The Regular Education Initiative: Strategy for Denial of Handicap and the Perpetuation of Difference

ABSTRACT

In the USA, some advocates of the Regular Education Initiative (REI) claim that separate special education reinforces socially constructed notions of difference. They further assert that most children, with very few exceptions, are capable of equally effective learning within the regular class setting. They further argue that, because all children are unique in many ways, there are no grounds for labelling handicapped children as is presently done by Public Law 94–142. The author maintains that the REI reflects a collective denial of the differences which profoundly affect children with handicaps who are placed in the regular classroom. This denial is undergirded by several assumptions which must be accepted if the REI is to be seen as valid. The author argues further that some proponents of the REI themselves clearly emphasize difference, especially by labelling those who oppose the tenets of the REI. Detractors are viewed as outcasts in need of conversion to the radical REI agenda.