Last updated 06.12.11.
Beliefs about how life should be lived, what men and women should be and do, are objects of moral inquiry; and when applied to groups and nations, and, indeed, mankind as a whole, are called political philosophy, which is but ethics applied to society. (Berlin, 1991: 2)
Introducing the module
This module addresses issues of exclusion and inclusion within the education system and within schools. As we will come to recognise in this module, too often questions about the future of special schools and the teaching of students deemed to be disabled or gifted and talented give rise to technical discussions, relating to specialist teaching strategies and resources. Such discussions centre on the question of how we might include diverse groups of students, missing is rich and critical engagement with why dialogues about inclusion matter in the first place. Maxine Greene has written: ‘There has to be a why, and I would add, in order to investigate this why, the capacity to imagine what is not yet’ (Greene, 1995: 24). This module takes, as its starting point, the view that serious reflection on how our education system and schools might become more inclusive requires the engagement of a moral imagination to illuminate the necessity and nature of inclusion in education. It will call upon us to address policy and practice and the possibilities and politics of inclusive education
Learning outcomes for the module
By the conclusion of this module, a student will be expected to be able to:
a) Sustain a critical relationship to ideas related to the study of exclusion in education
b) Show an ability to employ theorists critically in relation to issues
c) Show an ability to use concepts as critical tools in discussing issues and questions as appropriate
d) Show an ability to employ theoretical perspectives as critical tools
e) Therein, to develop a critical voice informed and deepened by appropriate use of theory as critique.
Assignments
Essay 1
Drawing on theorists and policy documents, critically evaluate the use of individualised support OR labelling in education
Assignment weighing: 50 %
Word count: 2500
Hand in date: Week 7.
Important: remember that some of the theorists we have discussed in this module do not write directly about inclusive education and disability. So, when you write about a theorist’s conception of freedom, be sure to show that you are critically applying their ideas to the question of inclusive schooling.
Essay 2
Critically assess Mary Warnock’s defence of special schooling
Assignment weighing: 50 %
Word count: 2500
Hand in date: Week 12.
Part I Engaging with debates in special and inclusive education
In this part of the module, we engage critically with justifications for individualised practice in education. We will do so by engaging with two critical debates within special and inclusive education theory and policy. The intellectual resources we have engaged with in the first part of the module remain relevant.
Week 1. Introducing the debates: Views from national and international policy
Reading
Ainscow, M. (1998) Would it work in theory? Arguments for practitioner researcher and theorising in the special needs field, in: C. Clark, A. Dyson & A. Millward (Eds.) Theorising special education (London, Routledge).
National policy: reading
DfEE (1997) Excellence for all children: meeting special educational needs. London: Stationery Office. Available:
http://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/45_1.pdf
pp.43-44
Department for Education and Skills (2001) Special educational needs code of practice. London, DfES Publications. Available:
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/3724/SENCodeofPractice.pdf
pp. 51-2
Department for Education and Skills (2003) Every child matters. London, The Stationary Office. Available:
http://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/EveryChildMatters.pdf
pp. 13-22; 27-28
DfES (2004) Removing Barriers to Achievement - The Government’s Strategy for SEN (London: Stationery Office). Available:
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/5970/removing%20barriers.pdf
pp. 28-32
Department for Education (2011) Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability. London, The Stationary Office. Available:
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/Green-Paper-SEN.pdf
pp. 4-14
International policy: reading
UNESCO (1990) World declaration on education for all: Meeting basic learning needs, in: UNESCO (2000) Education for all: Meeting our collective commitments: Notes on the Dakar framework for action. Paris, UNESCO. Available:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001211/121147e.pdf
pp.73-77
UNESCO (1994) World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality. Salamanca. Paris, UNESCO. Available:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0009/000984/098427eo.pdf
pp. iii-14
UNESCO (2000) Education for all: Meeting our collective commitments: Notes on the Dakar framework for action. Paris, UNESCO. Available:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001211/121147e.pdf
pp. 7-17
UNESCO (2002) EFA Global monitoring report 2002. Education for all: Is the world on track?. Paris, UNESCO. Available:
http://www.unesco.org/en/efareport/reports/2002-efa-on-track/
pp. 30-35
UNESCO (2005) Guidelines for inclusion: Ensuring access to Education for All. Paris, UNESCO. Available:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001402/140224e.pdf
pp. 9-16
UNESCO (2009) Policy guidelines on inclusion in education. Paris, UNESCO. Available:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0017/001778/177849e.pdf
pp. 8-9
UN (2000) The Millennium Declaration (New York, United Nations). Available: http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.pdf
Week 2. Iris Marion Young: for differentiated, individualised support and labelling
Reading
Bailey, J. (1998) Australia: Inclusion through categorisation?, in: T. Booth & M. Ainscow (Eds.) From them to us: An international study of inclusion in education (Routledge, London)
Young, I.M. (1989) Polity and group difference: a critique of the ideal of universal citizenship, Ethics, 99(2), 250-274
Further reading
Florian, L. (1998) An Examination of the Practical Problems Associated with the Implementation of Inclusive Education Policies, Support for Learning, 20(2), 96-98.
Lindsay, G. (2003) Inclusive education: a critical perspective, British Journal of Special Education, 30(1), 3-12.
Ho, A. (2004) To be labelled, or not to be labelled: that is the question, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 32, 86–92
Hornby, G. (1999) Inclusion or Delusion:Can one size fit all? Support for Learning, 14(4), 152-157.
Minow, M. (1997a) Justice Engendered, in: R. E. Goodin & P. Pettit (Eds.) Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (Oxford, Blackwell)
Minow, M. (1997b) Making all the difference: inclusion, exclusion and American law (Ithaca, Cornell University Press)
Thomas, G. (2000) Doing injustice to inclusion: A response to John Wilson, European Journal of Special Needs Education, 15(3), 308-310
Wilson, J. (1999) Some conceptual difficulties about ‘inclusion’, Support for Learning, 14(3), 110-112
Young, I.M. (2002) Inclusion and democracy (Oxford, Oxford University Press)
Week 3. Kant, freedom and dignity: two perspectives on individualised support and labelling
Reading
Searle, J.R. (1999a) Politics and the humanities, Academic Questions, 12(4), 45-60
Booth, T. & Ainscow, M. (1998) Australia response: paying attention to disorder?, in: T. Booth & M. Ainscow (Eds.) From them to us: An international study of inclusion in education (Routledge, London).
Cigman, R. (2007) A Question of Universality: Inclusive Education and the Principle of Respect, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(4), 775-793
Kant, I. (1991) An answer to the question: ‘What is enlightenment’? in: Hans Reiss (ed.) Kant: Political Writings (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)
Further reading
Booth, T. (1985) Labels and their consequences, in: D. Lane & B. Stratford (Eds.) Current Approaches to Down’s Syndrome (London: Holt, Rinehart & Winston)
Davies, C. A. & Jenkins, R. (1997) 'She Has Different Fits to Me': how people with learning difficulties see themselves, Disability and Society, 12(1), 95-110
Corbett, J (1996) Bad Mouthing: The Language of Special Needs (London: Falmer Press)
Fiumara, C.G. (1995) The other side of language: A philosophy of listening (Trans. by C. Lambert, London, Routledge)
Kant, I. (1952) The critique of judgment (trans.) J.C. Meredith (Oxford, Oxford University Press)
Kant, I. (1952) The critique of pure reason (trans.) P. Guyer & A. W. Wood (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)
Schultz, K. (2003) Listening: A framework for teaching across differences (New York, Teachers College Press).
Searle, J.R. (1999b) Philosophy and the habits of critical thinking, Conversations with history, available at:
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Searle/searle-con5.html
Week 4. Martha Minow, the dilemma of difference and support and labelling
Reading
Minow, M. (1990) Making all the difference: Inclusion, exclusion and American law (London, Cornell University Press)
Week 5. Martin Buber, individualised support and labelling: beyond the binary?
Reading
Buber, M. (1937/2004) I and Thou (Continuum, London)
Buber, M. (1947/2006) Between man and man (London, Routledge)
Part II – Special schooling, inclusive education and freedom
Week 6. Theorising special schooling and inclusive education
What does it mean to make a free choice? Are we free when no one or no thing stops us from pursing our particular interests or can our freedom realised only once we are part of a community, a universal? In this session, we examine Mary Warnock’s view of special schools before turning to Isaiah Berlin’s discussion of negative and positive concepts of freedom as we begin to engage with the complexities inclusive education.
This session will be followed by a workshop: Preparing for assignments
Reading
Warnock, M (2010) Special educational needs: a new look, In: M. Warnock & B. Norwich, Special educational needs: a new look, ed. L. Terzi, (London, Continuum). 32-43
Berlin, I. (1969) Two concepts of liberty, in: Four essays on liberty (Oxford, Oxford University Press)
Barrow, R. (2001) Inclusion vs. Fairness, Journal of Moral Education, 30(3), 235-242.
Week 7. Mill’s negative conception of freedom and special schools
John Stuart Mill’s asks: ‘What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over himself? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of human life be assigned to individuality?’ (Mill, 1946: 66). The answers he offers could be used to provide of powerful defence of the negative freedom of young people and parents to make their own choices about which school they should attend, free from interference from the state or as a defence of ‘mainstream’, inclusive schools.
Reading
Mill, J.S. (1985) On liberty (London, Penguin)
Week 8. Marx’s positive conception of freedom and special schools
Marx’s work both directly and indirectly (through his doctrine of alienation) provides a basis for a positive concept of freedom. His work suggests, moreover, that an inclusive education system is needed if children are to grow up in a community in which they are valued as equals.
Reading
Marx, K (1844) Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (Trans. T.B. Bottomore), in: E. Fromm Marx’s concept of man (New York, Continuum)
Mark. K. (1843/1992) On the Jewish Question, in: Early writings (Ed) L. Colletti (Trans. R. Livingstone) (London, Penguin)
Week 9. Plato and Bertrand Russell – Inclusion and freedom through exclusion
We consider Plato and Russell’s arguments against forms of democratic education and governments and their justifications for separated schooling.
Reading
Plato (1955) The Republic (London, Penguin)
Russell, B. (1932) Education and the social order (London, Unwin)
Week 10. Directed task: reviewing the arguments for and against special schooling, selecting illuminating quotations
Week 11. Martin Luther King, Jr. on freedom, democracy and separate schools
Martin Luther King (1967: 97) wrote: ‘Immanuel Kant said that “all men must be treated as ends and never as mere means.” The immorality of segregation is that it treats men as means rather than ends, and thereby reduces them to things rather than persons’. And: ‘Segregation is also morally wrong because it deprives man of freedom, that quality which makes him man’. Do the arguments for separate education advanced by Russell and Plato degrade and deny the freedom of some young persons even as they elevate and advance the freedom of others?
This session will be followed by a workshop that will draw upon the work conducted in last week’s directed task.
Reading
King, M.L. (1964) Strength to love (London, Hodder and Stoughton)
King, M.L. (1967) Where do we go from here: Chaos or community? (New York: Harper & Row)
Week 12. Seminar: Reviewing perspectives, preparing for assignments
References
Berlin, I. (1991) The crooked timber of humanity (London, Fontana)
