Pedagogy, observation and the construction of learning disabilities

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the ways in which disabilities are socially constructed. This article examines specifically the ways in which pedagogy underpins the identification of students as having learning disabilities. Data were collected in a classroom in Queensland, Australia, and consisted of student and teacher interviews and classroom observation. Analyses explored the ways in which classroom practice structured who is identified as having learning disabilities and why this decision is made. The authors found that pedagogy was critical to teacher decisions about learning disabilities. Pedagogical practices impacted on what and how students learned about literacy. Pedagogy also shaped teacher opportunities to observe student understanding about literacy. These opportunities to observe student understanding were critical in the identification of learning disabilities. For example, the teacher predominantly utilised a question-answer form of pedagogy that often became a ‘guessing-game’ in which the students' task was to guess what the teacher had in mind. It appeared that students who were most proficient at reading subtle nonverbal teacher cues were most successful at answering these questions and students who could not read teacher cues had difficulty. Question-answer sequences were one of the primary sources of information the teacher had about students' literacy knowledge. The other source of information was a seatwork activity that followed the dialogue segment of the lesson. This activity primarily consisted of cutting and pasting or writing small sections of text. It is suggested that these components of the lesson were the main basis on which the teacher made judgements about who had learning disabilities. The classroom pedagogy played a fundamental role in guiding what the teacher observed as relevant in the students' performance and through this, defining who was considered competent and who was identified as having learning disabilities.