Inclusion ‐ in disabling schools

Abstract

This article documents patterns of the learning conditions of pupils who have been administratively categorised as needing specially adapted teaching in upper secondary education. The context is in Norway under the latest major reform known as ‘Reform 94’. ‘Pupils with special needs’ covers a wide range of sub‐categories. The main category is used to identify those pupils the system identifies as needing ‘remedial teaching’. Patterns in learning conditions and processes are established by analysing longitudinal survey data following the 1995 intake cohort of pupils through their upper secondary education, analysing learning provisions during their transitions between course levels and school years. This is supplemented with interview data covering a period of one and a half‐year. This article analyses and discusses the results and attempts to explain the transformation of structural changes of schooling into didactic and specially adapted teaching. A central question is whether we are facing a paradox of inclusion in disabling schools.