Special education under the modernity. From restricted liberty, through organized modernity, to extended liberty and a plurality of practices

Abstract

The philosophers of the Enlightenment formulated a set of new ideas and visions about access to knowledge and education for all citizens. The main discourse of modernity is linked to liberty, democracy and equality, but modernity is also an ambiguous project, characterized by an ongoing conflict between individual freedom and discipline. Modernity has been transformed through different phases and the related crises that have marked the transition between them. In this conflicting history the ideological and socio‐political conditions for special education during modernity is also described. The article uses examples from Norwegian special education policy and practice in describing and discussing developments and discourses in the field through different phases of modernity, from the early rise of the field within the frames of the charity institutions to the discourses on integration and inclusion in the latest decades.

Keywords:

• Modernity
• Special education
• Social inclusion/exclusion
• Equity issues
• Democracy
• Education issues

Notes

This paper is a revised version in English of an article appearing in Norwegian, in Utbildning & Demokrati, 13(2) (2004), 13–44. A version was presented at the EERA Conference, Rethymnon, Crete, 2004. The author is the copyright holder of the Norwegian version of this article.

1. The ‘saving code’ is interesting and should here be noted as an early construction of special education as a professional field and ambition.

2. This in contrast to Italy where, in 1979, the advice was to keep the special teachers away from the ‘integrated’ pupils—if not, they would destroy the process (Vislie, 1981).

3. The Committee for Quality in Primary and Secondary Education, referred to as the ‘Quality Committee’.

4. Cf. Unesco’s World Conference, Salamanca, 1994; also Vislie (2003).

5. Of earlier works within this tradition which have attracted much international attention are three (US) publications by Skrtic (1991a, 1991b, 1995); examples of more recent (UK) publications are Thomas and Loxley (2001) and Thomas and Glenny (2002).

6. The index has been translated into several other languages, including Norwegian.

7. To clear the way for an inclusive and adapted education, it should be noted that the Committee also proposed an exception from inclusion ‘for a smaller group of severely disabled pupils, for whom it will be difficult to make use of an inclusive school provision’—i.e. the multi‐handicapped pupils with rights to a composite set of support requiring an individual plan and regulated by other special provision (i.e. mainly under the health authorities). A very delicate proposal; cf. the earlier fights between (special) educationists and the medical profession (see above). The proportion of pupils with such rights was estimated by the Committee to cover approximately 0.5% of the total pupil population.

8. The issue is introduced and discussed by Wagner in the last chapter of the book (cf. the subhead of chapter 11, p. 175: ‘Modernity after its second crisis’).