Special education, inclusion and democracy

Abstract

Initially, it is pointed out that adherents of a psycho‐medical perspective often suggest exclusive solutions to special educational dilemmas and that such theorizing has been heavily attacked in past decades. However, it is argued that opposition of the psycho‐medical understanding of special education runs the risk of blurring differences between researchers and practitioners who are more positive about inclusion. One aim of this paper is to disentangle different perspectives on special education and different notions of inclusion among those positive to the idea of inclusion. A second aim is to argue for the necessity of situating the discussion about inclusion and special education within a discussion about democracy and the role of social science within it. Such a discussion seems even more important, given the range of positions discerned in the first part of the paper. In the concluding section of the paper, a proposal is presented for how special education, democracy and inclusion could be related to one another and for the role of research within these relationships. An important argument advanced is that the issue of who is to decide is analytically prior to what is to be decided with regard to inclusive practices.

Keywords:

• Special education
• Democracy
• Inclusion
• Theory
• Stakeholders
• Research

Acknowledgement

I acknowledge the Swedish Research Council, Educational Sciences, for financial support in this project.

Notes

1. The assumption here is that language gets its meaning when used—i.e. the roots of a word do not necessarily correspond to what people mean when they use the word.

2. Nor discussed are positions that are radically critical in the sense that all change is viewed as new forms of oppression, where the analyst reveals the realities behind the (evil) social events that are understood in other ways (or not understood at all) by the actors themselves. In this and other ways, the paper expresses a firm belief in the possibilities, and necessity, of argumentation in relation to social change (cf. Hacking 1999).

3. The latest reform of Swedish teacher education is built upon this idea: SOU 1999:63.

4. This has been the case in the Swedish school system, in which politicians and professionals historically have had a large influence.