Towards Inclusive Schools? [Reprint ed.] 1138603198, 9781138603196

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ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

Volume 6

TOWARDS INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS?

TOWARDS INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS?

Edited by CATHERINE CLARK, ALAN DYSON AND ALAN MILLWARD

First published in 1995 by David Fulton Publishers Ltd This edition first published in 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1995 David Fulton (Publishers) Limited All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: ISBN: ISBN: ISBN:

978-1-138-58532-4 978-0-429-46809-4 978-1-138-60319-6 978-0-429-46908-4

(Set) (Set) (ebk) (Volume 6) (hbk) (Volume 6) (ebk)

Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

Additional publisher’s Note These are re-issues of books published some years ago which are ­inevitably a reflection of the time in which they were published. The language used is indicative of that time and as such no offence is ­intended by the re-issuing of the books.

Preface to the 2018 Re-issue

The early 1990s, when this book was published, were important years in the history of special education. For some time, various countries had been developing ways of educating children identified as having disabilities and/or special educational needs alongside their peers in regular schools. For the most part, these developments had been fragmented. Different countries used different terminology, targeted different groups of children, worked within different legal and administrative frameworks, and had different ideas about how schools should operate and what kind of education they should deliver. In 1994, however, UNESCO issued the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO 1994). This declared ‘inclusion’ to be the right of all children and called on all countries to develop inclusive schools. For the first time it seemed that countries might be able to develop their provision within a common framework of ideas, language and practices. Certainly in the decades since then ‘inclusive education’ has had all the appearance of an international movement, uniting very different systems in a joint endeavour to ensure that all their children have access to the same educational rights and entitlements. This book marked an early attempt to explore in this context how educators working in different systems might learn from each other’s thinking and practice. It did this by inviting a range of international experts to write about developments in their own countries and the findings of their own research. Based on this, the editors set out a framework which outlines the different approaches to inclusion that have emerged internationally and suggests ways in which researchers and practitioners can speak to each other from within those different approaches. The rapid development of inclusive education initiatives across the world in the past two decades would undoubtedly mean that some aspects of this book would change if it were being written today. If

nothing else, there would be more emphasis on the experiences of low- and middle-income countries. However, the substantive issues addressed by individual chapters remain important – how is inclusive education to be resourced, how are teachers to be developed for inclusion, what kinds of school practices are most inclusive? Readers will find here some intriguing suggestions as to how questions might be answered – suggestions that they can adapt to their own particular contexts. However, the book offers more than a few practical suggestions. The authors also tackle fundamental questions – about what we really mean by ‘inclusive education’, about what kinds of knowledge, research and thinking support inclusion and, above all, about how educationalists working in very different contexts might share what they know? Despite all the developments of recent decades, these questions remain as vital today as they were when this book was written. This book, therefore, offers an important resource for readers everywhere who are engaged in working for more equitable, more inclusive education. Alan Dyson January 2018

Reference UNESCO (1994) The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. Adopted by the World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality (Salamanca, Spain, June 7-10, 1994). Ministry of Education and Science, Madrid (Spain); United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Paris (France).

TOWARDS INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS? Edited by Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson and Alan Millward

David Fulton Publishers London

David Fulton Publishers Ltd Ormond House, 26-27 Boswell St, London WC1N 3JD First published in Great Britain by David Fulton Publishers 1995 Reprinted 1997,1999 Copyright © David Fulton (Publishers) Limited British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 1-85346-355-8 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Typeset by RP Typesetters Ltd., Unit 13, 21 Wren Street, London WC1X OHF. Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Contents 1 2 3 4

5 6

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10 11

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List of Contributors Introduction Inclusion, Paradigms, Power and Participation Keith Bollard, University ofOtago, New Zealand Stress, Morale and Acceptance of Change by Special Educators Jeffrey G. Bailey, University of Southern Queensland, Australia Inclusive Education: From Policy to School Implementation Roger Slee, Queensland Un iversity of Technology, Australia Integration Policies, School Reforms and the Organisation of Schooling for Handicapped Pupils in Western Societies Use Vislie, University of Oslo, Norway The Resources for Regular Schools with Special Needs Students: An International Perspective Sip Jan Pijl, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Special Needs through School Improvement; School Improvement through Special Needs MelAinscow, University of Cambridge Institute of Education, UK Dialectical Analysis, Special Needs and Schools as Organisations Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson, Alan Millward and David Skidmore University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Mapping Inclusion and Exclusion: Concepts for All? Tony Booth, Open University, UK Using School Effectiveness Knowledge for Children with Special Needs - The Problems and Possibilities David Reynolds, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK The Aftermath of the Articulate Debate: The Invention of Inclusive Education Linda Ware, University of Kansas, US Effective Organizational, Instructional and Curricular Practices in Inclusive Schools and Classrooms Alice Udvari-Solner, University of Wisconsin—Madison, and Jacqueline Thousand, University of Vermont, US Towards Inclusive Schools: Mapping the Field Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson and Alan Millward University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK References Index

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15 30

42

54

63

78 96

109

127

147

164 179 201

List of Contributors Mel Ainscow Jeffrey G. Bailey Keith Ballard Tony Booth Catherine Clark Alan Dyson Alan Millward Sip Jan Fiji David Reynolds David Skidmore

Roger Slee Jacqueline Thousand

Alice Udvari-Solner Lise Vislie Linda Ware

Tutor in Special Educational Needs, University of Cambridge Institute of Education, UK Associate Professor and Head, Office of Research, University of Southern Queensland, Australia Associate Professor, Department of Education, University of Otago, New Zealand Senior Lecturer in Education, School of Education, Open University, UK Lecturer, Special Needs Research Group, Department of Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Lecturer, Special Needs Research Group, Department of Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Lecturer, Special Needs Research Group, Department of Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Senior Researcher, Institute for Educational Research, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Professor of Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Research Associate, Special Needs Research Group, Department of Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Director of the Leadership Research Concentration, Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Australia Research Associate Professor, Center for Developmental Disabilities and Department of Special Education, University of Vermont, USA Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US Professor of Education (Pedagogy), Institute of Educational Research, University of Oslo, Norway University of Kansas, US

Note Where appropriate the text conventions used by individual authors have been preserved, so while there is consistency of style within chapters, there are deviations within the book as a whole. For example, in chapters written by American authors, the American spelling conventions have been retained.

Introduction

The burgeoning literature on pupils with special needs within the United Kingdom (UK) suggests that it is a field of enquiry which is sufficiently rich and diverse in its own right not to require an international perspective. It is our view, however, that at a time when special education can be regarded as being at a crossroads in the UK this is a most opportune moment for an international perspective. This is not only because there is a danger of a view of special education developing within the UK which is bound within a particular national context but also because at a time when new dilemmas are emerging alternative approaches may be fully explored. We see this volume as a first step, therefore, in the beginning of a process whereby, in an international context, developing themes can be analysed, and a sharing of ideas and concerns can begin. It was with these thoughts in mind that of a number distinguished researchers from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the United States of Amercian (US) and the UK were invited to make a contribution to a seminar at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne which reflected their current thinking and the outcomes of their latest research. The umbrella theme of the seminar was inclusive education, as this reflected developments in most countries and is very much part of an emerging international agenda. Inclusion can be initially understood as a move towards extending the scope of 'ordinary' schools so that they can 'include' a greater diversity of children. It is a term which is helping to internationalise at least part of the language of special education, replacing terms such as 'integration' in the UK and 'mainstreaming' in the US. It was with this theme in mind that we asked contributors to present the papers that are collected here. Our expectation was that such a theme would help to provide a focal point around which the various perspectives could be located. A cursory skimming of the contents page will reveal how diverse the interpretations of that theme were. Given such diversity we decided that rather than attempt to impose an artificial framework on such distinctive contributions, we would present chapters in groupings determined by their geographical origins.

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We should point out on behalf of the writers that they were not asked to be representatives of their countries or apologists for their national education systems. Nonetheless, readers may feel that they can trace the influence of national perspectives and practices in what remain individual contributions. The national roots of Keith Ballard's chapter are indeed of paramount importance. He links issues of the inclusion of people with disabilities in the New Zealand education system to wider issues of the inclusion of minority - in particular Maori - groups in society as a whole. In reporting his own pioneering work in collaboration with Maori groups, he raises fundamental questions about the relationship between 'researcher' and 'researched'. Jeff Bailey's focus is on teachers rather than on families and communities. He analyses the way in which 'inclusive' educational reforms in Queensland have placed considerable stresses upon those special educators who have had to bear the brunt of change. His argument is that, unless the morale of such professionals is safeguarded, the most well-intentioned reform programmes will founder. Working from the same national and state perspective, Roger Slee also examines the relationship between policy formulation and its translation into practice. This process, he suggests, is highly problematic, as the language of inclusion is used to obfuscate practices that are anything but inclusive. In particular, he interrogates the role of the 'resources' issue in enabling or obstructing inclusion. Lise Vislie and Sip Jan Fiji report on Europe-wide research projects which focus on the issue of integration. Vislie interrogates national data on rates of special education placement to highlight significant differences in national policy and practice. She relates these to broader socio-economic and cultural developments within Western societies, arguing that this broader perspective is essential to a proper understanding of the state of special education at any particular moment in time. Fiji's research has sought to identify the key resources which promote effective inclusion within schools. By examining the integration process in a number of European countries, he has been able to identify 'teacher time' as the single most important prerequisite for inclusion. From a UK perspective, Tony Booth, like Keith Ballard, is particularly concerned to link notions of inclusion to broader issues of discrimination and the way in which society constructs differences. He argues, in particular, that it is necessary to unmask exclusive practice in all its manifestations and proposes a research agenda which would set about doing this in schools. Mel Ainscow, on the other hand, is con-

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cerned with the conditions which lead schools to be more inclusive. Drawing on national and international projects, he outlines how the special needs task can be reconstructed in terms of school improvement, arguing that schools which respond to diversity are more effective for all their pupils. Our own contribution takes issue with some unproblematised assumptions in Ainscow's hypothesis and is particularly concerned to understand the processes within organisations which lead to the construction of special needs. We suggest that not only is this an underresearched area but also that the inclusive education movement has tended to advocate solutions which neglect the complexities and contradictions in this field. David Reynolds, as one of the major contributors to the school effectiveness movement, also takes issue with Ainscow's notion of schools that are 'effective for all'. He contends that the most recent evidence to emerge raises serious questions about some of the fundamental assumptions of inclusive education and that the emphasis should now be on the development of 'high reliability organisations' rather than 'effective schools'. From a US perspective, Alice Uldvari-Solner and Jacqueline Thousand look in considerable detail at 'effective practices' which teachers might adopt to promote inclusion. They provide an account of the practices which might characterise an inclusive classroom and offer a model of a decision-making process which teachers might engage with as a means of evaluating and developing their own practice. For Linda Ware, too, the teacher, the classroom and the school are the key foci for understanding and promoting inclusive education. She shows how three interdependent components - educative practice, educative policy and educative research - provide the necessary conditions for the advancement of inclusion. For her, a major change such as this cannot simply be legislated into existence, but has to be 'invented' by particular teachers in particular schools. It will be evident even from this brief resume that there is considerable diversity in the ways in which individual contributors have interpreted their task. Making sense of this diversity and putting different positions in touch with one another is, we would suggest, one of the major challenges facing the inclusive education movement at the present time. In the final chapter we shall endeavour to provide our own framework within which these individual contributions can be located. For the time being, however, we would suggest that the following overarching themes provide the framework of the field as it is currently constituted:

Vlll

• the process of change from the currently perceived exclusive to more inclusive practices • the concomitant political dimension involved in the process of change • the nature of research and enquiry which will facilitate inclusion. Within the boundaries that these themes provide there are a number of dimensions which we believe will help determine the particular contours of this field of study. These dimensions are reflected to varying degrees in this volume. We would not claim that they are necessarily the only dimensions that are possible or indeed desirable but that they represent the basis of an agenda within which inclusive education can be discussed. • There is a policy dimension - national and local policy, and the relationship between policy and practice at school and classroom levels. • There is an organisational dimension - the characteristics of schools that enable them to respond to diversity. • There is a teacher development dimension - the characteristics of teachers who can respond positively to diversity in the classroom. • There is a resources dimension - how educational resources (material and human) can be so managed as to promote inclusion. • There is a pedagogical and curricular dimension - to do with what is taught and by what means. • There is a values dimension - a philosophical stance regarding human rights, discrimination and the interplay of language with these issues. Readers will find that contributors have typically addressed a number of these dimensions simultaneously. Inclusive education emerges, therefore, as a notion which is complex and multifaceted and which demands to be dealt with in a holistic rather than an atomistic manner. As yet, we would suggest that there is no consensus as to what the field of inclusive education comprises. We would hope that this volume marks the beginning of a continuing international dialogue as to the direction which practice and inquiry in this field should follow. Catherine Clark Alan Dyson Alan Millward University of Newcastle on Tyne, UK

Chapter 1

Inclusion, Paradigms, Power and Participation Keith Ballard

Inclusive schools deliver a curriculum to students through organisational arrangements that are different from those used in schools that exclude some students from their regular classrooms. These two approaches to education derive from different paradigms, each of which defines students and defines teacher responsibilities in different ways. A paradigm, as Thomas Skrtic (1986) suggests, is the way in which we 'unrandomise' our experiences and impose some order on the complexities of our lives. It is a world-view constructed by agreement among a community of people. The understandings of the paradigm are communicated through language. An inclusive school defines 'differentness' as an ordinary part of human experience, to be valued and organised for. Schools that practise exclusion define differentness as not ordinary, as outside their area of responsibility and, by implication, as not as valuable as 'ordinariness'. These two perspectives construct student populations in different ways. This leads to organisational arrangements that then create disability in different ways. Inclusive arrangements create disability as an experience to be addressed within a context of diversity. Exclusive arrangements create disability as sickness, personal tragedy and object of charity ('special' needs may not be met as of right, but only on application for 'special' help) within a context that privileges some human characteristics over others. In such ways do paradigms and the language of paradigms construct and create different kinds of human relationships. Paradigms are not just about what we know but also about how we know. Exclusion has been maintained within a positivist model of science using concepts of pathology, from medicine, and of normative

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assessment, from psychology (Skrtic, 1986). Professionals have been the group articulating this position, using 'clinical judgement' to locate learning and other difficulties within the individual student (Biklen, 1988). This has allowed schools to disclaim responsibility for some students and has helped industrial economies to manage people who are seen as less productive (Branson and Miller, 1989). Inclusion has emerged from a knowledge base that is less clearly defined. It has emphasised equity in human relationships and has been accepting of ways of knowing that may not be verifiable by positivism's limited version of science. Disability groups, parents of children with disabilities and their allies have advocated this view, identifying disability as a 'social and political category' involving 'practices of regulation and struggles for choice and empowerment' (Barton, 1992, p. 5). Who gets to determine the world-view that drives school organisational arrangements is a key issue. It is important to know who is organising whom and why. If a paradigm is made by a relatively small set of people, for example, professional educators and psychologists, it may suit those powerful enough to use it to organise their world, but it may be harmful to others whose experiences are then excluded. How might people who have less power within a particular situation create understandings and organisations that value them and are of value to them? It is this issue that I will reflect on in this chapter, using some experiences from two research studies. But, first, I want to suggest that to achieve inclusion we cannot simply modify exclusionary ideas and organisational strategies. The two world-views are so different that they cannot coexist. Either the exclusionary paradigm will colonise, assimilate and destroy inclusion, or inclusion - the right of every child to the same classroom and curriculum as any other child of their age (but acknowledging that some may choose not to be included) - will displace the exclusionary world-view and practice of segregation in schools and classrooms. The kind of organisation needed to respond to student diversity From inclusive schools in New Zealand (Ballard and Ballard, 1989), Canada (Porter and Richler, 1991) and America (Biklen, 1985), we know that the one key issue underpinning effective school organisation is a value system that, in Douglas Biklen's (1985) terms, sees integration as 4 a moral question...a goal, indeed a value, we decide to pursue or reject on the basis of what we want our society to look like' (p. 3). Organisation for inclusion is based around the mainstream curriculum (Wood and Shears, 1986), mainstream teaching methods

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(Murray, 1991) and mainstream teachers supporting one another (Porter, 1991). Teachers get advice on a student's communication, sensory or other needs just as they would seek expertise on mathematics or other curriculum areas (Stainback and Stainback, 1989). However, I do not think that how schools organise inclusive practice and what they do to cater for diversity are the major organisational issues at present. What is critical, it seems to me, is why within the state school system in New Zealand, for example, some schools are inclusive while others actively exclude students on the basis of disability. The key is in the paradigmatic assumptions that lie behind the organisation. It is a powerful world-view that allows some schools to be disablist when overtly racist or sexist policies and practices would not be tolerated. It is also a powerful alternative world-view that drives other schools to organise their resources and activities in ways that support all students. Such schools work with the idea that there are not 'distinct types of students - special and regular' who require different teaching methods and separate facilities (Stainback and Stainback, 1984, p. 102). They do not use the separate strategies, separate thinking or the separate language of 'special' education. Language is the carrier of culture, and the culture of separate special education will continue for as long as the term 'special' is part of the vocabulary of education. Integration leading to inclusive schools cannot be about renegotiating the roles of 'special' educators to meet the needs of 'special' children in ordinary classrooms (Stainback, Stainback and Forest, 1989, p. ix). One of the ways in which the dominant paradigm of special education is resisting inclusion involves an attempt to assimilate the language of mainstreaming and inclusion into special education discourse. In New Zealand, for example, policy development has been influenced by the British model of the Warnock Committee Report (1978) and by the American concept of the 'least restrictive environment' (Ballard, 1990). Gillian Fulcher (1989) has analysed the Warnock Report as a discourse emphasising professionalism, difference and deficit, providing a 'conservative and politically expedient notion of integration' (p. 165) which in effect legitimises existing practices of segregation. Similarly, Steven Taylor (1988) has shown how the idea of the 'least restrictive environment' involves a discourse that appears to support mainstreaming but in fact legitimates restrictive environments by focussing not on whether children should be segregated, but to what extent. The use of these ideas in educational policy and administration has meant a lack of commitment to inclusion which the chief executive of the Assembly of People with Disabilities (DPA New Zealand),

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David Henderson, has described as 'appalling and creating life-long disadvantages for people' (cited in Morrison, 1993). This is disability as disempowerment and, for the individuals involved, this is the personal experience of oppression. As a parent, Elva Sonntag (1994) has said, 'to cope implies silencing our inner selves' (p. 185). For Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, such a silencing of the self is part of the experience of colonisation. Maori writers and researchers identify disability issues similar to those of pakeha in terms of access and resources, but different in terms of the need for Maori culture to be part of all policy and practice (Bevan-Brown, 1994; Tihi and Gerzon, 1994). An issue of voice and power In terms of minority group experience, mine is not an authentic voice presenting this chapter, and this issue must be addressed. In New Zealand, Mark Cahill (1991) has said that 'people maintain their power over us [people with disabilities] by allowing society to explain and articulate our experiences for us' (p. 31). A similar issue has been identified by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1991) for Maori people who, she says, still live with the damaging consequences of early research written by Europeans about Maori, and written 'within a context of colonisation, evolutionary theory or deficit or cultural deprivation theory' (p. 55). Acknowledging such positions, I believe that my work is relevant only to the extent that those with an authentic voice deem it to be so. At present, my justification for involvement is that I cannot be uninvolved. Disability, and, in New Zealand, Maori issues (see Walker, 1990, p. 234), are community issues, and so are issues for all citizens. We can either try to be part of the solution or remain part of the problem. In that context, I have recently worked in an action research project in which the issues of power and control were addressed directly as part of the research process. A second project, which I refer to as 'research as stories', developed a forum for authentic voices. Both studies were about inclusion in schools and in the community, and about who has the power to have their paradigm/world-view reflected in the organisation of education and other services. Research as action: learning with parents Our action research project involved families of children who have disabilities working together with professionals (Ballard et al., 1992). Across four years (from 1988 to 1992), the project involved 143 families and 74 professionals and centred around issues in education,

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health and welfare. It was parent-driven. The role of the researchers was to access and provide resources and to be participants in the reflection-action cycle that is an essential part of this approach. The Family Network activities focussed on information, support, advocacy, networking and training professionals. Beyond the research period, we have continued as a newly constituted group of parents and professionals working together as The Family Network (Inc.)'. Action research involves collaboration in order to solve organisational or community problems (Bogdan and Biklen, 1982) and is designed to provide 'conditions for the empowerment of participants' (Codd, 1991, p. 1) through a process of action-reflection-action within democratic dialogue. One action of the Otago Family Network, which continues today (six years on), involved parents of children with disabilities contributing to professional training in education, nursing, medicine, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. The parents decided and controlled the form (e.g. one parent interview; three weeks or more of regular contact) and content (what is discussed, what is revealed and how) of the students' involvement with their family. In the research report there is evidence from students that this was a valued, and often transformative, experience in terms of perspectives on disability, inclusion, families and parent-professional relationships. Action on early intervention services in our region was another task that involved us in extensive discussion, analysis and involvement with health and education agencies. Here there emerged a majority view on some issues. For example, the establishment of an early intervention trust as an agency that was independent of present health and education structures was recommended by many parents. On other issues, however, the complexity and diversity of parent knowledge, experiences and wishes suggested the need for flexible services with, for example, both home-based and centre-based options. Maori parents wanted services that acknowledged their culture. Some of their proposals, such as the presence of extended family when important information was being presented, were also seen as valuable by some European families. Professionals need to hear these diverse views. Such diversity is often lost in surveys or other research that present a quantitative, summary picture. Ongoing, democratic, reciprocal contact between parents and professionals (the research included professionals stating their positions and problems) may help people to reflect critically on the assumptions that direct their actions. Schools were often a 'site of struggle' for the Network, and the project attained a public and political profile in the area of mainstreaming. The research report records that:

6 Newspaper accounts throughout 1990-92 reflected a growing commitment to 'mainstreaming' amongst a large group of Network parents as well as a realisation that, as parents, they do have power to effect changes in attitudes and practice. (Ballard et al, 1992, p. 164)

Some school principals reacted in the media with claims that parents were being 'brainwashed' by 'academic zealots'. Parents denounced these claims, asserting that the push for mainstreaming was 'parentdriven'. The Network established a mainstreaming special interest group as a forum for parents and professionals to work together to explore issues at both the local and national levels. Interviewed toward the end of the research, a senior education professional commented on the 'very high proportion of kids [in Dunedin] who are in regular early childhood settings' and attributed this, in part, to Network assistance in 'the creation of a climate where it's accepted that this [inclusion] is the case'. This professional credited much of the change in community attitudes toward mainstreaming in the local school system to the 'people that actually work in the Network. They serve as an irritant and make people rethink and reappraise' (p. 164). Professionals in areas other than education also stated that Network parents had prompted professionals: to re-evaluate their current brand of service provision and explore ways they relate to parents. Specifically, they have learned that parents have both a need and a right to be listened to and consulted over decisions professionals may be making about their child's educational/medical future, (p. 165)

Professionals who worked with parents in the team co-ordinating the project were also influenced by their interactions with parents. As one project team member commented, she had broadened her own understanding of parent experience in significant ways: You never cease to be humbled and a bit embarrassed by some of the things parents have had to work through just to get a listening ear - get their message across...sometimes they are such simple or straightforward real life stories - that's their very power. You know, it's right under your nose and you don't see it. (p. 169)

Participating with others and analysing various experiences with them was also valued by parents. When asked, 'What have you got from the Network?', one parent said that what had been important for her was: the political lobbying [and to] feel comfortable about having your say. This is personally empowering as it clarifies what you think by hearing other

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people and sharing ideas, (p. 226)

Aspects of the Network project could be identified as 'practical' action research (Carr and Kemmis, 1986) in that participants were involved in articulating their concerns and undertaking action for change. Other aspects of the work, however, involved parents and professionals in critical reflection that 'clarifies what you think'. Here the project achieved what Carr and Kemmis (1986) referred to as an 'authentic analysis' of practices, understandings and situations which was 'central to action research as critical social science' (p. 202). This could be seen as genuinely emancipatory in that it helped people overcome oppressive ideas and practices (McTaggart and Garbutcheon-Singh, 1988) so that they might influence the paradigms and organisational arrangements that affect their lives. Research as stories: learning from experience The focus of the 'research as stories' project (Ballard, 1994) was on intellectual disability, an area of disability which historically has involved a high level of exclusion from school and community settings. The work involved self-advocates and other adults who had intellectual disabilities, parents and whanau (extended family) of children who had intellectual disabilities, and Maori and European researchers. Our goal was to write personal accounts of the lived experience of disability in New Zealand, with my own story being that of a researcher in this area. We thought that this might lead to understanding and action on policy and practice in the disability area, especially as regards inclusion in schools and community settings. Some of the issues that were dealt with by the writers (who mostly live in the North Island of New Zealand) were similar to those addressed by the Otago Family Network project (located in the South Island). But the presentation is different. While the Network report provides an account focussing largely on specific issues and struggles, the stories present individuals describing and analysing their lived experiences of disability within the broader personal, social, historical and political context of their lives. It is important to stress the analysis in these accounts because it involved authentic, critical appraisal of their situation by people whose voice should have value in the development of policy and practice. For example, Minnie (some of the contributors used pseudonyms in the book), of the self-advocacy group, People First (1994), wrote: One of the things we are trying to achieve is standing up for our rights. We

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try our best to stick up for ourselves instead of letting the staff do all the work. We just try to fend for ourselves, and we get out in the community, get involved with other people, tell them how we feel. (p. 147) Other members of this People First group wrote about their experiences of being labelled, their wish for self-determination, and their thoughts on issues, such as personal relationships, sterilisation and goals for the future. While the struggle for inclusion featured in all of the stories, success was also celebrated. For example, Colleen Brown, a parent of a child with a disability, recorded the difficulties overcome to have her son in a regular class at his local school and her delight in his recent attendance at a school camp, 'the only support being his peers and teacher' (Brown, 1994, p. 244). Seeing her son as now included, she hoped this could mean that other disabled children would be 'more freely accepted' in society (p. 244). Extending this idea, another parent, Rod Wills, suggested that: It is essential to regard the struggle for equity in the disability area as part of the struggle for a just society on a broader front. (Wills, 1994, p. 262) That it is a struggle is evident in all of the stories. In identifying some of the realities of parent advocacy, Colleen Brown recorded the additional roles that society requires of parents like herself, and the impact of this on families. She said that: I often look at my three other children and wonder whether I'll ever be asked to account for the days and nights I spent away from them when they were small. At these times I was battling officials, talking to people, lecturing to professionals. My children played at writing speeches and submissions, not shopping. They toted my briefcase around, pontificating to all and sundry. (Brown, 1994, p. 243) Organisation for inclusion needs to take into account how the lives of parents and caregivers, and of women in particular in this gendered arena (Brown and Smith, 1992; Munford, 1994), have been shaped by disablist societies. Teachers will need to learn about these issues in order to develop practices that will support students and families in school and community settings. An informed community will be essential if all participants are to address the implications for inclusion of New Right ideology and its designs on school organisation (Smyth, 1993). School organisation also requires an understanding of the different cultures in its community. In writing about Maori perspectives

9

on intellectual disability and on social science research methods, Jill Bevan-Brown (1994) has shown how Maori ways of knowing and researching are increasing the diversity of paradigm/ world-views in the New Zealand context. This is also illustrated by Hine Tihi and Ruth Gerzon (1994) who report two stories from Maori whanau, noting that Tauiwi [people who are not Maori] reading these stories must make a leap sideways, for this reality is not their reality'. One of these accounts was about Tepiko, an adult (who has an intellectual disability) who spoke Maori (but not English). With the support of his whanau, Tepiko lived independently in his own home. His uncle explained that when his grandmother passed away: the whanau decided Tepiko should stay in the house. It was just sort of a natural thing to leave Tepiko there because we knew he could look after himself and of course I was here to look after him as well. Everyone agreed. The house was there, the house was Tepiko's, and he can look after himself. He's got all of Mum's teachings and he could look after himself better than any other person that we knew of could look after themselves. (Tchi and Gerzen, 1994, p. 133)

As Tepiko's uncle explained, Tor me it is the matemateanga, I mean when people in the extended families look after each other and love each other' (p. 137). In presenting research as stories, we provide teachers and other professionals with information on the life context of disabled students and their families, and some of the key concepts, such as love, that people use to organise their lives. Such information is essential for the ongoing development of inclusive schools in which people's individuality and diversity, as well as their common humanity, need to contribute to organisational planning and development. It also fosters recognition of multiple paradigms, especially through the presentation of different cultural realities. Research and organisation for inclusion English researcher, Mike Oliver (1992b), has identified problems in what he termed the 'social relations of research production' (p. 101). He was critical of positivist and interpretive research which he sees as often harmful to minority group interests and as not contributing to change in society. He says that these social-engineering (positivist) and social enlightenment (interpretive) models of research do not benefit those who are researched and do not impact on policy and practice. What is needed, says Oliver, are socio-political action models of research which are designed to achieve empowerment and change.

10

I agree with the need for action research and believe that those with an authentic voice should control the research agenda (Ballard, 1993). But I think that research as stories (a kind of interpretive research) may have a contributory role in empowerment and action. Problems of disability, race or gender cannot be treated simply as 'misunderstandings' which can be solved by learning about 'the other' from research or stories. Action, based on antidisabilism, antiracism and antisexism, is clearly essential (Atkin, 1991). But people's narrative accounts of their experiences of disability can have value in various ways and can, I believe, be part of an 'action' agenda. In particular, research as stories can give those who do not have direct experience of disability access to complex, integrated information on the lived experience of disability in our communities. Action research changes the social relations of research production by making researchers and participants allies in a struggle for change. The struggle is driven by a participantdetermined agenda. Stories, I suggest, can help us understand what the agenda is and why it is important, and they can do this for people who cannot 'be there'. Stories can provide real-life examples and authentic analysis of social construction, social creation and social justice issues in the disability area. They are one way of participating in another person's experiences. Participation and inclusion From his experience of disability, schooling and research, the Canadian writer, Norman Kunc (1987) advised teachers that the only way to learn about inclusion is to do it. Knowledge, understanding and skills derive from participation. People will conquer their fears only by actual involvement in the activities that they think of as too difficult, too different or as requiring too great a change on their part. Researchers who would contribute to an understanding of inclusion - especially those who, like myself, are not labelled or disabled - must also, I believe, participate in order to learn and to contribute. This will require abandoning the positivist paradigm, with its subjective belief in objectivity and its belief that the researcher, in either quantitative or qualitative methods, should be a distant and removed observer of events that they themselves are not a part of. This does not mean abandoning a critical perspective. It does mean that social science should no longer assign a privileged position to positivism as the one way to scientific knowledge. There is a need to acknowledge other ways of knowing in a post-positivist world, and to explore our

11 own place as participants and active constructors of the world we live in. Participation and shared meanings In order to participate, people need to be able to understand one another. To understand positivist research you must usually understand the 'codes' that it is written in. In contrast, some forms of post-positivist research, including research as stories, can be accessible to a broad range of readers. But not all post-positivist research and thinking about research is so accessible. For example, approaches to action research based on critical theory have been dominated by elitist writing, and Kemmis (1988) has noted the 'stubborn refusal of European critical theorists to democratise (and thus justify) their methods by making them intellectually accessible to a wider audience' (p. 37). In her work on emancipatory 'research as praxis', Patti Lather (1991) admited that she writes for a predominantly white, middle-class, academic audience. She said that her book 'will not be perceived as especially "readerly" by those outside of post-modern discourse' (p. 8). But contrast this with bell hooks (1989), who has resisted the 'elitism in...work that is linguistically convoluted...' (p. 36), and urges that women of colour and other minority groups must overcome their 'fear of speech' and learn to advance their cause in their own voice if they are to overcome their domination (p. 18). I agree with bell hooks (and with Toni Morrison, Anita Desai, Doris Lessing and others) that it is possible to explore and analyse the complexities of human thought and experience in ways that are accessible to most people. Robert Donmoyer (1990) proposed that the value of stories, narratives and case studies is that they make complex issues meaningful in a way that individuals can use. Narratives, he suggested, provide 'vicarious experience...[and] create a virtual reality, that is, a reality that exists within our imaginations' (p. 192). In this way, said Donmoyer, such accounts become part of an individual's own experience. Donmoyer suggested that we do not generalise from any research in a technical way. We use what we learn from many sources to interpret and understand a particular situation and to make decisions about what might work for these people in this setting. We behave as the intuitive, reflective and complex human beings that we are. Evelyn Fox Keller (1985) has written about the work of Nobel Prizewinning geneticist, Barbara McClintock. Keller reported that, for McClintock, the goal of science is: not prediction, per se, but understanding; not the power to manipulate, but empowerment - the kind of power that results from an under-

12 standing of the world around us, that simultaneously reflects and affirms our connection to that world. (Keller, 1985, p. 166)

I think that stories 'connect us to the world' because they relate us to the lived experience of others and extend our experience of the world as it is understood by others. In using stories in this way, I support John Smith's (1988) idea that the processes and findings of research are 'no more interpretation free or resistant to discernment than are the accounts of lay persons' (p. 22) and his use of American philosopher, Richard Rorty, (1982), who said that: If we get rid of traditional notions of 'objectivity' and 'scientific method' we shall be able to see the social sciences as continuous with literature as interpreting other people to us, and thus enlarging and deepening our sense of community, (p. 203)

This does not imply a non-critical position. Not all ideas, research or stories may be of equal value and, as Patti Lather (1986) suggested, we need strategies to protect us from our 'passions and limitations' (p. 272). Also, we need to be critical if we are to avoid simply replicating currently dominant ideas, paradigms and cultures. What such a position emphasises is that researchers should no longer see themselves as the appointed guardians of truth. Rather, they should participate with others in the community as contributors to community knowledge and share with others the responsibility for ongoing reflection on knowledge and action (Skrtic, 199la). What each party knows is valued, but may not be of equal value. In this regard Jesse Goodman (1992) proposed that research information, along with other ideas, should be critically evaluated along a number of dimensions including its value for informing practice, its value for extending our conceptual and theoretical understandings of an issue, and its consistency with ethical and moral principles. Donald Schon (1991) suggested that researchers challenge information or ideas with 'alternate plausible accounts' which would test a story's 'competitive resistance to refutation' (p. 48). To these proposals I would add the need for evaluation in terms of different cultural realities. Susan Adler (1993) described such an approach as 'reflective practice' and emphasised that this is not 'naive inquiry' nor 'mere introspection...at the mercy of immediate feelings and surface impressions'. To be reflective is to be a scholar 'conscious of and thoughtful about one's practices, and communicating that awareness and those insights with one's peers' so the research 'must be publicly communicated... subject to the scrutiny of others...[with a] dialogic relationship with the reader' (p. 161).

13 I suggest that, for researchers, the scrutiny of others is no longer just that of their research peers. We must be accountable to the community of which we are a part, and in the area of inclusion this includes being accountable to disabled people. Stories have a role here because they are mostly accessible to a community audience, not just to those who have learned the academic codes. Thinking of research as stories also emphasises that research is but one among many methods of knowing and communicating. This may encourage the critical interaction of research thought with other important ways of knowing, for example, through poetry, literature and other arts (Heshusius, 1988). In such ways I think that stories may help us evaluate and change the 'social relations of research production'. I believe that stories will be an important part of post-positivist, post-modern approaches to science and research. Positivist science required the researcher to pretend to remove themselves from the world and relied heavily on 'quantitative mysticism' (Herman, 1984, p. 114). Post-positivist thought requires that we identify ourselves as part of the world that we would know and that we understand science as a 'deeply personal as well as social activity' (Keller, 1985, p. 7). Aspects of such an approach are already evident in various areas of research. For example, psychologist, Mary Belenky, and her colleagues (1986) write about 'connected knowing', contrasting it with the separate and impersonal knowing of a positivist world view. As Elliot Eisner (1991) suggests, 'Detachment and distance are no virtues when one wants to improve complex social organisations or so delicate a performance as teaching' (p. 2). Participation, rather than distance, characterises the 'social relations of research production' in action research and, I suggest, this may also occur in research as stories. Mike Oliver (1992b) said that this does not happen in interpretive research. While it may not happen with all narrative accounts (Bologh, 1992), I think that people's own stories and critical reflections can be a way for others to engage with (and in Donmoyer's sense of 'virtual reality', participate in) the experiences of others. This can help establish discussion and 'collaborative theorizing' (Lather, 1991, p. 64). As an example, Susan Browne and her colleagues (1985) describe their anthology of writings by disabled women as 'a work of resistance against institutionalized silence' which was intended to: bridge the gap that separates disabled women from one another and from the non-disabled world. This book is a tool we can use to examine and challenge our able-ism without defending it, and to demystify disability and the lives of disabled women. (Browne et al., 1985, pp. 10-11)

14

In this sense, stories, as a 'basic phenomenon of life' (Clandinin and Connelly, 1991, p. 259), link people more closely with one another. From this perspective I suggest that both action strategies and research as stories can promote the sharing of knowledge and experiences that will be necessary in the ongoing development of inclusion by teachers, students, parents and researchers. This needs to be a democratic and reciprocal process, and the focus of research needs to move from disabled students and on to disabling paradigms and practices (Oliver, 1992b). Researchers will need to develop inclusive practices within their own institutions and to write stories about themselves for public scrutiny, describing who they are and explaining their research in the context of their values, history, experiences and culture. Then researchers and research participants may come to understand better the paradigms which organise education and to identify and influence who has the power to have their world-view reflected in the classroom.

Chapter 2

Stress, Morale and Acceptance of Change by Special Educators Jeffrey G. Bailey

Introduction There are many ways to increase the educational opportunities and improve the education of students with special needs. One way is through the development of an inclusive curriculum and inclusive approaches to schooling. The authors in this book illustrate their views of and demonstrate their commitment to inclusive education in quite diverse ways. In some cases, the commitment is to listen to the 'authentic voices' of the disabled (see Chapter 1), or, at a more instrumental level, methods of teaching for an inclusive curriculum are described (see the Chapters 10 and 11 by Linda Ware and Alice Udvari-Solner and Jacqueline Thousand). There is little doubt, though, that it is essential to consider the organisational aspects of special education when one considers a new movement like inclusive education. First, one has to understand the language of inclusive education and disabilities. Tony Booth raises significant points when he questions the terms special education and special needs. We also have to consider the influences of policy and funding. In a European context, the perspectives presented by Sip Jan Fiji and Lise Vislie are extremely important. Without a proper policy framework, and a progressive one at that, inclusive education is doomed. If the education system is being tested and challenged by conflicting pressures unrelated to disabilities and social equity (a key theme in the present chapter) it is unlikely that inclusive education will be taken seriously or implemented effectively. Similarly, if there is intense pressure to develop 'effective schools' as described by Mel Ainscow's paper, then the issues in this chapter and the opportunities for a stronger emphasis on inclusive education are curtailed severely. Inclusive education can be viewed in the light of

16

an effort to improve schooling for all and, in this context, the papers by Ainscow and Reynolds are extremely important for the inclusive education movement. Education must improve for all the clients of the system - and, in my view, it must improve for the servants of the system: teachers and support personnel. To add to the complexity of the inclusive education agenda, new research pressures are emerging which force an agenda of their own. Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson, Alan Millward and David Skidmore challenge us with a different approach to research. A more contextually valid, qualitative approach, which respects and endorses the perceptions and values of the actors in the research process - teachers, students and parents - forces us to review our own approach to educational research. The perspectives taken in this volume provide a conspectus view of the need for a larger vision than that encompassed in the inclusive schooling agenda. My chapter is designed to provide an organisational backdrop, one in which how teachers feel and react to change is a vitally important first consideration. This chapter takes a very simple view. Unless special educators are enjoying positive, health-enhancing and productive emotional states and high motivation and commitment, and unless they have the skills and the drive to implement change programs, inclusive education approaches will not be implemented wholeheartedly or effectively. Challenges confronting education and special education In the last twenty years we have witnessed a growing preoccupation by society, governments, community groups and parents about the nature and quality of school education. Table 2.1 outlines representative pressures and demands on schooling systems. When the basic unit in society, the family, begins to fragment, schools are called upon to assist the personality development of the troubled youngsters. The work by Patterson et al. (1989) on dysfunctional families and by Hetherington et al. (1989) on marital transitions (that is, families moving from a married to an unmarried to a remarried situation) underscores some of the pressures emerging from family breakdowns. Schools are expected to overcome these dysfunctions and mend the disintegrating personalities. Continued interest by governments in the business of schooling has been a common theme in Australia and the US. In the 1980s, this interest in education by governments intensified in Australia. Phillips (1993) reported a similar situation in the US when he said that the school reform movement generated dozens of reports on education in

17 Table 2,1 Emerging pressures and demands on the schooling system Social pressures and demands

Political, government and legislative pressures

Professional pressures and demands

Education as a universal panacea

Increased government interference

Bottom-up school reform and revitalisation

Increases in dysfunctional families

A top-down wave of legislation Increased class sizes and regulation of schools

Surrogate parenting by the school Government calls for an edusystem for dysfunctional families cation-led economic recovery

Decreases in support services

Increase in marital transitions and Growing interest in national mixed family arrangements standards

Decentralised administration of education, including more parent control of schools

Large-scale youth unemployment

Call for development of national key competencies

Frequent revisions of curricular documents

Movement towards a universal twelve years of schooling

Pressure for a national core curriculum

School-based curriculum development

Increases in child abuse and family violence

Pressure for national testing

Longer pre-service teacher education

Increases in youth suicide and crime

Pressures for postgraduate teacher education

Parental involvement in schools

'Graduation' certificates for special needs students

Call for return to basics

Rapid changes in information technology

A stronger school-to-work nexus

Mainstreaming

The information revolution

Normalisation Inclusive schooling Individual education plans The regular education initiative Curriculum-based assessment Technologically-aided learning Driver education Sex education AIDS education

the 1980s. More importantly, Phillips reported that a massive wave of legislation about education, some 700 pieces of legislation, were enacted in the US over a three-year period in the early 1980s. In Australia, there has been strong pressure recently for a compre-

18

hensive, national input into school standards and curriculum, the Finn Report for the National Project on the Quality of Teaching and Learning (Ruby, Cashman and Byrnes, 1992) being one pressure. The development and acceptance of 'key competencies' and a push towards a more vocationally oriented senior secondary curriculum were the major outcomes of the Finn Review. A natural sequel to these competencies was the development of a national core curriculum or at least a national curriculum framework. In Australia, the significance of these pressures and demands can be seen in the criticism of and changes to the delivery of special education services to mainstreamed students. In Queensland, for example, the report Focus on Schools (Queensland Department of Education, 1990) recommended widespread changes to the structure of special education, changes which generated considerable stress and anxiety for many special teachers and support personnel. In the USA, the regular education initiative has challenged special educators and school psychologists who are implementing mainstream programs (O'Shea, O'Shea and Algozzine, 1989; Welch, 1989; Wilczenski, 1992). Criticism of 'pull-out' or withdrawal programs has encouraged regular educators to assume the major responsibility for integrated students with disabilities. School reform and school renewal pressures have added to the complexity of the roles of all professionals but particularly those supporting mainstreaming. In Queensland, the new emphases on ascertainment and inclusive schooling, the changing role of special educators (Bailey and Bailey, 1993a), reductions in the number of mainstreaming support personnel and increases in their workloads, decreased enrolments in segregated special provisions and consequent increases in mainstreaming enrolments have added to the professional challenges to and demands on Queensland's special educators. All these changes have serious implications for the psychological well-being of special educators. This chapter examines the impact of these changes on special educators in terms of three constructs: teacher stress; teacher morale; and teacher acceptance of change. Teacher stress In this paper, stress is taken to mean 'a response syndrome of negative affects (such as anger or depression)' (Kyriacou and Sutcliffe, 1978, p. 159) which results from the special educator's role. Teachers perceive threats, pressures and challenges because of changes in professional environment, and their response to these events, including activation of personal or professional coping mechanisms, generates

19

stress. Long-term unresolved stress leads to ill-health (Fisher, 1993; Huberty and Huebner, 1988), lower morale and, in some cases, reduced effectiveness on the job, reduced efficiency and impaired goal attainment (Motowidlo, Packard and Manning, 1986), and, ultimately, to burn-out. Jackson, Schwab and Schuler (1986, p. 630) describe burnout as having three psychological characteristics: emotional exhaustion; professional depersonalisation; and pervasive feelings of Mow personal achievement'. Teachers suffer from burn-out in significant numbers; for example, Farber (1984) suggests that as many as 15% of teachers suffer burn-out and up to 25% are vulnerable to burn-out. Many researchers report high stress levels amongst teachers and school psychologists (Brown and Ralph, 1992; Cox and Brockley, Table 2.2 Sources of teacher stress Researcher

Sample

Sources of stress

Abbotts et al. (1991)

41 head teachers in the UK

• lack of resources • increased workload • pupil problems • time pressures

Borg et al. (1991)

710 Maltese primary schoolteachers

• pupil misbehaviour • time/resource difficulties • professional recognition needs • poor relationships

Cherniss (1988)

2 schools for mentally retarded

• principal's supervisory behaviour

Cooper and Kelly (1993)

2638 head teachers of primary, secondary and higher education establishments

• work overload • handling relationships with staff

Eichinger et al. (1991)

78 female special education teachers

• depersonalisation • emotional exhaustion • personal accomplishment • level of job satisfaction

French (1991)

223 elementary school teachers

• time control • relationships • curriculum concerns • students' motivation • career advancement • class size • role conflict • interference •job security

Friedman (1991)

1597 elementary school teachers

Four school culture variables: • the drive toward measurable goal achievement behaviour imposed on teachers by the school administration • the lack of trust in teachers' professional adequacy • a circumscribing school culture • the physical environment

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1984; Farber, 1984; Huberty and Huebner, 1988; Raschke, Dedrick, Strathe & Hawkes, 1985). What causes this stress? Table 2.2 shows the major positions taken by seven stress researchers on the sources of teacher stress. What is clear from Table 2.2 is that the precipitators of teacher stress are many and operate in multiple contexts. Some, for example, relate to the individual needs and concerns of the teacher (job security, present feelings of emotionality), while others are dependent on the social networks in the school, including the manner in which the principal supervises the teachers. Workloads are important but probably far less aggravating than role confusion and ambiguity. Stress in special education It is disappointing that the number of stress studies in special education is very small. As will be pointed out below, the same situation applies for morale studies in special education. One has to wonder why this very important group of people attracts so little attention. Is it that special educators are assumed to have similar work conditions, challenges and emotional states to regular educators? In the UK, the 1988 Education Reform Act has added to the complexity of work circumstances in schools. The study of forty-one headteachers in special schools by Abbotts et al. (1991) provides useful information on self-reported stress levels as a result of the implementation of the Act. Resources and available time are vitally important factors in special educators' stress levels and in the effectiveness of special education. Gains (1992, p. 50) makes an important point in his editorial when he asks why 'senior politicians and others...refuse to fund the necessary resources to do the job'. To reduce stress and increase effectiveness, resources, particularly time, must be readily available. With increasing change-demands on special educators, for example, Dyson's (1990a) suggestions of an effective learning consultant and teacher appraisal in special schools (Williams and Petrie, 1989), new pressures will emerge to stress special educators. The stressors which apply to special education teachers include the following: • the important and regular shifts in philosophy and practice in special education, which include mainstreaming, inclusive schooling, shifts in placement criteria and measurement techniques for ascertainment, criticisms of traditional roles, e.g. pull-out programs and remedial approaches, changes in curricular and instructional emphases

21

• the nature of the special needs population and the educational challenges presented, e.g. in managing behaviours, dealing with emotionally charged children • the extra burden of ongoing involvement in transdisciplinary teams and the contacts and case management involved, e.g. dealing with pediatricians in the case of special needs students on psycho-stimulant medication, interacting with allied health specialists • the lack of leadership training in special education (see Bailey, 1992) which could have a negative impact on staff feelings of well-being. It is also likely that there are major differences across the traditional domains of special education; it is possible that stress levels vary depending, for example, on whether the role is itinerant or even on the type of students being taught. Abelson (1986) found significant differences between teachers of different categorical groups. Teachers of the emotionally disturbed were less satisfied with working conditions and leadership opportunities than teachers of the learning disabled. There appeared to be no differences on the basis of demographic and biographical characteristics, suggesting that educational setting and the nature of the client group might be very important differentiating factors in stress and satisfaction. If a consequence of stress and dissatisfaction is occupational attrition, that is, transfers and resignations, then there is important information which should be highlighted. In a study of attrition in learning disabled students, Dangel, Bunch and Coopman (1987) found that special education itself was not the aggravating factor; instead, excessive paperwork was the major factor, followed by level of pay, career opportunities and personal reasons such as marriage and relocation. Billingsley's (1993) study confirmed these findings in her tripartite model of retention and attrition. Ways of reducing stress The picture of stress in special educators is more fragmented than composite but there is sufficient information about teacher stress in general to make recommendations which apply to special educators. I shall restrict my recommendations to four major areas. Role ambiguity Special education is in a state of flux in the UK and Australia. Concerns about the efficacy of withdrawal and co-ordinative functions, the

22

raison d'etre of special education for many years, add to the pressures on special educators. In order to reduce special educators' stress, it is essential that roles be clarified, confirmed and supported in the philosophical and pedagogical context in which the school currently operates. Social support In a study on curriculum implementation (Bailey, Berrell and Gibson, 1991) it was found that the most influential and important person for a particular teacher was the teacher working closest to them. This might be a colleague in a team-teaching situation, in a nearby classroom, or a friend and mentor. We know that providing social and emotional support will reduce stress in employees (Cherniss, 1988; Russell, Altmaier, Van Velzen, 1987; Terry, Nielsen and Perchard, 1993). Supervisory role The role of supervisors is critical in the amelioration of teacher stress (Cherniss, 1988). Special educators, like all educators, need positive, constructive and corrective performance feedback. They have a difficult job, particularly in the consultancy role, and regular and frequent supportive contact by the supervisor can be professionally and personally health-engendering. Involvement in and control over teaching Few professionals enjoy being the pawns of an administrative fate. The notion of being professional implies competence, trust, initiative and the right to pursue professional objectives individually and responsibly. There are several theoretical perspectives which are important in evaluating the effects of the organisational environment on the attributions and motivations of teachers. These include teacher involvement in decision-making (Thierbach-Schneider, 1984), participative decision-making (Imber, Neidt and Reyes, 1990) and personal control (Greenberger, Stasser, Cummings and Dunham, 1989). The general conclusions from these studies are that if an employee has an appreciable level of involvement in the decisions and planning of an organisation, and if they are able to exercise some professional discretion and control over their work activities, they will have higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational loyalty and commitment.

23

A reasonable extrapolation is that positive intrapsychic states will help reduce the levels of frustration and stress an employee feels. If special educators feel they have little control over their curriculum or their model of service delivery or over standards of behaviour in their students, their stress levels will increase. In an Australian study (of secondary teachers), Tuettemann and Punch (1992) found that two teacher perceptions were influential in reducing their reported levels of psychological distress. These were: level of efficacy and achievement - a consistent theme (see Friedman and Farber, 1992; Greenwood, Olejnik and Parkay, 1990); and level of influence and autonomy. The purpose of stress reduction is to ensure that teachers have the psychological energy and well-being to approach their job confidently, positively and happily. This is a precondition to teacher effectiveness and, with the right combination of teacher knowledge and skill, special educational settings will be happier and more productive learning environments for staff and students. Teacher morale Morale is defined as: 'a forward looking and confident state of mind relevant to a shared and vital sense of purpose' (Smith, 1987). In previous studies by the author (Bailey, 1976; Bailey and Bailey, 1993b, 1993c) attempts were made to characterise the morale of special educators. In the morale instrument used (SMQ24), three factors were analysed (Smith, 1987; Williams and Lane, 1975): personal challenge, cohesive pride and leadership synergy. Morale is synonymous with job satisfaction but is not the same construct. Job satisfaction relates more specifically to the characteristics of the role and to an employee's values related to that job (Locke, 1970) and willingness to remain in that position (Benson, 1983), whereas morale is a measure of an employee's evaluation of psychological characteristics of the work setting, and the impact of these characteristics on the individual. The three factors which derive from the SMQ24 are important in the employees' confident and positive feelings about a work environment. There should be a satisfying level of personal challenge in the position. For most people, there is a strong social element to employment, and people value a sense of cohesion and common purpose. Finally, the importance of leadership emerges again as a significant force in shaping people's feelings of satisfaction or well-being.

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Morale in special education There are very few studies of the morale of special educators (Stedt and Palermo, 1983) and other mainstreaming support specialists. Stedt and Palermo (1983) found morale differences between special educators with different kinds of students, for example, teachers of young multiply handicapped students had higher morale than other specialist teachers. There were no morale differences between teachers of intellectually disabled students with mild and severe impairments. This finding is similar to the observation above that stress levels might correlate with the type of educational setting. In two studies by the present author (Bailey, 1976; Bailey and Bailey, 1993b) it was found that there are trend differences in morale between different kinds of special educators. There were no significant differences between special educators on three category variables: setting, age and sex. Those who supply learning support to regular schools have lower morale of cohesive pride. This is an area of concern to those responsible for teachers in consultancy services: itinerancy reduces social contact and lowers feelings of cohesiveness. There are many personal and professional challenges in providing support services to teachers and students, whether these services are direct (i.e. in withdrawal rooms or in classrooms) or whether they are indirect (i.e. through consultancy to regular teachers). The pressure of time and conflict between different subjects and different age groups (see Bailey and Bailey, 1993a) adds strain to the role. Taking children out of regular classes often attracts criticisms from class teachers who feel that they have less and less time with their own students. Trying to facilitate change, that is, enhancing teacher attitudes toward special needs students or teacher services to these students, adds pressures to the often overloaded support specialist. Another factor contributing to the low morale of support specialists is generated by their specialism. Many principals in regular schools have little knowledge of ascertainment principles and procedures, case management, remediation, individualised education plans, consultancy or even students with special needs. Indeed, there is evidence of a lack of role congruence between perceptions by resource teachers of their roles and the perceptions of those roles by principals (Friend and McNutt, 1987). What typically happens when leaders are uncertain of a professional area is that they provide little leadership, thus ensuring that the support specialist receives less and less of the interest and support that they need. In these cases, morale of leadership synergy is certain to be low.

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There is a great deal of research to be done on morale in special education to determine the antecedents and events which promote or inhibit the development of positive feelings of morale. On a more positive note, the study by Bailey and Bailey (1993b) which examined morale over a fifteen-year period (1976-91) found a perfect stability score, that is, no change in mean values, and a relatively high level of morale on both occasions. Improving morale in special education There are many ways to change morale in schools for both regular and special educators (see Bailey and Bailey, 1993c; Brodinsky, 1984; Krupp, 1985; Petrick and Manning, 1990). Particular special needs roles may require specific interventions. The following, drawn from Bailey and Bailey (1993c), are typical of the interventions which would be morale-enhancing for support specialists. Participative decision-making Support specialists have expertise in case management, special needs placement and consulting with parents, and their expertise should be acknowledged by having them involved in decisions about the education of special needs students. Imber et al. (1990) assert that teachers want to be involved in decisions. Such involvement enhances feelings of loyalty of teachers to their principals (Styles-Johnston and Germinario, 1985) and feelings of job satisfaction (Thierbach-Schneider, 1984). Developing a sense of belonging There appears to be a positive correlation between feelings of belonging and satisfaction and morale (Moore Johnson, 1986). School staff and administrators should do all they can to make the support specialist feel part of the team to increase their cohesive morale. Mentoring Mentoring, the process of caring guidance between two professionals, increases morale. Krupp (1985) found that teachers want the principal to be their mentor, but the principals, in the main, did not realise their attractiveness as mentors. A healthy state of morale is an important component in deriving satisfaction from teaching and in contributing to successful goal accomplishment. Policy-makers and school leaders should be aware of the

26

importance of high morale in effecting change in schools. The nature and importance of change in education The third self-perception examined in this chapter is special educators' attitudes and adaptational responses (Phillips, 1993) to change, in particular, to changes related to the principles and practices of mainstreaming in schools. I argue that if the person required to implement the change is resistant or uncommitted, the program will not be implemented effectively. The theoretical framework used to analyse change in an organisation could include self-regulation (Bandura, 1989; Karoly, 1993), values (Feather, 1985), conflict in organisations (Reichers, 1986), organisational commitment (O'Reilly and Chatman, 1986), perceptions of organisational support (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison and Sowa, 1986) or attitudes and persuasion (Petty and Cacioppo, 1981). All of these disparate but related areas of inquiry provide a view of reasons why, at the micro-organisational level (department or school), a professional accepts the need for change, and subsequently changes or refuses to change. The reason for including this section on adaptation to change is that the process of introducing change into special education is often clumsy and inadequate. For example, if one is trying to restructure a learning support teacher's role from, say, largely withdrawal remediation to in-class consultancy and co-teaching, there are many steps one must take to gain commitment and acceptance. In the first place, the learning support teacher must see the educational value of such an approach. This might require evidence that the new system is more effective in terms of learner outcomes than the old. Second, this teacher needs to appreciate that there is substantial support for such an approach from all interested parties. As well, he or she has to know that he or she has the planning, instructional and curriculum knowledge and skills to be competent in the new role. New and additional resources might also be required. The co-operation of the regular 'co-teacher' will have to be sought. This teacher will need to have a new set of skills and professional self-assurance as many classroom teachers are not comfortable with other teachers in the room. The point to be made is that change is not accepted readily. Change requires discarding the old and gauging the new. Change requires extra energy and more risks. Change can be, for some teachers, more of a threat than an opportunity.

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Factors promoting resistance to change Pressures for resistance to change in the context of one teacher attempting to influence another are now discussed. Friend and Bauwens (1988) describe four sources of resistance to the learning support teacher's efforts to offer consultancy support: desire to maintain the status quo; failure and frustration; a threat to teachers' feelings of professional pride and competence; and different perceptions on the nature and severity of a problem. These same pressures will mitigate against a special educator making a strong commitment to an innovation in education. Sometimes there is value in maintaining the status quo, particularly if the reasons for introducing change are more to do with personal gain of, say, an administrator, rather than benefit to the students. It is reasonable to ask questions about the proven value of the innovation. Too many innovations like inclusive education fail to be implemented, not because teachers are not committed, but because they did not value the new approach. With regard to failure and frustration, I have pointed out the significance and impact of stress and morale on teachers. It is reasonable to suggest that the more stressed one is, and the lower the morale one has, particularly morale of personal challenge, the less likely one is to engage in risky behaviour of any kind, particularly largescale change programs. Some change programs in special education strike right at the heart of the teacher's professional pride. A good example is the strong criticism of pull-out programs for remediation. For a teacher who attained excellence in this model of instruction for many years, and who knows that he or she has been very successful, it is a professional insult to be told that the model is next to useless. In a related way, the notion of different perceptions and different values suggests another source of conflict when change is being recommended. Facilitating acceptance of change There is a great deal of literature on how one reduces resistance to change and facilitates acceptance of innovation. Identifying the sources of resistance is one obvious starting point and creating a planned model for change is a useful strategy. Callan (1993) harnessed stress reduction and change models together. The main elements include promoting a sense of personal control, exercising change leadership and emphasising effective communication. The final contribution of this chapter will be to present a model of

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thirty influences on change. They include broader contextual pressures, like community expectations, the process of curriculum change, idioTable 2.3 Factors influencing adaptation to change Change influences

Weak influence

Strong influence

Accountability pressures

Internal; process

External; national assessment

Community pressure

Weak

Strong

Parental expectations

Low

High

School culture

Low-risk; conservative

High-risk; innovative

Supervisory practices

Facilitative

Evaluative

Type of students

Low challenge

High challenge

Locus of curriculum development

Central

Local

Curriculum changes

Infrequent

Frequent

Curriculum implementation

Poor strategies

Well-organised

Teacher beliefs

Implicit

Explicit

Teacher values

Conservative

Liberal

Teacher conservatism

High

Low

Level of energy

Low

High

Perceptions of threat

High

Low

Teacher self-efficacy

Low

High

Personal control

External

Internal

Coping skills

Emotion-focussed

Problem-focussed

Stress levels

High

Low

Teachers' implicit theories

Intuitive; untested

Rational; explicit

Teacher professionalism

Technical

Professional

Job satisfaction

Low

High

Organisational commitment

Low

High

Perceptions of organisational support

Low

High

Teacher morale

Low

High

Teacher skills

Restricted

Elaborated

Teachers' knowledge-base

Limited

Extensive

Workload

Excessive

Reasonable

Decision style

Novice; dependent

Expert; independent

Peer support

Minimal

Strong

Role ambiguity

High

Low

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syncratic features of a teacher's personality, skill and professional status, and work and role characteristics. The notions of stress, morale, job satisfaction, perceptions of organisational threat and support, and commitment are all important factors in predisposing a professional to change. The right-hand columns in Table 2.3 show the polar extremes in descriptive terms. If a factor has 'weak' or 'low' potency, the influence valence will be weak, and change will not occur. If, on the other hand, there are strong pressures, high expectations, overt belief and theory systems and a problem-focussed approach to stress reduction, adaptation to change will be facilitated readily. It should be pointed out that this is an heuristic, not an empirical, model. Many of the factors for adaptation would need to be tested before one planned to implement change using a model like this. The point is not in the proof, but in the usefulness of this model in integrating the views and issues raised in this chapter. Conclusion I started with the notion that there are many ways to effect change in special education. The outline of teacher stress and teacher morale was designed to focus attention on the importance of understanding the intrapsychic characteristics of a special education teacher. The explanation of change and the development of a model which highlights thirty factors and their valence capacity in terms of influencing change was used to explicate the complexity of introducing change into education. If we want continually to improve the quality of educational services delivered to students with special needs, it is essential that we consider the state of mind of special educators when fashioning new curricula or service delivery models. An understanding of teacher stress and morale, and an awareness of the process of adaptation to change, will make administrators, teacher educators and policy-makers more effective in the change models they introduce.

Chapter 3

Inclusive Education: From Policy to School Implementation Roger Slee

Introduction This chapter is heuristic rather than conclusive. Simply put, I want to take the opportunity to reconsider briefly directions in educational theory, policy and practice in the area of, what is presently euphemistically called, 'inclusive education' in Australia. In so doing the emphasis is not so much upon the depth of analysis of the past, but upon the implications of the past for future educational research, policy development and school and classroom practices. Writing about the Innovatory Mainstream Practice (IMP) project, Alan Dyson (1992, p. 51) reports a 'different turn' in his work: I have been focusing less on what special needs teachers might do and more on what they are actually doing, in order to discover what might be learned from the developments in thinking and practice that are undoubtedly taking place in schools around the country...we have been very careful to focus on work that is 'interestingly different' (which may or may not be 'good practice') rather than on 'good practice' (which may or may not be 'innovatory'). (Dyson, 1992, p. 51)

Elsewhere, I have reported a shared belief that educational planners and policy writers have a great deal to learn from developments and practices on school sites if they are to provide more effective leadership in policy formation and implementation (Slee, 1991 and 1993a). Focussing upon inclusive learning initiatives developed in schools as a basis for organisational development and change (Fulcher, Semmens and Slee, 1989) responds to the problem of the distance between teachers and education bureaucracies (Brieschke, 1990). To enhance the ability of member countries to develop strategies responsive to students' special needs in the ordinary classroom,

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UNESCO initiated the Special Needs in the Classroom project (Ainscow, 1991 and 1993b). As Ainscow reports the aim is to '...develop and disseminate ideas and materials that can be used by teacher educators to support teachers in mainstream schools as they seek to accommodate pupil diversity' (Ainscow, 1993b, p. 202). Ainscow's accounts of the project also position the teacher, the school and the classroom as the focal points of intervention integral to inclusive schooling. The programme of professional development pursues: the rejection of the dominant perspective on special needs education; the reorientation of schools to become problem-solving organisations; the development of a professional culture, and the attendant skills, that promotes teachers as reflective practitioners. (Ainscow, 1991, pp. 1-15)

Caution ought to be issued against romanticising local initiatives in what remains an intensely ideological and complex area of educational struggle and contest (Barton, 1987; Fulcher, 1989; Skrtic, 199la; Tomlinson, 1982). Schools remain sites of profound contradictions. Penetration of the residual exclusionary culture and practices of schooling remains a considerable challenge despite the timbre of the inclusive rhetoric in current policy documents in Australia (Lewis and Cook, 1992) and elsewhere (Barton and Landman, 1993; Booth, Swann, Masterton and Potts, 1992; Gold, Bowe and Ball, 1993). Teachers, school administrators and education department personnel frequently deploy similar discourse to advance a range of projects loosely called integrative. A recent conference invited bureaucrats from each of the Australian states and territories to share integration policies and programmes with each other. Victoria continued, despite evidence of contradictory practices (Cook, Lewis and Sword, 1989; Fulcher, 1989; Lewis, 1989; Marks, 1993), to advance unconditional integration as a rights issue (Kirner, 1993). Others articulated, but didn't acknowledge, caveats of conditionality which reduced integration to a lunch-time social programme or careful assessment of which students and classes could be targeted for inclusion (Slee and Cook, 1993). Unless we are pressed to define our terms of reference, we frequently talk at cross-purposes. New policy language is easily learned and accommodated, but it is more problematic for this to penetrate the fine-grain realities of organisation, curriculum and pedagogy (Slee, 1993b) of school culture. Extending our discussion across national boundaries and cultural contexts amplifies the difficulties of meaningful communication as Booth correctly observes (Chapter 8). Ballard's illustration of this point in relation to the silencing of Maori people in New Zealand's educational and political debates is salutary

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(see Chapter 1). This chapter shares Booth's conviction that we need to identify carefully the 'taken for granted' conceptual baggage in order to step outside local frames to provide the space for all in our conversations about inclusion and democratic schooling (Ware, Chapter 10). This chapter attempts to unravel this problematic by contending that changing school practice to extend inclusion to those students considered disabled is made difficult by a range of ideological issues which indelibly stamp themselves on the structural arrangements of schooling and policy-making in the field of 'special needs'. My intention is to maintain our focus on students, teachers and parents in the policy-making process and in so doing, shift attention from systemic and professional requirements (Skrtic, 199la; Slee, 1993b; Tomlinson, 1993). To this end, I will ground the discussion in recent involvements with schools developing inclusive educational programmes and with the North Coast Regional Special Education Advisory Panel. Integration policy in Australia: a traveller's guide Some explanations of the idiosyncratic nature of education policy in Australia are required to avoid confusion. A federation, Australia is divided into six states and two territories. The Federal Government's Department of Employment, Education and Training does disperse limited funds to state and territory education departments and to the private and systemic church schools for special needs provision under the banner of Commonwealth special programmes funding. The states and territories have their own public education authorities responsible for the provision of compulsory mass education according to the political dispositions of their respective state-level governments. Consequently when we talk about education policy in Australia there is a need to stipulate which education authority we are referring to so as to avoid confusion. Moreover, time-frames are important. For example, the frequently referred to integration policy of the state of Victoria (Fulcher, 1989) has become an historical artefact in the wake of the Kennett Liberal government's return to a more traditional special educational policy orientation consistent with the 'psycho-medical paradigm' (Clark, Dyson, Millward and Skidmore, Chapter 7). The student of policy may request that further caveats be written into this introduction. The analysis of state policies does not provide a complete account of integration in Australia. Consideration of debates and programmes at all levels of the education bureaucracy is necessary (Fulcher, 1989). Schools too are 'messy' organisations which demand

33

micro-analysis in order to capture the distortions and subversions of policy enacted: The field of policy analysis is dominated by commentary and critique rather than research. Abstract accounts tend towards tidy generalities and often fail to capture the messy realities of influence, pressure, dogma, expediency, conflict, compromise, intransigence, resistance, error, opposition and pragmatism in the policy process. (Ball, 1990a, p. 9)

A school principal's description of a school's policies and programmes may appear quite remote from the impressions gained through classroom observation. Despite a convergence of descriptive accounts and a linguistic consistency, teachers' assumptions and practices may diverge quite dramatically. Integration may mean a child who is considered disabled working at the side of a room with a teacher aide, or it may mean a teacher aide working with a group of children some of whom would not be considered disabled. Integration has been enlisted to describe the partial inclusion of targeted children in the 'non-academic' curriculum; it has described gatherings of children with disabilities in special leisure clubs at the weekend (Gow, Balla and Purvis, 1985; Gow and Rigby, 1988). Others use the word to refer to the unconditional inclusion of all children in the regular classroom (Biklen, 1985; Marks, 1993; Semmens, 1993; Uditsky, 1993). In a recent analysis of the discourse of various participants in Integration Support Groups in Victoria, Marks (1993) depicts what Ware (Chapter 10) terms the darker side of inclusion. 'Emancipatory change', argues Marks (1993, p. 182), which is 'designed to empower, may frequently be fraught with considerable difficulty and conflict... [A] number of forces of control and resistance, both unconscious and overt, operate within the use of language to maintain traditional patterns of disempowerment.' While there is an ambiguity of policy readings which results in divergent practices in integration (Codd, 1988), particular 'professional' readings and practices dominate the field (Fulcher, 1989). Lewis (1989) demonstrates the expansion of a special education industry of considerable influence and power in Australia. Segregated special education provision has largely been legitimated by the hegemony of IQ (Meadmore, 1993) and the pervasive power of educational psychology. Expert knowledge and therapeutic interventions are advanced as representing the best interests of children considered disabled. Analysis of the outcomes of students of special educational provision, together with first-hand accounts of the experience of special educational treatment, provide a dissenting view of the benefits of the

34

traditional assumptions and practices of special education (Barton, 1994; Bodna, 1987; Corbett, 1993; Humphries and Gordon, 1992; Ireland, 1993; Tomlinson, 1981; Walsh, 1993). These dissenting views are not yet shifting the traditional hold on the field. Education authorities continue to draw advice from those who presided over the categorisation and separation of students considered disabled to shape integration policy and practice. This is not seen as paradoxical. Rather, it adheres to a Cartesian logic which argues that because these special educational experts understand the pathologies of these different and defective children, they will provide the best advice on how to manage these children's needs in the regular classroom. This logic needs to be challenged if we are to make progress with integration. Policy and practice stumble over the failure of education authorities to interrogate this issue. For many in education bureaucracies in Australia dialectical analysis of special needs and school organisations, as proposed by Clark et al. (Chapter 7), is unlikely while they remain unaware of 'socio-political' or 'organisational' paradigms and fail to acknowledge dissenting voices. The impact of special educational advice on the development and implementation of integration policy is manifest in a number of ways. First is the reduction of educational inclusion to an arithmetic calculus of resource provision. Schools in Australia (Karmel, 1973), the report of the Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commission, is indicative. The pursuit of equity for 'handicapped' children was contingent upon the provision of special physical and human resources and additional training in special educational for teachers (Karmel, 1973, pp. 109-18). Bleached from the inclusion equation are the differential impacts of pedagogy, curriculum, school organisation and the values embraced by schools. Elsewhere disparities between the levels of successful inclusion and resourcing have given lie to the notion that integration depends simply upon the provision of resources (Fulcher, Semmens and Slee, 1989). Second, we witness the assumed authority of professional 'experts' about children's needs. The arbiters of need are those who are qualified to determine 'the least restrictive environment' or those who ascertain levels of need according to a descending six-point scale. Psychologists and special educators eclipse the parental voice in integration meetings (Galloway, 1985; Marks, 1993). This is a critical issue. There remains a need to expose the myth of 'clinical judgement' (Biklen, 1992; Gartner and Lipsky, 1987) and deconstruct lexicons which are thin veneers for professional interest (Petersen, 1994, Skrtic, 199la). Classroom teachers, who also maintain their expert status

35

(Prunty, 1984), are often unwittingly enlisted in a project of narrowing the range of difference permitted tenure or tolerated in our classrooms. The continual expansion of categories of disability means that more children's needs can best be met by experts other than regular classroom teachers. Presently we are witnessing this phenomenon as it is being played out in the area of disruptive behaviour. The convenience of Attention Deficit Disorder to education systems needing to step up the surveillance of and control over young people who are unable to find their place in the labour market is indicative (Slee and Cook, 1994). Schools and classrooms echo the call for additional resources and expert personnel as the preconditions for integration. Integration and special education policy in Australia are almost inseperable from the politics of resources (Fulcher, 1987). Education department bureaucrats with responsibility for integration spend most of their time in developing systems of resource division and allocation. This reductionist view of inclusion is hegemonic, reverberating through all levels of school operations. We will return to this issue when discussing events at the schools in the Queensland Project. Academic research reflects a similar reduction of integration or inclusion as a signifier of location of 'defective children' and the application of special educational skills and resources. Australian writing on integration may be, albeit crudely, divided between that which demonstrates a legacy of special educational interest emanating from Macquarie University, Burwood Teachers' College and the Schonell Special Educational Research Centre (e.g. Ashman and Elkins, 1990; Hayes et al., 1981; Parmenter, 1979; Pickering, Szaday and Duerdoth, 1988; Ward et al., 1987), and a recently emerging critical literature (Fulcher, 1989; Lewis, 1989; Marks, 1989; Slee, 1993a; Slee and Cook, 1993). The former paradigm is based upon the medical model sequence of the diagnosis of individual pathological defect, professional intervention and remediation; the latter proceeds from a social theory of disability and critiques the professional interest of special education through the deconstruction of its discourse and outcomes of its practices. This is consistent with what Clark, Dyson, Millward and Skidmore (Chapter 7) call the 'socio-political' paradigm. In a policy review project (Fulcher, Semmens and Slee, 1989) I have reported on elsewhere (Ainscow, 1991), there is considerable sympathy for the convergence of school effectiveness research (Reynolds and Ramasut, 1993) and school improvement projects with inclusive schooling (Ainscow, Chapter 6). The dominance of the traditional research interest is manifest in

36

the two main areas: • the competitive research grants - which are most frequently awarded to special educational research as it has sway in the referee processes • consultancies that directly influence policy - which are dominated by special educators and psychologists. The Report and Operational Plan for the Provision of Special Education 1993-1996 (Andrews, Elkins and Christie, 1993) was commissioned by the Queensland Department of Education's Metropolitan East Region. Amongst the recommendations issued by the consultants was a proposal to use unoccupied special schools as referral centres for 'disruptive and violent students'. This proposal is particularly distressing when elsewhere one of the authors claims adherence to a platform of inclusion (Elkins, 1991; Hayes and Elkins, 1993). It is worth considering these issues as they visit specific sites. To this end I will describe a recent involvement with schools in the 'Wide Bay Region' of Queensland and a research project in its infancy in northern New South Wales. Identifying 'the others9: a philosophical problem with educational implications The Maryborough and Hervey Bay Child and Parent Support Group in central Queensland sponsored a professional development project in May 1994 which brought school administrators, teachers, learning support teachers and parents together to review and evaluate inclusive practices in four schools. The aim of the project was to provide a forum for teachers and parents to identify the critical issues which contributed to or impeded inclusive schooling. As an outsider I was invited to visit each of the four schools to speak with staff, parents and students as a prelude to a day-long workshop which brought representatives from each of the schools together to plan for the future. The preliminary discussions with parents, teachers, school administrators and school support staff pointed to a range of issues confronting the four schools. Teachers and school administrators spoke passionately about the deleterious impact of resource shortages on the inclusion of students they considered disabled. Architecture, time, physical and human resources, and trained assistance were lacking. Meeting special needs was primarily contingent upon resources according to school personnel. When pressed to name the resources required, a number of teach-

37

ers said they needed a 'teacher aide' to assist the child in question. This was puzzling after repeated claims that specially trained experts were required for successful integration. Like many other schools, untrained aides are enlisted to mind 'special needs children' in the regular classroom. That this has the propensity to increase dependency and contain or segregate children within the mainstream has been well documented (Biklen, 1985 and 1992; Biklen, Ferguson and Ford, 1989). This begs the question of precisely what kind of special training is required for successful inclusion. More precisely I am concerned that the discussion of resources diverts attention from a more important underlying set of issues. I do not argue that resources are not important; they are. As Warnock conceded (1982) all children have special educational needs. The challenge of inclusive education is to ensure proper learning support as a right for all children. What I do argue is that the issue of resources has not been sufficiently problematised. Cook, Lewis and Sword (1989) demonstrate a parallel growth in resources in both the segregated special educational sector and the regular sector following the release of the Integration Report (Collins, 1984) in Victoria in 1984. They argue that integration policy did not result in the movement of resources and children away from the segregated sector into the mainstream, but resulted in a redefinition of clients for the segregated sector and in the labelling of children as disabled who were already in regular schools. Careful auditing of resources in both integration programmes and special education may assist the redeployment of resources to where they are needed. There remains the question of whether the present arrangement of education resources is effective for all children. Further investigation is needed in this area before we say we cannot pursue inclusion because the resources do not exist. Next comes a more philosophical problematic that rarely makes the agenda for discussion. Many teachers and some parents raised the issue of 'the other twenty-nine students'. To whom are we referring as 'other'? Who is the other student? This is far more complex than is suggested. The argument runs that if we include a 'disabled student' whose needs will demand additional attention and time from the teacher, where is the justice for the twenty-nine other students? Implicitly there is no otherness about these twenty-nine students; the disabled student has the status of other, outsider or interloper (Higgins, 1992). We need to be forthright about this in order to deal with it logically and politically (Oliver, 1990). I will not ask the question about the student who

38

demands more than their !/29 of teacher attention who is not considered disabled. One does not need to be a student of Rawls (1972) to perceive that equity is not advanced by the equal treatment of unequals. Nor will I ask whether the assumption of the sameness of the twenty-nine denies the problem that the present arrangement of classes presents for the education of all students. A reality for classrooms is student difference and the different treatment of individual students by teachers is commonplace and unquestioned. What I will raise is the issue of why we are permitted to place the disabled student at the end of the queue with little sense of shame. There was a time when the exclusion of girls, non-English-speaking students and Aboriginal students was defended as a resource issue. No longer are we permitted to do this. This has been achieved through a legislative framework which prohibits discrimination supported by strategic educational and affirmative action programmes. The recently enacted Disability Discrimination Act (1992) provides ample latitude for schools in a clause which stipulates that where inclusion would result in 'unjustifiable hardship' for the school then the student may be excluded on the grounds of disability. Such caveats maintain a culture of exclusion. In Victoria integration policy was changed so that while all students were to be enrolled in the local school, admission of disabled students could be delayed until the resources for their programme were in place. We have much to learn from the literature and politics of gender and education. Changing policy for gender-inclusive schooling has been quite systematic in first confronting the community with the reality and impacts of patriarchy and then arguing for change across a range of fronts including pedagogy, curriculum and school organisation to encourage gender inclusive culture and practices (Arnot and Weiner, 1987; Connell, 1987; Kenway, 1990; Kenway and Willis, 1991; Spender, 1982). There remains the tension of paternalism within my argument thus far. I have presumed to speak for a particular group, arguing that their best interest is served in the educational mainstream. This also needs to be problematised and reconsidered (Barton, 1994; Ware, Chapter 10). I have lingered over this discussion as it is one that remains largely unacknowledged by schools when approaching disability and inclusive schooling. There is a link to be made with our earlier discussion of 'expert' knowledge and professional interest in special education. Schools are given licence to excuse themselves from this discussion believing special educators and psychologists who tell them that they

39

are neither properly qualified nor equipped to deal with the growing number of dysfunctional children. As a product of the interactions between individuals and the educational organisation, it is also useful to ask whether the pathologies of schools may contribute to differential student outcomes (Ainscow, 1991; Reynolds and Ramasut, 1993). This was apparent in one of the four schools where its organisation of classrooms around co-operative learning and teaching principles and practices seemed to limit failure, and value and respond to differences. Exploring the pathologies of schools is a liberating line of research as it suggests an expanded range of interventions to improve teacher and student performances (Slee, 1993b). The four schools raised other issues relating to communication and organisational dynamics, along with specific teaching and learning initiatives. Teachers and parents acknowledged the value in listening to each other and developing networks to sustain their advances in inclusive schooling (Ware, Chapter 10). The degree to which schools confronted issues raised in this discussion varied and will be encouraged by the project organisers. Resources as cultural determinants The North Coast Region of the New South Wales Department of School Education recently established a Special Education Advisory Panel. The panel was formed to provide independent advice on policy and practice in that region pursuant to the provision of special educational services. The manager of special services in that region, Greg O'Connor, was determined that the panel should not be a representative forum of all of the interest groups. Rather he invited a small number of people with diverse skills and knowledge in the area of 'special services' to review programmes and policy and recommend areas for improvement. So far the panel has held consultations throughout the region with parents, teachers, school support personnel and administrators in order to identify the critical issues and develop its recommendations. This work continues. At an early meeting the panel also decided to sponsor a research project which investigates present resourcing arrangements and evaluates the impacts of the processes for decision-making, allocation patterns and the consequent programmes. The panel believes that the way in which education authorities manage resources is an important variable in the generation of school cultures, particularly in relation to patterns of student inclusion or exclusion. The categorisation of students for resource delivery, as

40

opposed to the development of programmes which require resourcing, is apposite. While the former approach proliferates the number of children perceived as having special needs, the latter may have the capacity to broaden school profiles to include all comers. These are the central concerns of the research. The study has been confined to a major city within the region. The researchers are gathering a range of quantitative data from the regional office and the local educational resource unit prior to conducting extended interviews of 'key players' in resource allocation forums. Future research will include observations of resourcing meetings which will be conducted along with case studies which follow people as they make application for their children to be included in regular schools. The resultant data will be augmented by observations of a representative sample of schools to trace the implementation of integration policy at the local level. Particular focus will be applied to the way in which resource decisions influence school organisation, curriculum decisions and the range of pedagogies applied in classrooms. Preliminary findings indicate an expanding call on resources in the area of behaviour disorders. Indeed the New South Wales Department of School Education has been the first education department in Australia to produce guidelines for teachers, parents and support personnel to respond to an epidemic of Attention Deficit Disorder (New South Wales Department of School Education, 1993). Teachers and school administrators in the Queensland project also raised their concern about integration if the students' behaviour was difficult to manage. This is consistent with findings in Victoria where the categories of 'socially emotionally disturbed' students and 'students with problems in schooling' were used to attract integration funding for the management of 'disruptive students' (Slee, 1991). Organisational implications for meeting special educational needs This chapter may seem unsatisfactory for those looking for shortterm 'quick-fixes' to the meeting special educational needs in the regular classroom conundrum. Stephen Ball called on Nisbet in responding to those looking for immediate resolution of complex educational and social problems: Good research does not necessarily solve a problem, but could reformulate a question, bringing out the key issues, and pointing to a new direction for solution. Short term research which fits present assumptions can be an obstacle to change. (Nisbet in Ball, 1990b, p. 4)

41

This chapter has argued that we need to reconsider our notion of special needs (Barton, 1987) within the changing context of schooling. The leadership for such a critical reconsideration will not be adequately provided by the traditional forums for special education in Australia. Special education practitioners and academics in Australia tend towards the refinement of old assumptions to fit new political contingencies. Schools and students deserve more. The pursuit of inclusive schooling to meet the needs of all students requires school communities to affirm their commitment to all students or make clear their grounds for the exclusion of some students. This open discussion in a democratic school forum will need to interrogate the 'resources debate' to ensure that it is not a deflection from a society's inability to address the challenge of difference. This challenge is made all the more difficult by the absence of inclusion and the generation and exaggeration of myths about the academic and social implications of difference. Progress towards meeting the needs of all students in the regular classroom is also made when we expand the calculus of inclusion to compound factors such as pedagogy, curriculum and school organisation. Greater levels of resources equal special needs education is a doubtful computation. That students' academic and social performances change in different schools speaks of a need for greater flexibility in the organisation of schooling. Skrtic's (199la) call for adhocratic approaches to educational provision is instructive. We return to our point of embarkation. The analysis of local level initiatives and approaches to organisational problem-solving provides a good place to conduct our research into developing more effective responses to difference in the classroom. The immediate outcome is that recommendations are grounded in the real-life struggles of teachers, parents and students and hence hold credibility in the community. This is not to pre-empt a flight to the packaging and retailing of pedagogical recipes from 'exemplary' classrooms to be transplanted across the country. The purpose of such research is the generation of questions concerning the procedures employed by schools to identify and respond to the challenges of meeting the special educational needs of all students. A supplementary list of questions must then be constructed to determine how education departments can support all schools in responding creatively to these challenges. Students, teachers and school communities may then eclipse systemic and professional imperatives.

Chapter 4

Integration Policies, School Reforms and the Organisation of Schooling for Handicapped Pupils in Western Societies Lise Vislie

Introduction During the past thirty years Western societies have become increasingly concerned to ensure the rights to education of all children, irrespective of the severity of any disadvantage or disability. Although the integration of pupils with disabilities into the regular school system and the same educational setting as 'ordinary' pupils has become accepted as a social imperative, and most Western European governments in their statements have subscribed to the integration principle, the issue of integration and its implications for education continues to be controversial. This paper therefore will examine the issue of integration across Western societies with a view to identifying main themes and tensions. The analysis draws heavily on Scandinavian experiences, as well as upon information obtained over a period of time from international projects related to the issue. The paper is structured in three parts. The first attempts to grasp the spirit of the 1960s, when 'integration' first appeared on the public agenda in most Western societies. The concept, in terms of main ideas and ways of thinking (i.e. as a 'belief system'), is briefly outlined against a broader context of social change. The second part focusses on integration policies and school reforms and presents a differentiated picture of the status of integration policy reforms in the area by the end of the 1970s/early 1980s. A distinction is made between different reform stages reached by that time, then in terms of main reform strategies chosen in the OECD region. Roughly two different strategy positions are distinguished and briefly described: 'the special education'

43

versus 'the comprehensive school' reform strategies. Finally, the organisational aspects of integration reforms are focussed on the basis of statistical figures (from the end of the 1980s to the early 1990s) concerning students with special needs in a number of countries. A western society perspective on integration In Western societies integration has been on the policy agenda for a long time. Its first appearance can be traced back to the 1960s. It is not possible to understand the meaning and implications of the new policy other than in the context of a broader historical background. The historical context The policy was rooted in a period characterised by substantive changes in economy, society and culture. The growth in the economic sector was relatively steady and rapid throughout the Western region in the decades following World War II. Unemployment, which had hit people so hard in the pre-war period, was almost non-existent. New types of industrialisation (automation) were introduced; the capacity of the production system increased and so also did consumption. Ordinary households could afford an automobile (a 'Volkswagen') and other new technology products that changed their daily lives. Working hours were reduced, and education became accessible to more people as the compulsory school system was reorganised and expanded, enrolments in secondary and higher education increased, and the scope of education was generally broadened to include adult and vocational education. Society became more open and social relations less formal, with secondary relationships becoming more important than before. Increased consumer demands for cultural goods based on rising education and the new media industry made way also for a less hierarchical and more differentiated cultural system, making cultural resources a form of cultural capital at the disposal of society at large. In brief, the general experience was that people's lives had become easier, and their life chances had greatly improved. They began to believe in progress, and a correspondingly optimistic and positive ideology swept over the political arena. Recognising what had been achieved over a relatively short span of time, it became possible to have more ambitious aims for societal developments in the future. In spite of the mitigation of class conflict and the overall consensual equilibrium that prevailed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the optimistic and positive ideology was also mixed with more critical looks at the 'successful' process of modernisation that had taken place. Depending on

44

the sociological tradition within which they formulated their explanations, the critics focussed on the 'dysfunctional' traits, 'perverse effects' or the basic 'contradictions' embedded in the economic and political system in operation. The total effect of the positions described was a general radicalisation of public opinion, which in most countries led to an increased emphasis on democracy and power issues and a growing recognition of the inequalities and discriminatory practices still prevailing in Western societies. Widespread demands for societal change, for more equality, for improved legal and civil rights, were formulated. A new commitment to public policies over a broad range of sectors was also noticed, for example, the 'welfare state' increased and reached its peak in most societies in these years. A particular concern about the poor and the disadvantaged is seen as characteristic of the 1960s. Special claims for the recognition of the needs and rights of handicapped people were also put forward at that time, which in turn led to the formulation of a public policy for the handicapped in many societies. The formulated objective of the new policy was integration, which covered all areas of concern to the handicapped, not only education. 'Integration' - a belief system Obviously a complexity of new attitudes, values and ways of thinking were being pieced together into the new concept when 'integration' came on the socio-political agenda some thirty years ago. In the following paragraphs I shall draw out a few of these elements . First the meaning of integration should be understood from a historical perspective. As far as our relations to 'deviance' and 'disability' and the various so-called 'handicapped' populations are concerned, history tells us that over time our societies have reacted to them first by liquidation, later by isolation. With the establishment of modern institutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries came segregation. In the 1950s and 1960s people became aware of a continuous history of segregation in their own societies. In view of the prevailing Western norms and standards of civilisation, the acknowledgement was provoking and had strong value implications. A sudden, programmatic shift in terminology was observed: although segregation was the experience and the problem, integration became the issue. The shift to the rhetoric of integration reflected a wish to move away from traditional practice towards a search for a new social practice as an alternative to segregation.

45

A deeper understanding of the nature of deviance and disability and the social dimensions of handicap, particularly the role played by society and its institutions in this process, was a significant component in the new conception. As a consequence 'handicap', and the sense and value of the different categories of handicap, were questioned. The knowledge basis of the diagnostic and instructional practices linked to the segregating institutions was likewise questioned (Skrtic, 199la). With the subsequent alteration in perspective came a shift of paradigm: from an understanding of disability grounded only in the natural sciences to one grounded also in the social sciences. This critique of institutions also extended to the professionals involved in serving people with disabilities. The medical professions became the object of suspicion because of the strong role they had played in all services for the handicapped. The professionals charged with caring for people with disabilities seemed not to be aware of, or even to misunderstand, their own power and the interests they served. To summarise, integration as a belief system was the result of a merging of values and priorities characteristic of the ideology of the period, and became elaborated into a set of concerns about the handicapped: their situation in society as well as the problematic relationship between society and deviance and disadvantage in general. Belief systems are typically complex aggregates of rational, traditional and ideological elements. At the same time as they are basically considered as the result of 'lived experience' and thus generally bounded in terms of space and time, theories have always 'travelled', and do so even more now, with the increased internationalisation of national activities at all levels. Belief systems are here considered as structures which set the stage for things to happen. They may represent possibilities for action and change, but also for non-action, i.e. belief systems are possible causes. The integration belief system was nowhere a dominating way of thinking and concern in Western societies, but it was strong enough to have an impact on agenda-setting in all countries at the time we are considering. Before proceeding to the political level, we must recognise that demands for change have to pass a number of barriers before political decisions can be made. The first barrier is agendasetting - here regarded as a formally non-political barrier, dependent to a greater or lesser extent on current belief systems. Understanding integration as a political reform issue has to go beyond this stage, reflecting the enduring differences among the ideologies of Western societies which have their origins in a variety of historical arrangements and compromises, including the history of the education system,

46

the social policy system and the welfare state development. In the following section on policy reforms, only more enduring variations within the educational sector, i.e. in 'choice' of school model, will be considered. Integration policies and school reforms When OECD/CERI embarked in 1978 on the project, 'The Education of the Handicapped Adolescent', it was noticed that integration had 'undoubtedly' emerged as the dominant policy issue relating to the organisation of schooling for handicapped children in most of the member countries (OECD, 1981, p. 5). However, the fact that national governments in their statements had subscribed to the integration principle did not necessarily mean that it had the same meaning and implication internationally. This becomes evident when we look at the approaches adopted by different countries. First, however, a brief note on the concept of educational reform. School reforms Many authors make a distinction between reforms and the continuous and more limited adjustments to surroundings, tasks and new knowledge that always take place in organisations. From this perspective the role of reforms as state interventions is usually emphasised. The literature also emphasises the close connection between ideologies and reforms. For example, Weiler considers educational reforms to refer to policies designed to change the social product of the educational process along the lines of ideological and political priorities of certain groups in society (1985, p. 169). Furthermore, reforms are considered to involve a comprehensive political plan, which (1) is intended to influence the whole or parts of the educational system in a more basic manner and (2) is constructed to reflect and reveal relatively clear ideas that have political priority about the society of the future and the role of education. Reform as a process is divided by Cerych and Sabatier (1986) into three stages. The first stage is a period of policy formulation: weaknesses in the existing system are admitted, followed by investigations or experiments and reports, and concluded with a formal political decision to implement a new programme or to establish a new institution. The second stage is concerned with the implementation of the decision. The final stage is to establish the implementation, which may involve considering redefinitions and possibly innovation.

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From this background a more differentiated picture of the status of integration policy reforms in the Western societies by the end of the 1970s emerges. Most of the OECD member countries had by that time signalled their commitment to integration as a policy objective, and thus had entered the first stage of a reform process where they were beginning investigations and/or undertaking some field experiments (as were, for example, Portugal and Spain), or were well into the process of preparing formal decisions concerning the introduction of comprehensive reforms in the field (as was, for example, the UK). Some countries (for example, Italy, Norway and the USA) had enacted new legislation during the 1970s and could be seen as examples of countries which had reached the second stage of implementation. Reform strategies A closer look at the different approaches to reform and implementation taken by Western societies reveal, however, the existence of more fundamental dissimilarities between them. In general terms two different positions can be distinguished in terms of their primary focus. Main focus being put on special education Here integration is primarily seen as a reform in special education. The major concerns within this approach are related to the expansion of special education, as well as to reforms in the organisation and delivery of such provisions. From this perspective integration has been elaborated and presented as 'different forms or levels of integration' on the basis of a scale ranging from the special schools at one extreme, through special classes/units in ordinary schools, to ordinary classrooms at the other extreme. As a model for organising special education, it may be considered clear and useful, while presented as a model of integration it has been considered as confusing and generally rejected as an inappropriate conceptualisation of how to carry out a policy of integration (Hegarty and Pocklington, 1981, p. 15; see also Daunt, 1992). Main focus on the general education system Here the major concerns are related to the reformation of ordinary education, to make it more 'comprehensive'. Basically, integration policies should, in this model, undertake a critical examination of and a systematic attack on the segregating practice of the general education system. A process in this direction may take different forms, but it must

48

be based on a search for diversity. The very notion of normality is challenged by this position, as well as the other traditional ideas of 'ordinary education', like standard programmes and forms of instruction, and the traditional way of attributing school failure to 'defective' students (Skrtic, 1991b). Visions about creating a unitary educational system based on such ideas have for a long time been linked with school reforms, for example, in the Scandinavian countries, in accordance with their comprehensive school tradition. National policies in this field have, however, generally been moulded under the influence of both positions. Thus no country may serve as a clear-cut example of any of the positions described. The OECD noted in a review of compulsory education undertaken in the beginning of 1980s, that there had been, and still was, a trend towards 'common' and 'comprehensive' schools in the region under consideration, but also that the so-called 'common' schools could vary enormously in the way they distributed pupils in groups and classes and how they applied the curriculum (OECD, 1983a, p. 23). The same report also had a section on the education of children with handicaps where the new trend in many countries to educate them within ordinary schools was observed. In the conclusion it was said that integration of children with handicaps in ordinary schools was greatly influenced by the way such schools were organised and that integration seemed to have progressed furthest in those countries with common comprehensive schools (p. 79). The conclusion to be drawn from this is that among Western societies there are some crucial similarities, as well as some interesting variations. As far as the latter are concerned, we have distinguished two sets of different positions to 'integration' policy reforms. Supported, inter alia, by the observations made by the OECD reviewers concerning more general trends in the field in the same period, the two positions may be seen as systematically linked to more enduring trends in Western school policies, for example, the extent to which compulsory education has been structured according to the common comprehensive school model in a particular country. Comprehensive school policies have had an impact on all Western societies, but the model has different status, meaning and implications in different countries. The British and the German versions are, for example, fundamentally different from the Scandinavian versions, which again are different from the American version. Among the Scandinavian countries 'the common school for all' and 'comprehensive school' tradition is the longest - probably the strongest in Norway. Against this background we will in the following section look at the

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organisation of special education in a number of Western societies which represent different integration policy strategies as well as different school traditions. The organisation of special education in Western societies A brief note on statistical figures Due to the way in which special education and ordinary education are intermingled in many national education systems - as a result of 'integration' - exact figures on the total number of pupils receiving special education are difficult to obtain. Many systems operate with two groups of pupils: • those who are identified and recorded as pupils with special educational needs Such registration, which is carried out according to some kind of formal (legislative) procedure, usually releases extra resources and therefore also involves financial regulations of various kinds. Data on the number of recorded pupils are usually available in all systems, but do not appear regularly in national or international educational statistical documentation systems. More specific data concerning the organisation of the education provided for this group of pupils may be even more difficult to obtain, and, if available, the reliability of the figures may be questioned. • those who receive special education or extra support in their local schools without being formally recorded as special educational needs pupils Many systems have - within certain limits - means (including some local school funds) of providing support on this basis, and may offer estimates concerning the percentage of the pupil population that receive support on these conditions. For the purpose of comparing organisational arrangements of special educational provisions across national contexts (see below), only data concerning the recorded pupils will be considered here. Organisation of education for pupils with special needs a Western society perspective The data to be presented and discussed here have been taken from Fiji and Meijer (1991). In addition to the Fiji and Meijer data on eight Western societies, data on Norway are also included. Table 4.1 is constructed on the basis of the Fiji and Meijer figures,

50 Table 4.1 Summary of figures concerning students with special needs in nine countries Percentage of total school population (a)

Recorded/ statemented pupils Italy Denmark Sweden US

West Germany England Belgium Holland Norway

1.7

13.3

3.0 8.8 4.2 1.8 3.6 4.1 6.0

Ordinary class provision

Special unit/class

Special school

(d)

(c) + (d) Hard to integrate

0.2

1.3 0.5 1.3 2.3 0 0.1 0 0 0.3

0.2 1.9 0.7 1.5 4.2 1.4 3.5 3.9 0.7

1.5 2.4 2.0 3.8 4.2 1.5 3.5 3.9 1.0

(b)

10.9

1.0 5.0 0 0.3 0.1 0.2 5.0

(c)

Sources: Pijl and Meijer, 1991, p. 108; Helgoland, 1992.

with figures for Norway added. As the discussion here is not strictly in accordance with the Pijl and Meijer terminology, the headings of the columns have been changed to avoid confusion. As shown in Table 4.1 the number of recorded pupils varies from more than 13% of the total school population (Denmark) to less than 2% (Italy and England). The following columns (b, c and d) show the range of alternative organisational arrangements in operation, and the relative importance of different alternatives in different national settings. Provision in special schools exists as an alternative in all nine countries, but is more frequently used by some countries than by others. It is, however, the only alternative in operation for recorded pupils in West Germany according to the figures here obtained. Special class organisation seems to be more important in the USA than in the other countries, but is not used in West Germany, Belgium and Holland. The 'hard to integrate' (c+d) category, established on the basis of pupils outside ordinary classrooms, is interesting. According to the data in Table 4.1 these percentages vary from 4.2 % of the total pupil population in West Germany to 1.0% in Norway. Pijl and Meijer in their discussion draw the conclusion that the eight countries they have studied fall into three main categories according to the respective models used in dealing with special needs pupils: (1) the two-track countries, which 'clearly segregate a group of special needs children' (p. 109): Belgium, West Germany and the Netherlands; (2) the one-track countries, which 'lay much emphasis on one-track; regular education' (loc. cit.): Italy and Sweden; and (3) the countries

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that offer 'a flexible system of education to special needs pupils', with 'a continuum of services' and where high registration 'means financial support either in separate or integrated settings' (loc. cit.): Denmark and US, with England representing a mixture of a one-track and twotrack systems. With the moderate percentage of recorded pupils and the lowest 'hard to integrate' percentage of all the countries included in this survey, Norway will probably fall into the second group according to the Fiji and Meijer criteria. Even a one-track system may, however, be a flexible system in itself, and therefore less in need of transforming extra financial resources into 'special' organisational forms. Instead it may be able to provide programmes for pupils with special needs with flexibility. Fiji and Meijer seem to miss this point in their discussion, which is easy, of course, if national differences in overall policy approach to 'integration' are not taken into consideration. From a policy point of view the following observation seems particularly interesting. If we look at what is the dominant form of organisation of special education provisions in different countries, two groups may be distinguished: (1) 'education in ordinary classes' in Denmark, Sweden, USA, and Norway (and Italy: 'education in special units linked to ordinary schools'); and (2) 'education in special schools' in West Germany, England, Belgium and Holland. This distinction makes sense in terms of what we generally know about basic splits within Western societies concerning school policies, and the different approaches to reform and implementation in relation to 'integration' among Western societies, as characterised above: the 'comprehensive' and the 'special education' integration policy strategies. On the basis of the figures above, a tentative conclusion may be that some change has occurred in the first group of countries - the direction of change being in accordance with the integration/comprehensive school philosophy, while there is little or no change registered in the other group, i.e. a possible increase in special education has not had any significant impact on the organisation of special education provisions in these countries. Epilogue As emphasised in the introductory part of this chapter, equality was a main theme on the public agenda in Western societies in the 1960s, when policies for the integration of handicapped people were first formulated. The 1960s was the period when these societies had recovered

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from World War II, a time characterised by economic booms, more openness in social relations and a general optimism concerning the future. The particular societal concern for the disabled and the disadvantaged which was a vital part of the spirit of the time, led to reforms and innovations in the social as well as the educational sectors in most of the Western societies. High policy goals were set in the 1960s - we have seen that some institutional reform effects were attained and can be observed from national school data obtained twenty to thirty years later. The important question now is not whether 'integration' is significant or not, but whether it is to be retained as a societal concern and policy goal in the future. In the 1980s most of the Western societies were hit by a period of economic depression. With the recession, 'efficiency', 'effectiveness' and 'excellence' became the new themes on the political agenda. Faced with this new situation the future of integration policies, special education and school reforms may be questioned. The general impact of the economic crisis on special education and the integration process in education is difficult to trace. The reports presented so far are relatively few, and their messages are not consistent across countries. It is obvious that the welfare state has suffered a number of attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, but so far clear evidence of disproportionate cutbacks in special education budgets is lacking. According to Davis (1990, p. 2) economic recession has in England led to cutbacks which disproportionately have taken their toll on already disadvantaged groups, while funds are concentrated on the 'able' and 'gifted'. On the other hand Singer and Butler (1987) report that in a time of declining resources for education, the American Public Law 94-142 (Education for All Handicapped Children Act 1975) has survived a number of threats to dismantle it, and that the special education budgets have grown at a time when tax revenues have declined and costs of general education have risen. The impact of the new situation on policy strategies is a particularly interesting question to raise in this connection. Again it is difficult to sort things out. On the one hand the ordinary school setting may have become increasingly attractive in view of the additional costs incurred by segregated provisions. On the other hand, according to general experience the tendency in times of economic crisis is to cut back in 'normal' budgets and to increase 'special' budgets that can function as a 'safety valve' for relieving the stresses and pressures that arise in various parts of the system. Apart from examples which directly link change to economic costs, the trend towards change in overall policy strategy by the end of the

53

1980s can also be exemplified as going in different directions: towards regular education and a more unified school system in the States; in England towards a more segregated provision. The point to be emphasised here is that the insight we have in the relations between economy and different ideologies or belief systems, like 'efficiency' or 'equity', on the one side, and educational reform processes, on the other side, is generally defective: too little is known, and what we think we know may even be wrong. For more informed discussions on the fundamental issues and the vital concerns in the special education field, such insights are needed. Special education would profit from such research, particularly if more attention could be given to historical and comparative studies.

Chapter 5

The Resources for Regular Schools "with Special Needs Students: An International Perspective Sip Jan Fiji

Introduction For many years special schools have been the pivot of the education of students with special needs. In many countries in the Western world educators and administrators have put a great deal of effort into the development of a thorough and widely accepted system of special schools. In these schools all the available expertise has been gathered in an attempt to provide the most effective education for students with special needs. Because of the specialised instructional methods in these schools, many function as separate, independent schools. From the 1920s onwards the separate system for special education has been enlarged and refined, being seen as an expression of society's 'care' for students with special needs. However, this view of special education has gradually changed. Knowledge, expertise and facilities are still of importance in the education of students with special needs, but the segregation of these students is now perceived to be unacceptable. Increasingly, the position is taken that these students should be educated together with their peers in regular education settings. The consequence is that regular and special education have to be integrated into one system that caters for a wide range of students and their special needs. In many countries the effort to achieve a more integrated system has resulted in the education of special needs students in regular schools and in a declining number of students placed in separate, special schools (Fiji and Meijer, 1991). In other countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, this development has been considerably slower. Comparative research into the education of special needs students in a number of countries has shown that the organisation of

55

education and the associated legislation and regulations differ between countries (Meijer, Fiji and Hegarty, 1994; Rosenqvist, 1993). These differences in organisation, legislation and regulation partially explain why teachers in, for instance, Sweden, Denmark and England, as opposed to teachers in the Netherlands, seldom refer students to separate forms of education. However, they do not show whether these teachers approach teaching differently in the classroom. It is conceivable that these teachers, compared to their colleagues in more segregated systems, work in smaller classes, use better or more teaching methods and materials, or are better trained for their job. The question arises, therefore, whether teachers working in 'integrated' systems are better or differently 'equipped' to educate students with special needs in their classroom. Research What follows is a brief report on an investigation into the resources available to teachers in five countries (Fiji and Meijer, 1994) focussing on the resources relevant to the instruction of special needs students in regular classrooms. A description of these resources and the possible differences between countries might yield information that is relevant for further policy decisions in this field. The selection of countries is based on the extensive descriptions of national education systems in Abbring, Meijer and Rispens (1989a, 1989b) (see for the English version: Meijer, Fiji and Hegarty, 1994). The selection comprises one country with a highly segregated system (the Netherlands) and four countries with more integrated systems (England, Sweden, Denmark and the US). These four countries have been selected because it was relatively easy to obtain information from existing research and education statistics. The data for this research project stems from two sources: the literature about the availability and use of resources, and the interviews with experts from Denmark, Sweden and England. Resources for teachers The way in which teachers act in the classroom is dependent upon the resources available to them. The different types of resources available to teachers can be deduced from the micro-economics of teaching (Brown and Saks, 1980; Gerber and Semmel, 1985). In these microeconomic theories three groups of resources can be distinguished: time, skills and materials. In these theories the term 'resources' does not refer only to the teaching methods and teaching materials, but also to

56

the instructional time available and to the knowledge teachers have acquired through training and experience. All these resources can be used for education. In addition to the three groups of resources mentioned here, we were interested in the attitude of teachers towards the instruction of special needs students in their class. It is of course possible that although they are fully equipped they still regard the instruction of special needs students as the prime responsibility of a special teacher in a special class or school. Therefore, the motivation of teachers can be seen as an important condition for the integration of students with special needs into regular education. In a way it can be regarded as the fourth resource. The instruction of special needs students in the regular classroom may well deviate from the 'normal' programme. Teachers are confronted with the necessity of responding to the particular instructional needs of these students. Special needs students may require more instruction time, other learning methods or specialised professional knowledge. In that case teachers will feel the need to expand their resources: more time, more materials and more knowledge (see also Bailey, Chapter 2). The problem is that teachers have very limited access to additional resources. Resources are relatively scarce and fixed (Gerber and Semmel, 1985). Of course this does not hold equally for all resources. A resource such as learning materials is relatively easy to borrow and duplicate. It is, however, more expensive to purchase new methods or to create room to work in smaller groups. Increasing the available time or enhancing the professional knowledge of teachers is often very expensive. Less expensive means to create additional time (e.g. classroom assistants) and to enhance the professional knowledge in schools (e.g. consultation teams) are of limited availability. The outcome of these considerations is that, given the relatively fixed amount of resources, teachers need to redistribute the resources between the students in the classroom. Teachers can, for example, decide to encourage the above average students to work more independently, to work independently with the computer or to help each other, so that more instruction time is left for the students with special needs. One can conclude that for students with special needs teachers may well try both to enhance the overall amount of resources available and to differentiate between students with respect to the amount and type of resources available to them. The implication is, therefore, that the successful integration of students with special needs not only coincides with educational

57

organisation, legislation and regulations, but ultimately depends on the availability and differentiation of resources in the regular classroom. Findings: the training of teachers The five countries involved in this research do not differ much in the duration of their initial teacher training programmes. In each of the countries it takes about four years to obtain a recognised teaching qualification. It is apparent from the data gathered (see for a more extensive description: Fiji and Meijer, 1994), that the inclusion of knowledge about the education of students with special needs in initial training programmes is a matter of concern in those countries with integrated education systems. All programmes of initial teacher training have to respond to diverse developments in society and are already full to overflowing. Adding a special needs programme is not, therefore, easy. Teacher trainers in England, for example, claim that most of the information on special needs and differentiation is 'permeated' in the regular programme (DBS, 1989), rather than in separate courses. It is difficult to assess, however, whether this will result in a different or extended knowledge base for teachers. The in-service education of teachers presents a more diverse picture. In Sweden and in the US it is compulsory for teachers to attend in-service courses, while in Denmark all teachers are released regularly to attend such courses. In the recent past a considerable amount of in-service training was made available by the various local education authorities in England, but only a fraction of teachers attended these courses. The same holds for the courses for special needs co-ordinators (the SENIOS course): less than 1% of teachers attended this course. For teachers in the Netherlands it is not obligatory to attend any in-service course. Yet a considerable number of teachers follow short courses on various subjects, and a growing number of regular teachers have a special education certificate. It should be noted that we do not know the proportion of time devoted to special needs on in-service courses. After all, there are other developments in education and society that demand attention on such training courses. It is apparent that, compared to the Netherlands and to England, Sweden, Denmark and the US have made in-service training which focusses on special needs more accessible. By doing so, these three countries have realised a potentially important condition for an appropriate education for special needs students in ordinary schools.

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Findings: available time In the countries described, the duration of the school year (forty weeks) and the number of school hours in a week (twenty-three to twenty-five hours) is roughly the same. Yet the number of hours in which students are at school does not indicate how much attention a teacher is able to give to a student. A more important aspect of time in education is the teacher:student ratio. In Denmark and Sweden the average teacher:student ratio is about 1:10, with an average class size of eighteen in Denmark and of twenty-one in Sweden. The Dutch ratio is 1:21 with an average class size of twenty-eight. The figures for England are comparable to the Dutch figures: ratio 1:22 and class size twenty-eight. Data about the average teacher:student ratio and the class size in the USA are not available. In addition to the regular establishment, many schools have different kinds of additional personnel. The sometimes large local and regional differences in regulations in Denmark, Sweden and England hinder a reliable calculation of the additional human resources that are available. The data from a few counties in Denmark show that, in a regular school with 200 students, at least one day a week a school psychologist and 1-1.5 fte teachers are available. Also in Sweden many of schools have access to additional teacher time for special needs students (0.5 to more than 1 fte in a school with 200 students). In England 2.8% of the budget (the Aggregated Schools Budget) of 1991 was spent on the (non-statemented) students with special needs (FletcherCampbell and Hall, 1993). This percentage translates into about 0.3 fte additional teacher establishment in a school with 200 students. In the Netherlands a considerable number of special needs students (the learning disabled and the mildly mentally retarded students) are being placed in special schools. Hypothetically, if the students and the teachers of these schools were transferred to regular education, each school with 200 students would get six statemented students and 0.5 to 0.6 additional teacher establishment. It should be noted that the available teacher establishment for students with special needs in England is a source of many complaints in schools, whereas the Danish school teams seem to consider their staffing for students with special needs as adequate and sufficient. Findings: responding differences As far as the availability of teaching materials is concerned, this is not really a major issue in the countries involved here. As might be anticipated, in general teachers have enough methods and materials

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at hand, make their own materials and know where to obtain more specialised materials. How far teachers differentiate between students in the use of methods and materials is, however, largely unknown. Research into differentiation with regard to the educational offering to students seems to be mainly a matter of concern in the Netherlands. The personal impressions of the experts we questioned in Sweden, Denmark and England are that in these countries class-teaching dominates and that teachers differentiate only in respect of pace. Where a response to special needs is essential teachers in regular education rely predominantly upon the special teacher, the clinic, the intensive course and the special class. Integration, regarded in this light, does not mean that the regular teacher is responsible for the entire education of students with special needs and realises alternative educational/instructional approaches in class. It does mean that for most of their time special needs students attend regular class and receive special help in close proximity to the regular classroom. The same situation can be found in the US. There the size of schools make streaming relatively easy and those students eligible for special education are referred to the resource room or the self-contained class. Research on the integration projects utilising the REI-policy (Regular Education Initiative) shows that regular teachers treat special needs students in the same way as low achieving students (Deno, Maruyama, Espin and Cohen, 1990). It is difficult to compare the actual practice of differentiation between countries. A tentative conclusion, however, is that teachers working in 'integrated' school systems do not differentiate more between the students in their classrooms than the Dutch teachers working in a clearly segregated system. Findings: attitude Maintaining students with special needs in regular education depends crucially on the attitude and the actions of the regular teacher and the school team. Organisation, financing, regulations, teacher training and so on can all facilitate and enable integration, but, if teachers do not actively support the effort to achieve integration, the placement of students with special needs in regular settings will remain problematic. The studies of the countries discussed here show that teachers in regular education welcome in principle the idea that students with special needs should go to regular schools and grow up with other students (see also: Leyser, Kapperman and Keller, 1994; Norwich, 1994). As soon as integration is given concrete form by the placement of a

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special needs student in the regular classroom, however, teachers start to worry and to make objections. Teachers are afraid that their knowledge and skills are insufficient and that the placement will have negative effects on the other students in the classroom; they would very much like somebody else to solve this problem (see for instance: Semmel, Abernathy, Butera and Lesar, 1991; Whinnery, Fuchs and Fuchs, 1991). They look for opportunities to share the responsibility with the support teacher or to use the special class to get rid of the responsibility. There are of course obvious reasons for this: most teachers have quite a job realising an appropriate educational programme for their students (see Reynolds, Chapter 10) and are not really eager for additional tasks. From the responses of the expert informants it can be deduced that the picture given above generally holds for a large group of teachers in Sweden, the US, England and the Netherlands. The analysis of the situation in Denmark suggests that Danish teachers have fewer difficulties with and are more experienced in the education of students with special needs in their classrooms. A remarkable feature of the attitudes of teachers is that those who are experienced in the education of special needs students in regular settings seem to develop a positive, more self-confident attitude. This finding has been reported in other studies as well (Leyser, Kapperman and Keller, 1994). Discussion: integration as an aim In the two research projects conducted by us (Meijer, Fiji and Hegarty, 1994; Fiji and Meijer, 1994) we focussed on the integration of students with special needs into regular education. The term 'integration' suggests that two distinct entities are being put together. In principle this holds as well for the other terms in vogue, like 'inclusion' and 'togetherness'. In education it would mean the amalgamation of two segregated or at least distinguishable groups. That in itself raises the question why, if there were once good arguments in favour of the separation of the two groups, should it be plausible to integrate the groups again. Emanuelsson (1985) therefore prefers the term 'non-segregation' instead of integration. The term 'non-segregation' stands for the aim of avoiding the separation of peers in education by placing them in groups in distinct, segregated forms of education. In principle all students should go to the regular school in their neighbourhood where all students are offered an appropriate curriculum (Jordan and Powell, 1994). Until now this has proven to be an unattainable goal. Even in

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countries with a long tradition of non-segregation, about 1-1.5% of all students are not in regular education (Fiji and Meijer, 1991). In general this is the group with severe mental, physical and/or emotional handicaps. For the other students non-segregation is explicitly aimed for in many countries. In all honesty it has to be admitted that in a number of cases token solutions have been developed with respect to the organisation of schools. In particular the full-time special classes (for instance, the self-contained classrooms) are often difficult to distinguish from separate special schools: they have their own entrance; they have breaks at different times; they have their own teachers; their own director; and their own materials. The incidental combined sports day or school trip does not alter this segregated situation. Despite this, however, a considerable number of students with special needs are placed in regular classrooms at least part-time. In these cases non-segregation has been achieved. This does not necessarily imply that these students are fully integrated in their peer group. Many of the students with special needs are involved in so-called withdrawal programmes. These students are pulled out of the regular programme part-time and work with another teacher in another place. These students still have an exceptional position in the school. The question is whether this can be avoided. One has also to bear in mind that the low-achieving students are quickly identified within the peer group and become labelled. A label, however, does not necessarily have consequences for the student's social position in the classroom: special needs students often can get along well with their peers. In the end that is one of the main aims of the struggle for non-segregation: students with special needs should have the opportunity to grow up among their peers and not have contacts only with other special needs students. Students with special needs will always have a somewhat exceptional position in the regular school, but that in itself does not have to be a problem. What is important is that the possible separate additional help to these students does not last long, that it is given not far from the regular class, by a teacher known to all other students and - although this may seem paradoxical - that it is offered to many students. The situation in Denmark shows that the large percentage of students who at some point in their school career receive special education (over 25%) makes special education very normal and accepted. Discussion: the implementation of integration Ending segregatory practice in schools implies that schools and edu-

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cation have to change. From comparative research into the organisation of special education (Meijer, Fiji and Hegarty, 1994), it has become apparent that it is governmental legislation and regulations which largely determine the number of students in segregated settings. As a rule, in making laws and regulations governments do not run counter to public opinions and often legislation simply follows developments in society. It can be argued, therefore, that the prevailing opinions in society about the position of special education and the students attending it, are reflected, by means of laws and regulations, in the special education placement figures. That society is, as a whole, in favour of integration, however, does not necessarily imply that teachers hold similar views. After all they have to realise integration in everyday school practice under certain conditions. The comparison of the five countries given above reveals that the available teacher time differs considerably between countries and these differences seem to correlate with the attitudes of teachers. Reynolds (Chapter 9) shows that societies like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea put an enormous effort in teacher (and student) time to raise the performances of special needs students. Sufficient time to instruct students with special needs is no doubt an important factor in integration. Enough time to gain success in the education of special needs students in the regular class may well lead to a positive attitude and to a willingness to take responsibility for the education of these students. These are the first prerequisites for high quality special needs instruction. Without these, efforts to improve the training of teachers, the availability of methods and materials, the internal organisation of schools and so on will yield marginal results.

Chapter 6

Special Needs through School Improvement; School Improvement through Special Needs Mel Ainscow

Introduction Navjug municipal primary school in New Delhi, India, caters in the main for children of poor families, including many who live in slum dwellings. Over the last ten years the headteacher has developed it from a small school with nine staff to the present organisation which has twenty-seven teachers and caters for 640 pupils, of age range five to thirteen. There are usually about forty-five children in each class. The school follows the Indian national syllabus but is unusual in that it has established a policy of flexible teaching approaches. Academic standards in the school are high with many pupils going on to secondary education, some gaining scholarships. The school has also established a reputation for its work with children who experience difficulties in learning, including some with disabilities. Over the last two years or so the headteacher has led her colleagues in a programme of school-based staff development. The focus has been on finding ways of teaching that respond positively to pupil diversity. All staff have taken part in after-school workshop sessions and carried out follow-up exercises in their own classrooms. These activities have been given considerable status and significant amounts of time have been allocated in order to encourage staff involvement. On visiting the school the impact of these staff development activities is clearly evident. For example, the teachers emphasise active learning approaches in their classrooms, a feature that is rarely seen in Indian schools. Co-operative group work is much in evidence, and pupils are frequently involved in role-play and peer tutoring. Recently particular emphasis has been placed on encouraging pupil involvement in assessment. Specifically pupils have been asked to take a much more

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active role in assessing one another's progress during end-of-term examinations. This is remarkable given the rather rigid format of the examination papers. It has also led to uncertain reactions from some representatives of the local education authority. Displayed around the open courtyard of the school are large, colourful posters, rather reminiscent of Chinese wall newspapers. These illustrate the work carried out by groups of teachers and, sometimes, children as a result of staff development activities. The posters take a variety of forms. All refer to important issues that have been considered (e.g. parents as partners, active learning) and many include pieces of writing produced by teachers. Some are accounts of classroom activities carried out and descriptions of work with particular pupils. Talking with teachers one is struck by the impact of the many staff development experiences they have shared. Enthusiasm is evident for the ideas they have explored, and they talk with obvious delight of the reforms they have made in their own classroom practice. There is particular enthusiasm for the idea of collaboration. Teachers explain how they have learned to work in teams. These teams plan together and help one another in problem-solving. Staff recall that at the outset they found collaboration difficult and that they needed strong leadership. Now this is not necessary and, as one teacher notes, 4at the end we were all leaders'. Use has been made of the idea of partnership teaching (i.e. two teachers working in one classroom) in order that colleagues can assist one another in developing aspects of their practice. To make this happen organisational sacrifices have to be made. So, for example, the headteacher will herself provide cover by taking over classes in order to release teachers. Sometimes two classes are taught together so that pairs of teachers can collaborate. Staff also make similar arrangements in order to release one another to attend courses and workshops. The impact of all of these developments on pupil outcomes are clearly evident. In addition to high academic standards there is a warm and relaxed social atmosphere. In particular, strong emphasis is placed on nurturing and celebrating individuality. With this in mind attempts are made to provide a broad curriculum within which different forms of achievement can be recognised. Within this diverse environment some children with significant disabilities are fully included. Special needs through school improvement Navjug is one of a number of schools that I have developed links with in recent years that are attempting to find ways of helping all chil-

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dren in their communities to learn successfully. My involvement with these schools has arisen from three on-going projects. Briefly these are: • Special Needs in the Classroom. This UNESCO project involves an international resource team in developing and disseminating a resource pack of teacher education materials (Ainscow, 1994). The pack has been used in more than forty countries, including projects concerned with pre-service and in-service teacher education and as part of school development initiatives. • Developing Successful Learning. This project involves the use of teacher partnerships that are established in order to review and develop aspects of classroom practice. Whilst the approach was developed as a result of work in two large secondary schools, it has subsequently been used in some thirty schools in South-east England, with the support of tutors from the University of Cambridge Institute of Education (Ainscow, 1993a) • Improving the Quality of Education for All. This is a school improvement project involving some thirty-six schools in Southeast England and Yorkshire, also working with a team from Cambridge. The overall aim is to refine and evaluate a model of development and a programme of support that strengthens a school's ability to provide quality schooling for all its students (Ainscow and Hopkins, 1994; Hopkins et al., in press). All of these projects involve an action research approach in which teachers, supported by colleagues from higher education, explore innovatory ways of responding to students in their classes. As an approach to enquiry this presents a range of problems, particularly for those who aspire to generalisations. More positively, it is a way of working that requires the academic researcher to engage with the problematic nature of school and classroom life; to become much more sensitive to the varied perspectives of those involved; and to collaborate with practitioners in attempting to improve existing arrangements. In these ways the researcher takes on the role, referred to by Clark and her colleagues in Chapter 7, of 'enabling actors in social situations'. For the purposes of this paper, studies using this collaborative approach to action research allow me, with the help of my colleagues, to evaluate the potential of certain types of intervention, as teachers attempt to find more positive ways of responding to special needs. In particular they allow us to monitor the impact of such initiatives over time. Represented in the three projects are primary, secondary and special schools in both the developed and developing worlds. Within this larger

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sample I intend to focus on a smaller group of schools which, like Navjug, have made significant progress towards forms of schooling that are inclusive (i.e. 4 a school for all'). The purpose of the paper is, therefore, to explore two interconnected issues. These are: • What organisational arrangements support teachers in mainstream schools in developing forms of teaching that enable all pupils to participate and experience success in learning? • What are the links between arrangements that support such developments and more general school improvement initiatives? My analysis uses a structural frame of reference, focussing on the underlying architecture of schools, such as the social structures or patterns of social relationships (Hargreaves, in press; Skrtic, 1991a). Later in the chapter I move to a cultural frame of reference in order to speculate about how developments of this kind may impact upon teachers' perceptions of their tasks and, indeed, the ways in which they perceive pupils whose progress is causing concern. From a structural analysis of the experience of certain schools in these three projects, as they have made significant progress towards more inclusive policies, my colleagues and I note the importance of six conditions (Ainscow, Hopkins, Southworth and West, 1994). These are organisational arrangements that seem to assist staff in such schools as they attempt to move towards such policies. Broadly stated the six conditions are: • effective leadership, not only by the headteacher but spread throughout the school • involvement of staff, students and community in school policies and decisions • a commitment to collaborative planning • effective co-ordination strategies • attention to the potential benefits of enquiry and reflection • a policy for staff development. In what follows I analyse each of these six conditions, using ideas from existing literature, in order to make sense of our experience in project schools. This analysis suggests that the task of responding to special needs may be best achieved by seeing it as a process of overall school improvement.

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Leadership There is considerable evidence that leadership is a key element in any initiative concerned with changes in school policy (e.g. Fullan, 1991). Recently studies of leadership have begun to address how leadership can be made available throughout a management structure and at all levels within a school community (e.g. Ainscow and Southworth, 1994). This new emphasis has been accompanied by shifts in thinking about leadership itself, with increasing calls for 'transformational' approaches which distribute and empower, rather than 'transactional' approaches which sustain traditional (and broadly bureaucratic) concepts of hierarchy and control (Beare, Caldwell and Milliken, 1989; Murphy, 1991; Sergiovanni, 1992). Within those project schools that have been observed to make progress towards more inclusive policies we note a number of key aspects of the leadership role. The first underlines the responsibility of school leaders in seeking to establish a clear vision, or set of purposes, that encourages a recognition that individuality is something to be respected and, indeed, encouraged. Furthermore the methods by which this vision is developed seem to be as important as the vision itself in generating commitment amongst staff. The second aspect relates to the way the individual knowledge, skills and experiences of staff are harnessed, and the extent to which a school is able to transcend traditional notions of hierarchy or role in bringing together the 'best team for the job'. In other words, leadership which arises from relevant knowledge and experience seems to be more successful than leadership stemming from authority. A third important aspect is the way leadership is used in group or team meetings to create a problem-solving climate. Leader behaviour is obviously an important determinant of group effectiveness. It also has to be recognised, however, that a strong commitment to the quality of relationships within the group can sometimes lead to over-cohesiveness (i.e. 'groupthink'), with a corresponding decline in the quality of critical thinking that individuals bring to the group (Janis, 1982). Fourth, it does seem to be important that leadership functions should be spread throughout the staff group. This means accepting that leadership is a function to which many staff contribute, rather than a set of responsibilities vested in a small number of individuals. Involvement In much of the recent literature about inclusive schools there is an emphasis on the importance of establishing a sense of participation and

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influence that extends beyond the teaching staff (e.g. Ainscow and Muncey, 1989; Thousand and Villa, 1991). This involves the pupils, parents and, indeed, other members of the community. It does seem that some schools are able to create positive relationships with their wider communities that help to create a climate that is supportive of the learning of all pupils. It is interesting to note that this notion of involvement is also identified by researchers interested in overall school effectiveness (e.g. Reynolds, 199la, and Chapter 9, this volume; Stoll, 1991), pointing us towards the possibility that the conditions that might encourage equity in schools are largely those that will foster excellence (Skrtic, 199la). Though it may be difficult for a particular school to establish wholecommunity links in the short term, it does seem important to develop strategies for the active involvement of two key groups, pupils and parents. The starting point for such involvement seems to be the adoption of clear policies which encourage participation by the various stake-holder groups. There also need to be procedures for bringing about such participation; in other words, the onus should not be left to the groups themselves. Rather, methods for gaining access to the school's deliberations need to be published and supported by appropriate attitudes from members of staff. Beyond these general policies it is also important that teachers plan their lessons and organise their classrooms in ways that encourage involvement in the tasks and activities that are set. Whilst a variety of approaches should be encouraged in order to respond to pupils as individuals, a case can be made for some degree of emphasis on structured group work. In effect group work is a way of presenting tasks in a form that encourages participation. Despite the rhetoric of education in Britain, with its emphasis on group problem-solving within the curriculum, it is not uncommon to see pupils working alone for large parts of the school day. Often they are seated in groups, but it is still quite rare to see them carrying out their tasks collaboratively. Ironically, the emphasis on individual work is a particularly strong emphasis in the special needs field, despite the mounting evidence of the impact of collaboration in supporting the learning of pupils with disabilities (e.g. Johnson, Johnson and Holubec, 1986; Thousand and Villa, 1991). It is difficult to know why this is so, although one possible explanation is that many teachers have not received training in ways of organising group work in the classroom. I have also argued elsewhere that another strong influence is the individualised perspective that dominates thinking in the special needs field (Ainscow, 1994).

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In establishing policies for encouraging classroom involvement, therefore, it does seem that attention needs to be given to helping teachers to become more skilful in the use of co-operative learning approaches, following the kinds of suggestions made by UdvariSolnar and Thousand in Chapter 11. Planning The quality of school-level planning seems to be an important dimension in attempts to develop more inclusive policies. As Linda Ware argues in Chapter 10, what is needed is an ongoing search for what works locally rather than what seems to work elsewhere. In our own work with schools we notice that there is rather more to successful planning than simply producing a strategic plan - indeed sometimes the quality of the plan as a written document is a very misleading guide to its influence on the course of events. It is the links between planning and action which in the end justify the effort put into planning activities. The practical focus on the impact of planning rather than the technical merits of different planning systems or approaches has led us to stress a number of points in our work with schools. The first thing to say is that it seems vital that a school's plans are linked to its vision for the future. Indeed, it is important that priorities for planning arise from this vision. Our experience has been that where there is a lack of congruence between a school's long-term goals and a particular initiative, it is very difficult to build commitment amongst staff. One rather obvious way of tying together school and individual goals is through widespread involvement in the planning process. In some ways, involvement in planning activity seems to be more important than producing plans - it is through collective planning that goals emerge, differences can be resolved and a basis for action created. The 'plan' is really a by-product of this activity and will almost always need to be revised, often several times. The benefits of the planning activity, however, often outlast the currency of the plan, offering a level of shared understanding which is a prerequisite for widespread empowerment. Co-ordination In the literature on educational management (e.g. Weick, 1985) schools are sometimes referred to as 'loosely-coupled systems'. This loosecoupling occurs because schools consist of units, processes, actions and individuals that tend to operate in isolation from one another.

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Loose-coupling is also encouraged by the goal ambiguity that characterises schooling. Despite the rhetoric of curriculum aims and objectives, schools consist of groups of people who may have very different values and, indeed, beliefs about the purposes of schooling. Increasing a school's capacity to co-ordinate the actions of teachers and others behind agreed policies or goals is, therefore, an important factor in promoting change. In our work with various schools in the three projects we have pursued a number of strategies which, we have found, improve the quality of co-ordination. At the core of such strategies are communication systems and procedures and the ways in which groups can be created and sustained to co-ordinate attempts to develop more inclusive practices. Of particular importance are specific strategies for ensuring that all staff are kept informed about development priorities and activities, as this is information vital to informed self-direction. We have also found that awareness amongst staff of one another's responsibilities cannot always be assumed - indeed, overlaps, both planned and unplanned, need particularly sensitive handling (Ainscow and Southworth, 1994). A further factor here is the influence of the 'informal' organisation. All schools are made up of a number of informal or self-selected groupings which rarely coincide with formal work units. The attitudes and behaviours adopted by members of these groupings can often have a profound effect on an individual's willingness to undertake formal tasks. As a consequence, it is important not to overlook the impact of these informal features on formal structures, and a co-ordination strategy needs to take account of informal contacts which influence (and can often contribute directly to) the quality of effort. Establishing a co-operative way of working is not a simple matter, however, not least because it is necessary to do so in ways that do not reduce the discretion of individual teachers (Skrtic, 199la). Teaching is a complex and often unpredictable business that requires a degree of improvisation. Indeed a significant hallmark of an inclusive school is the degree to which the teachers in it are prepared to 'tinker' with their usual practices in the light of the feedback they receive from members of their classes. Consequently, teachers must have sufficient autonomy to make instant decisions that take account of the individuality of their pupils and the uniqueness of every encounter that occurs. What is needed, therefore, seems to be a well co-ordinated, co-operative style of working that gives individual teachers the confidence to improvise in a search for the most appropriate responses to the pupils in their classes. In other words, we are seeking to create a more tightly coupled system without losing loose- coupling benefits (West and

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Ainscow, 1991). Enquiry and reflection We have observed that those schools which recognise that enquiry and reflection are important processes in any improvement activities find it easier to sustain their momentum and are better placed to monitor the extent to which policies actually bring about the desired changes, even in these times of enormous turbulence. Ironically, however, we have also found that information gathered by outsiders, be they inspectors or consultants, is often seen as having more significance than information which is routinely available to those within the school community. Further, we have observed that where schools understand the potential of internally generated information about progress or difficulties, they are better placed to exploit opportunities and to overcome problems. A major area of focus, therefore, in our work has been to review the use currently made of, and to consider the opportunities for improved future use of, school-based data. In adopting this focus, we have tried to remain aware that it is sensible to work with questions that need to be answered, with methods that are feasible and neither intrude on nor disrupt the school's patterns of activity. Within these parameters, we have urged participating schools to adopt a systematic approach to information collection, analysis and interpretation, particularly where information about the impact, rather than the implementation, of changes in policy is wanted (Levine and Lezotte, 1990). We have also encouraged schools to involve all staff in this information management process - the data routinely available to staff and the 'sense' they make of it is a potentially important aid to decision-making. Of course, where a school begins to acknowledge enquiry and reflection as forces for improvement, it is vital to ensure that there are appropriate safeguards so that confidential or sensitive information is properly handled. A particularly important aspect of enquiry and reflection relates to classroom practice. We have strong indications that where teachers are encouraged to help one another to explore aspects of their work with children through mutual observation, leading them to talk about their practice, this can have a significant impact upon their actions. Staff development In many ways the above five conditions seem to provide the basis of a climate that supports teacher development and, in so doing,

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encourage teachers to explore new responses to pupils in their classes. To this end, therefore, it is important that a school has a well-thoughtout policy for staff development. This needs to go far beyond the traditional patterns by which teachers attend external courses or, more recently, the use of one-shot school-based events. More than anything it seems that if staff development is to have a significant impact upon thinking and practice it needs to be linked to school development (Fullan, 1991). As such it should be concerned with the development of the staff as a team, as well as with the learning of individuals. In the light of these arguments, in our work with schools my colleagues and I have been keen to promote a systematic and integrated approach, establishing that the professional learning of teachers is central to the development of an inclusive policy and that the classroom is as important a centre for teacher development as the training workshop. In recent years the work of Bruce Joyce and Beverley Showers (1988), in particular their peer coaching strategy, has influenced thinking on staff development. Specifically they have identified a number of key components which when used in combination have much greater power than when they are used alone. These major components are: • • • •

exploration of theory or description of skill or strategy modelling or demonstration of skill or strategy practice in simulated and classroom settings structured and open-ended feedback (provision of information about performance) • coaching for application (hands-on, in-classroom assistance with the transfer of skills and strategies to the classroom).

More recently Joyce (1991) has distinguished between two key elements of staff development: the workshop and the workplace. The workshop, which is equivalent to the best practice on the traditional INSET course, is where understanding is gained, demonstrations provided and there are opportunities for practice. Detailed advice as to how such a workshop might be conducted has been developed as a result of the action research carried out during the UNESCO Teacher Education Project, 'Special Needs in the Classroom' (see Ainscow, 1994, for an account of these recommendations). However, for transfer of the skills that the workshop has introduced back into the workplace (i.e. the classroom and school), attending the workshop is insufficient. The research evidence suggests that skill acquisition and the ability to transfer into everyday classroom practice requires 6on-the-job' support. This implies changes to the workplace

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and the way in which we organise staff development in schools. In particular, this means the opportunity for immediate and sustained practice, collaboration and peer coaching, and studying development and implementation. We cannot achieve these changes in the workplace without, in most cases, drastic alterations in the ways in which we organise our schools. In particular, it requires that time should be set aside for teachers to support one another within partnerships established in order to explore and develop aspects of their practice. Guidelines for the creation of such partnerships have been developed as a result of our 'Developing Successful Learning' Project (see Hopkins et al., in press, for details). School improvement through special needs What, then, does this analysis of conditions tell us that can inform organisational change and development in ways that might help schools to become more inclusive? Also, what possible areas for further investigation does it point to? These are the questions that I will address in the concluding sections of the paper. First of all, it seems clear that making a school more inclusive is not an easy move. Whilst the analysis I have provided suggests certain conditions that seem to support such developments, these are not readily established in organisations where they are currently absent. What is required, it seems, is a fairly significant redirection of resources and effort in order to shift organisations that are structured to facilitate maintenance of the status quo, towards ways of working that will support development activities. The creation of arrangements that encourage development provides opportunities for staff to become clearer about purposes and priorities, leading to a greater sense of confidence and empowerment, and an increased willingness to experiment with alternative responses to problems experienced in the classroom. For this reason I have argued that the special needs task may be most appropriately perceived as being about school improvement (Ainscow, 1994 ). Put simply this means that by improving overall conditions a school develops a wider range of responses to pupils who experience difficulties in their learning. In so doing it also adopts a way of working which Lise Vislie in Chapter 4 sees as being about the 'reformation of ordinary education, to make it more comprehensive'. How does this work? In what ways do changes in what I have called conditions impact upon thinking and practice? At this point my argument becomes increasingly speculative. What I am suggesting needs a great deal more investigation before it can be recommended with any

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confidence. It also requires a shift from the structural frame of reference towards a cultural analysis. Making this shift helps us to take account of some of the concerns expressed by Clark and her colleagues in Chapter 7 about the limitations of responses based upon what they refer to as 'the organisational paradigm'. Specifically it helps us to engage with some of the complexities of life within individual schools. Hargreaves (in press) explores some of the complexities of using a cultural frame of reference when considering schools. He notes that cultures can be seen as having a reality-defining function, enabling those within an institution to make sense of themselves, their actions and their environment. A current reality-defining function of culture, he suggests, is often a problem-solving function inherited from the past. In this way today's cultural form created to solve an emergent problem often becomes tomorrow's taken-for-granted recipe for dealing with matters shorn of their novelty. Hargreaves concludes that by examining the reality-defining aspects of a culture it should be possible to gain an understanding of the routines the organisation has developed in response to the tasks it faces. Certainly my impression is that as a school develops the conditions referred to above tend to have an impact upon how teachers perceive themselves and their work. Through the establishment of structures that are geared to development, teachers may be encouraged to broaden their perceptions of their tasks, leading them to see improvement as being part of their professional responsibility. The spreading of leadership functions, wider involvement of stake-holders and better availability of information, all create the incentives that motivate such changes; whilst participation in planning processes, engagement with evaluative data and a well-thought-out staff development policy provide invitations to take action. As a result, the school gradually becomes what Rosenholtz (1989) calls 'learning enriched'. That is, it is structured in ways that stimulate and nurture the learning of adults and, as a result, foster conditions that encourage the learning of all pupils. We can go beyond these arguments, however, to consider yet a further possibility. There is some evidence to suggest that as schools move in such directions the changes that occur can also impact upon the ways in which teachers perceive pupils in their classes whose progress is a matter of concern (i.e. those nowadays referred to as having special needs). What seems to happen is that as overall working conditions in a school are improved such children are gradually seen in a more positive light. Rather than simply problems that have to be overcome or, possibly, referred elsewhere for separate attention, such pupils may

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be perceived as providing feedback on existing classroom arrangements. Indeed, they may be seen as sources of understanding as to how these arrangements might be improved in ways that would be of benefit to all pupils. This argument is given further support by Talbert and McLaughlin (1994) who suggest that there is now strong research evidence that norms of teaching practice are socially negotiated within the everyday contexts of schooling. If this is the case (and I repeat that much of this is at present highly speculative), it might be argued that the children referred to as having special needs are the hidden voices that could inform and guide improvement activities in the future. In this way my central argument can be turned on its head: instead of responding to special needs through school improvement, we might argue for school improvement through special needs. In this sense, as my colleague Susan Hart has suggested, special needs are special in that they provide insights into possibilities for improvement that might otherwise pass unnoticed. It is important to recognise, of course, that the cultural change necessary to achieve schools that are able to hear and respond to the 'hidden voices' is in many cases a profound one. Traditional school cultures, supported by loose-coupling and high levels of specialisms amongst staff who are geared to predetermined tasks, are in trouble when faced with unexpected circumstances. On the other hand, the presence of children who are not suited to the existing 'menu' of the school provides some encouragement to explore a more collegiate culture within which teachers are supported in experimenting with new teaching responses. In this way problem-solving activities may gradually become the reality-defining, taken-for-granted functions that are the culture of the inclusive school. Some final reflections Increasingly my own work is guided by an intuitive belief in the kinds of argument outlined in this chapter. Within the three projects referred to I am seeking to work with schools and teachers in exploring the possible connections between the tasks of school improvement and special needs. However, this is by no means an easy direction to follow. On a personal level it makes considerable demands, requiring me to engage with unfamiliar theoretical fields and collaborate with colleagues who have far greater expertise in these areas. All of this can at times lead to a feeling of being deskilled, as old ideas and techniques derived from a career in the narrow world of special education come to be seen as being redundant to the task at hand. On a more positive

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note, however, this reconstruction of special needs provides wonderful opportunities for growth and learning. Adopting this new perspective on the special needs task leads to a further difficulty. Specifically the widening of the agenda for attention that goes along with this shift in perspective frequently leads to 'collisions' with colleagues who prefer to retain the traditional special needs focus on the characteristics of individual children (Ainscow and Hart, 1992). As we look to the future, therefore, it is important to find ways of exploring the wider agenda set out in this paper that can accommodate the dominant thinking in the special needs field. Otherwise we may find that some specialist colleagues, rather than giving their support to such moves, may become a significant barrier to change. As far as the more specific ideas that I have presented, these are at present little more than descriptions of what seems to happen in schools that move forward towards more inclusive policies and practices. At best they are starting points that could be used to focus and Table 6.1 A series of propositions about conditions that facilitate schools in moving towards more inclusive policies and practices With • • • •

respect to leadership they: establish a clear vision for the school that emphasises individuality value and utilise task-relevant experience encourage staff to take on leadership roles find ways of building consensus without sacrificing critical thinking.

With • • •

respect to involvement they: create policies for involving pupils, parents and the wider community encourage overall access through the creation of an open climate develop practices that facilitate participation of pupils during lessons.

With • • •

respect to planning they: link plans to an overall vision of the school in the future recognise that planning is as important as plans regularly modify and update plans.

With • • •

respect to co-ordination they: develop effective methods of communication foster collaborative ways of working, without reducing teacher discretion emphasise talk about teaching and learning in order to encourage the development of practice.

With respect to enquiry and reflection they: • collect and use information to inform decision-making • establish strategies for reviewing the progress and impact of school policies and initiatives • encourage involvement of staff in processes of data collection and analysis. With • • •

respect to staff development they: see professional learning as essential to improvement allocate time for staff development activities emphasise classroom partnerships.

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guide more systematic investigations. With this in mind I have turned them into a series of rather tentative propositions about the links between school improvement and the task of responding to special needs (see Table 6.1). Finally, for me these propositions lead back to where I began, with schools like Navjug. It seems that further theoretical understanding of how to develop schools that can successfully educate all children in the community can be best achieved by working alongside teachers in such schools as they seek to bring about further developments in their work. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the contributions of many colleagues at Cambridge and elsewhere to the ideas that I have struggled to present in this paper. In particular I am indebted to Mel West for his guidance and Susan Hart who so often asks the right questions. Thanks also to Mary Cohen, Martyn Rouse, Judy Sebba and Jess Wilson who commented on an earlier draft of the paper.

Chapter 7

Dialectical Analysis, Special Needs and Schools as Organisations Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson, Alan Millward and David Skidmore

Paradigms of inquiry in special education Although this paper is not intended to be a detailed history of special education in the UK, we would suggest that inquiry in this field has been dominated in the recent past by two paradigms. One of these, the psycho-medical paradigm, has focussed on special education as a rational response to deficits located within individual children; the work of Burt (1937) and Schonell (1942) provides early examples. The other, the socio-political paradigm, has placed emphasis on special education as a system whereby structural inequalities at the macrosocial level are reproduced in institutional form (Barton and Tomlinson, 1981; Barton and Tomlinson, 1984; Tomlinson, 1982). Latterly, a third paradigm has emerged, most clearly evident in the work of Ainscow (1991) in the UK and of a group of writers in the US, including Gartner and Lipsky (1987), Skrtic (199la, b, c), Thousand and Villa (1991) and the Stainbacks (Stainback and Stainback, 1990; Villa, Thousand, Stainback and Stainback, 1992). Despite the important differences in emphasis in the approaches offered by these writers, their positions are founded on a sufficient number of shared assumptions for us to regard them as constituting a new, 'organisational' paradigm. In view of the important claims that are made by the adherents of this paradigm for the opportunities it offers for rethinking special needs, we propose to use this chapter to examine it in some detail. What, then, are the assumptions on which the organisational paradigm is founded? The first, we suggest, is that special education is seen neither as a rational response to deficits, nor as a reproduction of structural inequalities. Rather, it is seen as the consequence of inadequacies in the current state of development of mainstream schools. These inadequacies result in certain children not being educated in the same

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system and by the same means as their peers. Consequently, more or less segregated systems and different practices have to be developed in order to provide a form of education which is rationalised as being more appropriate, but may in practice be discriminatory and inequitable. Special needs, in other words, are what Skrtic calls 'an artefact of the traditional curriculum' (Skrtic, 199Ib, p. 20). A second assumption is that ways can and should be found of making schools more capable of responding to the diversity of their students. Research, therefore, is directed at identifying what features within schools facilitate such responses and what processes can be initiated which would bring those features about. At this point, writers within the organisational paradigm make use of the bodies of knowledge that have been generated by the effective schools movement, theories of organisational configuration and the school improvement movement (Fullan, 1991; Miller and Mintzberg, 1983; Reynolds, 1991a). These asumptions seem to have led to an emerging consensus as to how schools should be structured if they are indeed to be capable of responding to student diversity. Inevitably, individual writers offer slightly different characterisations of these features. However, one of the most recent and most empirically grounded of these is the report by Ainscow (1994) of an international project which has sought to reform special needs provision across a wide range of countries. This will serve to illustrate the general framework which writers within this organisational paradigm are beginning to develop. Ainscow argues that the 'individual view' of special needs should be replaced by a 'curriculum view'. In order to achieve this, schools as organisations have to follow particular precepts, which can be summarised as follows: • They should implement the findings which have emerged from research into effective schools and effective teaching. In particular, at both individual teacher and whole-school level, strategies should be used which enhance educational benefits and opportunities for all pupils rather than targeting particular 'special' populations. • They should place staff development high on their agenda in order to support teachers through the change process and help them to implement effective teaching strategies. Such staff development should emphasise collaboration between colleagues and should focus on the context of particular schools and classrooms. • They should seek to operate as problem-solving organisations,

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conceptualising the learning difficulties of individual students as opportunities for teachers and the school to learn how to respond to those students more effectively. This will involve examining the extent to which school structures facilitate co-operation between colleagues and the development of consensual values. • They should seek to promote reflective practice as a means by which teachers can learn from experience and experiment with new ways of working. • Where there are existing special educators on the staffs of mainstream schools, it will be necessary for them to evolve new ways of working which promote collaborative problem-solving with and amongst their colleagues. (A similar delineation of school characteristics leading to inclusion appears in Ainscow's contribution to this volume.) This position has provided many schools (and, indeed, national education systems) with a basis on which they can review their existing approaches to special needs and begin to develop what promise to be more effective and more equitable responses to diversity. These ideas are undoubtedly exciting and challenging and appear to offer real alternatives to existing paradigms of special education. It is no accident that leading proponents of the organisational paradigm are also leading advocates of inclusive schooling; not only is organisational development the sine qua non of meaningful inclusion, but, as Skrtic (1991c) has argued, it is only through meaningful inclusion that schools can guarantee a continuing process of self-development leading to the ultimate goal of 'excellence'. It is for these reasons that our own work has proceeded from many assumptions of the organisational paradigm (Clark, Dyson, Millward and Skidmore, 1993; Dyson, 1990a; Dyson, 1992; Dyson, Millward and Skidmore, 1994). Nonetheless, we began to have growing concerns about these assumptions, and hence about certain aspects of the new paradigm as a whole. Our concerns centre on three issues: • Our own extensive contact with schools as researchers, teachereducators and former teachers makes us uneasy with the disjuncture between the apparent coherence and certainty of the model that is advocated within the organisational paradigm and the actual complexity and messiness of schools. We are all too well aware of how difficult it is to bring about even quite minor changes in schools, let alone the fundamental restructuring that is posited by this paradigm.

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• We have become uneasy about an apparently absolutist position that lurks beneath the surface of the organisational paradigm. Certainly, there is an acknowledgement of the necessity for diversity, alternative pathways and experimentation and an avoidance of imposing prescriptive blueprints on schools. However, all of this is underpinned by two apparently absolute claims. The first is that there is only one way in which special needs can or should be conceptualised: they are the 'artefact of the traditional curriculum' (Skrtic 1991b), a product of pathologies within the school, not within the student. (Other views of special needs are themselves seen as the products of organisational and societal pathologies rather than as real attempts to grapple with complex issues.) Second, there is only one set of organisational characteristics through which schools are enabled to respond effectively and equitably to the diversity of their students. Schools which are not problemsolving, collaborative and reflective institutions are, by definition, pathological. • There is an apparent contradiction between the advocacy of change, problem-solving and experimentation on the one hand, and the specification of an end-point - in the form of the ideal organisational type and ideal response to diversity - on the other hand. There seems to be an assumption that once particular processes are set in train, there is only one possible outcome an essentially inclusive one. Any alternative outcomes thus come to be seen as emanating from failures in the change process and are seen as pathological. These concerns are heightened by an issue that is raised by a number of contributors to this volume and elsewhere (Gitlin et al., 1992) that is the concept of 'voice' . It is evident that particular conceptualisations of special needs are sustained by and contribute to the silencing of voices which offer an alternative. Much has been said about the ways in which 'traditional' notions of special education silence the voices of people with disabilities and teachers who are not 'key determiners of reality' (Sharp and Green, 1976). The question therefore arises as to whose voices are heard, and whose silenced, by this new paradigm. The tendency within the paradigm to pathologise alternatives makes this question particularly important. Indeed, this pathologising tendency bears remarkable similarities to the pathologising which characterised the older psycho-medical paradigm. The site of the pathology has, indeed, shifted. As Golby and Gulliver (1979) famously pointed out, the question, 'Whose remedies,

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whose ills?', can be asked of both individual students with special needs and of the schools and systems within which those students are placed. However, the question remains the same today. Special needs is still conceptualised as essentially remediable - a pathology with a cure. This leads us to speculate as to whether a non-pathologising conceptualisation of special needs is possible - and if so, what it would look like. Our own inquiry The study on which we will draw in the remainder of this chapter was initiated some two years ago. It followed from a survey of innovatory special needs practice and provision in English and Welsh mainstream schools (Dyson, 1992; Clark, Dyson, Millward and Skidmore, 1993). This survey had brought to light a number of schools which were seeking to reconceptualise special needs and to restructure their own approaches in ways which appeared to be very much in accordance with the organisational paradigm. Indeed, some heads and special educators freely acknowledged the influence on their thinking of writers such as Ainscow and Skrtic. Our intention was to follow up some of these schools in order to try to understand the processes which generated and sustained their innovative approach to special needs. We anticipated that our work would contribute empirical support to the conceptualisation of special needs formulated by the organisational paradigm. With this in mind, we undertook detailed case studies of a number of secondary schools. We anticipated that it would be possible to delineate, within each school, a set of coherent structures, and commonly held understandings and practices with regard to special educational needs. These would provide a means whereby we could begin the process of understanding each school's innovative 'approach'. Far from giving us easy access to this understanding, however, the notion of a school approach in these terms proved highly problematical. Instead of a single institutional view of special needs, we found a range of very different views which varied markedly from individual to individual and group to group. This complexity became even more marked when we considered the views on special needs that could be inferred both from the practice of teachers and the systems and structures through which provision was made. Rather than thinking in terms of a school 'approach', therefore, we found ourselves confronted by sets of views, practices and structures which had a degree of commonality. Each of these sets or constellations of views we regarded

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as constituting a 'perspective' on special needs. The term, 'perspective', was not intended to convey a coherent and fully articulated set of beliefs and practices so much as broad and only partially articulated stances towards special needs within which some coherence could be inferred. In each case, it was possible to identify one of these perspectives as being 'dominant' in the sense that it informed the ideology and actions of powerful members of staff (notably the headteacher) and was thus reflected in both the public face of the school and in its established structures and systems. This was what, in our initial survey, we had taken to be the school's 'approach' to special needs - an approach that had struck us as in line with the precepts of the organisational paradigm. In opposition to - and occasionally in open conflict with - this dominant perspective stood one or more 'subordinate perspectives' which were associated with less powerful members of staff, and particularly with classroom teachers. One of the schools, Downland, will serve to illustrate these points for the purposes of this chapter. Downland was situated in a prosperous small town in the south of England, and had recently been formed from the amalgamation of a boys' and a girls' secondary school. Within the school, there was (on the part of senior managers and a good number of other teachers) a rejection of traditional notions of special needs. All students were viewed as inherently effective learners with unrealised potential, and any failure to learn was viewed as a failure of the school to release that potential. Hence, students who elsewhere might have been regarded as having 'special needs' were termed, 'students who challenge the curriculum'. There was a deliberate attempt to view such students as 'opportunities not threats', that is, to see them as opportunities for teachers and the school as a whole to problematise, learn about and develop the existing practices which had generated the students' difficulties. This 'curriculum view' of special needs, as Ainscow (1994) might call it, was reflected in a series of structures, systems and practices. Chief among these was the replacement of the traditional role of the special educator with the new role of 'teaching and learning co-ordinator'. The task of the person appointed was not to provide special education services to a minority of students, but to catalyse his colleagues into enhancing their provision for all. In this way, it was anticipated, the 'special needs' of a minority would be met by responding effectively to the individual differences amongst all students. Hence, he spent his time working collaboratively with colleagues to develop their classroom practice, managing and delivering school-based,

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in-service training programmes, conducting reviews of departmental provision, and deploying resources in support of curriculum initiatives. The co-ordinator's work was supported by a wide range of strategies for enabling the school to respond to diversity. The pastoral system, for instance, had shifted the emphasis away from its traditional role of maintaining discipline and order in favour of a deliberate programme aimed at enhancing students' views of themselves as learners. Subject departments and faculties had developed strategies for differentiated teaching - individualised programmes, group work, investigative activities and so on. Teachers were supported in the development of these approaches by a high level of collaboration, teamwork and participative decision-making. Through all of this ran a clear rhetoric and argument which advocated equal opportunities, the valuing of each individual, the importance of students' potential, and the centrality of students' active participation in learning. This rhetoric was most clearly heard in the voices of the senior managers and the teaching and learning coordinator. However, it was by no means restricted to them; other members of staff shared the same set of values and beliefs and, more to the point, did their best to act upon them. Indeed, the primacy of values (as opposed to pragmatics) as the source of teachers' actions, and therefore the importance of open debate leading to the sharing of values, was a major theme within this dominant perspective. It is easy to see how such a school - or at least such a perspective within a school - is in accord with the characterisation outlined above of how, according to the organisational paradigm, schools should be. Here we have a perspective which is committed to a curriculum view of special needs, which values collaborative problem-solving, staff development and reflective practice - and which has set in place systems and structures to realise those values. However, this perspective, though dominant in the sense we have described, was by no means the only one which we encountered within the school. There was a subordinate perspective which emphasised the need to provide support for individual pupils experiencing very real and immediate difficulties in the classroom. It saw the curriculum view of the dominant perspective as a piece of rhetoric which became meaningless in the light of its inability to respond practically to the reality of learning difficulties in a large comprehensive school. As one teacher put it: ...there is a lot of theorising, but it's the practicalities that people want to get down to... There is this sort of disparity I think between looking at a

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pupil's difficulties and trying to help them work round it and come to find a strategy for coping, and this idealism which I think [the teaching and learning co-ordinator] has of the ideal situation.

Those who worked within this perspective tended to favour forms of special needs provision familiar from the history of special needs work in mainstream schools over the last two decades - a discretely identified group of 'special needs children', systems of individual support, intensive tuition in the basic skills, and so on. They saw the dominant perspective's curriculum view as not only idealistic but also as somewhat uncaring in sacrificing the needs of vulnerable students on an ideological altar. Indeed, the notion of 'care' for them played as central a role as the notion of releasing students' potential did within the dominant perspective. This phenomenon of competing perspectives is somewhat puzzling within a school whose approach to special needs seems so much in line with the organisational paradigm. Such an approach, after all, is premissed on collaboration, joint problem-solving and consensual values. One possible explanation of this phenomenon might be that the school was in the midst of a change process leading from an 'individual' to a 'curriculum' view of special needs and that the subordinate perspective simply represented the as-yet-unreconstructed views of certain members of staff. This would account for the prevalence of this perspective amongst members of the former girls' school staff who had not been exposed to the innovative approaches which had characterised the boys' school for some years. Our own initial reaction was to account for the situation in this way. However, a number of problematic features caused us to reconsider this explanation. Internal inconsistencies within perspectives What was particularly surprising to us, given our starting assumptions in the organisational paradigm, was that the dominant perspective was characterised by its own internal conflicts and contradictions. We have seen how, for instance, that perspective placed a very high value on the potential of each student. We were surprised, then, to discover that the head had excluded a number of such students. Moreover, the valuing of individuals seemed not to extend to the unconditional valuing of all staff; he had marked the early stages of his headship by confronting those staff who were resistant to his vision, making it clear to them that they had no future in the school. Similarly, the emphasis on collaboration and open debate seemed like empty rhetoric to many staff who subscribed to the subordinate perspective,

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for they felt themselves very much excluded from decision-making processes within the school. Equally puzzling in the light of the forcefully articulated vision of unreleased potential were recent moves which had been made within the school towards the reintroduction of ability grouping and the re-establishment of a conventional special needs co-ordinator's post. There were other examples which were not attributable simply to decisions taken by the headteacher. There were very real attempts to address pupil diversity through a differentiated curriculum and appropriate forms of teaching. However, this had not obviated the need for a heavily resourced system of in-class support teaching which, to some extent at least, operated on the principle of offering 'special needs' pupils additional assistance in tasks they would otherwise find too demanding. Similarly, the teaching and learning co-ordinator, who was both forceful and highly articulate in his advocacy of a 'curriculum view', confessed to some anxiety as to whether his preferred approach was actually meeting the needs of vulnerable individuals. Taken in isolation, each of these apparent inconsistences might be explicable in terms of bad faith or incompetence on the part of individuals or on the compromises necessitated by the transitional state of the school. Taken together, however, and set alongside many similar examples from other case-study schools, such individualised and localised explanations seem unconvincing. Internal inconsistencies appear less as the result of particular contingencies than as an endemic feature of perspectives. They suggest that perpectives are not coherent and rational positions so much as partial and partially successful attempts to make sense of a range of complex issues and problems. The notion, therefore, that the dominant perspective represented a coherent and logical approach to pupil diversity which would ultimately overcome the subordinate perspective through processes of rational persuasion, debate and training seems somewhat problematical. The groundedness of perspectives A second problematic feature of perspectives was that they did not appear to arise simply out of individual understandings (or misunderstandings). On the contrary, they appeared to be grounded in the lived experiences of individuals, and those experiences in turn were to some extent determined by deeply rooted features of the organisation, and, indeed, of society as a whole. Two examples are particularly illuminating. First, different perspectives were associated with different positions in the school hierarchy, with members of the senior management

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team (to a large extent) and of middle management (to a certain extent) adhering to the dominant perspective, whilst class teachers by and large adhered to the subordinate perspective. This seemed not simply to be a measure of the relative 'enlightenment' of these groups. The concern with high principle, with a vision of how things might be, and (in the current climate of school accountability) with enhanced pupil-achievement seemed not unrelated to the central concerns that managers might be expected to have. Similarly, the subordinate perspective's concern with individual pupils and with classroom realities seemed related to the classroom experience of many of its adherents. Second, the critical account of the dominant perspective given by many who did not share it appeared to be connected to their own experience of how it operated in practice. Many of these critics were staff from the former girls' school who had been unsuccessful in obtaining management positions in the amalgamated school. They complained that the dominant perspective claimed to be premissed upon valuing individuals but that they themselves, far from being valued, were marginalised by their managers. Since many of these teachers were women, and many of their managers were men, it is not inconceivable that deeper gender issues were implicated in this situation. What we appear to have, therefore, is a complex interrelationship between perspectives, the experiences of those who adhere to perspectives, features of the organisation and wider social arrangements. Although we are not in a position to trace those interrelationships in detail, their very existence casts doubt on the notion that the presence of competing perspectives is a temporary phenomenon to be overcome through processes of collaboration, joint problem-solving and professional development. It seems, at the very least, equally plausible that differentiations of role, status and power at both social and organisational levels will provide grounds for the continuing emergence of competing perspectives in spite of attempts to develop consensus. The endemic nature of competing perspectives This hypothesis appears to receive support from our findings that the presence of competing perspectives was not simply associated with obvious transition points in the school's history. At Downland, for instance, members of the maths department had been critical of the dominant perspective in the boys' school long before its amalgamation with the girls' school and long after many other members of staff had been 'converted' to the dominant views. Similarly, in another school, where many teachers prided themselves on their sense of being part of

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a long-standing tradition of inclusion and innovation, and where there was a remarkably high level of surface consensus, we were nonethless able to identify very different perspectives adopted by different groups of teachers. If there was less open and articulated conflict here than at Downland, this was less to do with real consensus around a single perspective than with the non-combative nature of perspectives and the conciliatory ways in which potential conflict was managed. The implication, however, is that competing perspectives are not a feature of schools in transition or crisis so much as a feature that might be endemic to all schools. A theoretical framework This analysis of our case study data led to a concern about the adequacy of the organisational paradigm to account for the complexities of what we encountered. The position is, to say the least, ambiguous. Without doubt, writers within this paradigm have increasingly begun to take account of the complexity and messiness of the change process within schools, and, like Ainscow and Ware within this volume, report prolonged and detailed engagement with that process on the ground. It is, therefore, entirely possible to account for our findings by drawing upon this paradigm and upon its roots in the school improvement and management of change literature. The question which arises for us, however, is not whether such an account is possible, but whether it is entirely convincing, and whether there might not be room for some alternative account. In seeking such an alternative, we have found it necessary to look beyond the literatures currently used to understand schools as organisations, and have looked to other fields of inquiry - notably the theory of dialectics and the related concept of dilemmas. Dialectical analysis It is perhaps as well to state at the outset that although dialectical theory has a long and distinguished history within the fields of philosophy and social science, there is at present no single and universally accepted view as to what a dialectical analysis of organisations should look like. As Zeitz (1980) points out, The term dialectic itself is neither clear nor univocal' (p. 73). In particular, although some versions of dialectical analysis are predicated upon classic Marxian assumptions (Heyderbrand, 1977), by no means all have such starting points. For our purposes, the key feature of dialectical analysis is the problematisation of the notion of the organisation. Rather than seeing

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the organisation in terms of its morphology of fixed structures and relationships, dialectical analysis sees organisations in terms of process. As Zeitz (1980) puts it: In one sense, it is more accurate to refer to 'organizing activity' rather than to organisations, since the latter implies a stability and unity which may not exist, (p. 74)

In J. K. Benson's (1983) view: The organisation is a site of ongoing social production and is produced and sustained by people not only historically but also through their everyday practices, (p. 337)

Because the organisation is in what has been described as 'a continuous state of becoming' (Benson, 1977, p. 3), it cannot be understood simply as a more-or-less well engineered set of structures. On the contrary, the ongoing process of social production generates 'contradictions, ruptures, inconsistencies and incompatibilities in the fabric of social life' (Benson, 1977, p. 4). These contradictions emanate from multiple sources, which include the continuing reconstruction of reality by social actors, the different constructions of reality which different individuals or groups make, the unequal distribution of power and resources within the organisation, conflicting demands from the organisation's environment, the incompatibility of existing structures with new or newly interpreted demands and so on. These contradictions are the basis of the 'transformation' (Zeitz, 1980, p. 81) of existing organisational arrangements as they undermine the apparent stability of one set of arrangements thereby creating the possibility for new arrangements to be produced. Understood in this way, the organisation is not to be seen as divorced either from its immediate environment or from macro-social processes within which it is situated. Writers in the tradition of dialectical analysis use the notion of 'totality' to indicate that organisations are to be understood along with the context in which they are embedded (Benson, 1977, 1983; McGuire, 1992). However, organisations are not to be seen as simply the products of that context in the way that traditional structural sociology has sometimes tended to view them. This is the case for two particular reasons. First, any given organisation is the site of unique processes of social production. Second, the ongoing production of the organisation is the outcome of the active engagement of human actors with their situations (Heyderbrand, 1977). Such engagement shapes and is shaped by the meanings which human actors ascribe to thei'r experiences of the world. These meanings constitute what are variously called 'social paradigms' (McGuire,

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1992), 'interpretive schemes* (Bartunek, 1984) or 'provinces of meaning' (Ranson, Hinings and Greenwood, 1980). McGuire goes on to describe these social paradigms as shared 'ways of viewing and interpreting phenomena' (p. 388). Although such paradigms have similarities with individual subjective values or ideologies, they are only 'intermittently articulated' (Ranson et al., 1980), will contain their own contradictions, and may well come into conflict with other social paradigms, thus generating further organisational contradiction. Such conflict may well be resolved through the exercise of organisational power rather than through 'rational' debate (Ranson et al., 1980). A dialectical account of the case studies Even from this cursory review of the dialectical approach to organisational analysis, we would suggest that it has much to offer in accounting for our case study findings. The notion of contradiction is helpful in explaining why we failed to find the coherence and uniformity we had anticipated. If the case study schools are understood as fixed and determinate structures undergoing linear processes of change, then strong elements of coherence are to be expected. However, if they are seen as the sites of multiple processes of social production, and if these processes are seen as containing a wide range of contradictions, then inconsistencies are entirely predictable. Similarly, what we have called 'perspectives' can be understood as characteristic schemes or 'ways of viewing and interpreting phenomena' (McGuire, 1992). Their ultimately contradictory nature might, dialectical theory would suggest, have been anticipated; they are not logically coherent positions so much as 'intermittently articulated' meanings which emanate from and seek to make sense of processes which are themselves inherently contradictory. The existence within organisations of a multiplicity of perspectives, and their association with different groups in the organisation's hierarchy, is likewise a predictable characteristic of the 'dependencies of power' constitutive of their structures (Ranson et al., 1980). Above all, what such an approach to organisational analysis suggests is that the complexity, messiness and incoherence which we found in apparently innovative schools was neither the product of particular contingencies, nor the indication of a temporary stage in the process of change. Rather it was the fundamental condition of all organisations. The organisational paradigm's ideal of the responsive, adhocratic, problem-solving school, characterised by collaboration and consensus is just that - an ideal which can never accurately encompass the con-

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tradictory reality of actual schools. As an ideal, it may well guide those who engage in planned programmes of change in schools and may be both a powerful and creative model for that purpose. However, it cannot constitute a real end-point for any such change process, given the ongoing nature of processes of social production and the contradictions which are endemic in any apparent ultimate solution of the problem of special needs. The concept of dilemmas This view of organisations has also led us to reconsider how we conceptualise special needs and the responses to special needs made in schools. Some writers, starting from very different positions, have suggested that the contradictory nature of social experience confronts actors within fields such as education with fundamental dilemmas; somehow they have to try to meet contradictory imperatives, reconcile opposing tendencies, or make choices where no rational basis for choosing is evident (Berlak and Berlak, 1981; Billig et al., 1988; Norwich, 1993; Winter, 1982, 1989). The actions that people take, the views they express, the 'social paradigms' they adopt, thus constitute attempted resolutions of those dilemmas - resolutions which, by definition, are provisional and inherently unstable. On such a view, the 'approaches' to special needs adopted by particular schools, and perspectives within schools, constitute such attempted resolutions. Whatever the virtues of such resolutions, they never reach the status of becoming solutions. That is, they can never transform the situation within which they are located into one which is contradiction-, and hence dilemma-, free. At the level of particular schools, this underlines the point that schools cannot, as the organisational paradigm seems to suggest, attain an end-point which constitutes an ultimate solution of the problematic nature of special needs. However, the point applies equally well to those approaches to special needs that are advocated beyond the level of the individual school. In other words, the organisational paradigm itself - like the psycho-medical paradigm before it - is not a solution of special needs, but a resolution. As such, it is, whatever its virtues, ultimately as provisional and unstable as anything that has gone before. This conceptualisation of special needs, and of responses to special needs is, therefore, very different from that which characterises the organisational paradigm. It leads us to reject absolutist notions of predetermined end-points and single once-for-all solutions. It makes us wary of claims to have developed the 'right' way to respond to

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special needs - or even to have found an unequivocally 'better' way. Above all, it makes us increasingly cautious of characterising approaches to special needs as pathological or as arising out of the pathologies of schools as organisations. It is possible - to return to a question raised earlier in this chapter - to approach special needs without the frame of pathology, and that is by substituting the frame of dilemma and contradiction. However, this position begs a most fundamental question. If all conceptualisations of and responses to special needs constitute equally provisional and unstable attempts at resolving dilemmas, are they all equally valuable? Are we, in fact, driven back to a position of extreme relativism? It is to this question that we wish, finally, to turn. Values, evaluation and research Readers of this volume will be struck, as we ourselves are, by the centrality of ethical issues within the field of special needs and the emerging field of inclusive education. Questions of social justice, human rights and, indeed, of humane relations are raised again and again. It is evident that the resolutions of dilemmas in this field are frequently, if not invariably, derived from firmly held value positions and that any evaluation of those resolutions rests ultimately upon the values of the evaluators. Insofar, therefore, as such values arise within particular social and historical contexts and can be defended only in a priori terms, we accept an irreducible relativism within special needs. However, this ultimate relativism does not, we would suggest, rule out the possibility of a rational interrogation of resolutions which would allow those holding somewhat different value positions to engage meaningfully with each other. Such an interrogation depends on applying evaluative criteria to resolutions which do not themselves presuppose the values on which judgements will ultimately be made. We wish to offer two such criteria. The first is the criterion of comprehensiveness. Any proposed resolution of the dilemmas of special needs can be scrutinised to determine the extent to which it engages with what is known about the field at any given time. This includes what is known empirically about, say, the effectiveness of particular teaching techniques, the consequences of particular forms of pupil-grouping, or the effects of particular organisational features in schools. It must also include what is known about the effects and consequences of the resolution in practice. More than this, however, it must include what is known about the nature of dilemmas in special needs and the possible resolutions of those dilemmas.

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To take examples from this volume, a proposed resolution which engages with the latest findings from school effectiveness research as reported by Reynolds (Chapter 9) is more comprehensive than one that does not; and, even more importantly, a proposed resolution cannot now be regarded as comprehensive if it does not engage with the sorts of redefinitions of special needs that have emerged from the work of Ainscow (Chapter 6) and others in the organisational paradigm. However, this criterion alone is not enough. 'Engaging with' what is already known is fundamentally different from a positivist notion of basing solutions on 'certain knowledge'. Any proposed resolution is always an interpretation of what is known. That resolution will be premissed upon values and assumptions, which may or may not be made explicit; it will be proposed by someone, or some group, in particular and will emerge from their situation and history; it will make heard the 'voices' (to use a term that recurs throughout this volume) of individuals and groups who may or may not be the proposers; and it will serve the interests of certain individuals and groups. There needs to be, therefore, what we might call a robustness criterion. This criterion has to do with the extent to which the proposed resolution makes explicit these features and withstands critical scrutiny in respect of them. We would emphasise that neither of these criteria is absolute; there is no finally perfected state of comprehensiveness and robustness, nor are there objective attributes of comprehensiveness or robustness apart from the judgements people make. The criteria do not offer a means of generating rational solutions of special needs, but rather of structuring a rational debate about special needs. We also believe that it is possible to indicate the sort of research endeavours that are implied by our proposed criteria. Comprehensiveness implies a continuing need for the empirical, positivist-oriented research which has been the staple of educational investigation for many years but which, if we do not take care, may be seen as alien within the field of inclusive education (see Chapter 12). However, it also implies new forms of research which take forward our own limited efforts in understanding what resolutions are emerging in particular sites, how they arise, and what they resolve and fail to resolve. On this basis, it might be possible to begin to map out the fundamental dilemmas which - at this time and place - characterise special needs, and thus indicate what it is, precisely, that resolutions have to resolve. 'Robustness' calls for research which will facilitate and conduct the critical interrogation of resolutions. This research will locate resolutions in their social and historical contexts, identifying the voices they make heard and the interests they serve. We are fortunate in

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having available models for this sort of research in the form of the sociologically oriented critiques of special education which emerged from the 1970s onwards. Our feeling, however, is that we are currently fighting shy of applying the same rigorous critiques to proposed resolutions which have been developed more recently, and towards which many of us active in the field feel an ethical, and perhaps temperamental, commitment. With these forms of research in mind, we have the potential for opening up fascinating possibilities for the relationship between researchers, practitioners and the supposed beneficiaries of proposed resolutions. Since we are advocates of the need for a multiplicity of research methods, we also advocate a multiplicity of researchersubject relations. However, we note the ongoing attempts reported in this volume (and elsewhere) to reconstruct the traditional forms of that relationship in ways which embody very different power structures. We also note the key role that is played in such attempts by the notion of 'voice'. Our notion of research as a central part of the process of structuring debate implies both the participation of researcher in that debate and the primacy of the debate over the research. In other words, the researcher cannot remain 'neutral' or 'objective' since every piece of research is necessarily located within and (positively or negatively) contributes to a continuing process of debate and dilemma-resolution. However, neither can the researcher end that process by discovering 'solutions' from a position that is external and superior to that of participants in the debate. There are some particular implications of this position which should, we believe, be emphasised. The first is that, in the absence of 'right solutions', the notion of voice must be applied to all potential participants in the debate. In other words, the voices which should be heard are not simply those who adhere to the resolution that is currently in favour. In particular, as our case studies illustrate, there are voices to be heard which are entirely rational in their own terms, but which currently appear to many to be reactionary and exclusionist in orientation. These voices - very often the voices of class teachers upon whom change crucially depends - cannot simply be silenced on the grounds that they speak for resolutions that are now 'discredited'. In this respect we share with other writers a concern that the emerging inclusive education movement should engage with, rather than silence, such voices (Fuchs and Fuchs, 1994; Vlachou and Barton, 1994). This in turn has implications at the level of the school. The notions of 'voice', 'debate', 'resolution' and 'critical interrogation' do not refer solely, or even primarily, to a process that is conducted in academic

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journals. Our thinking thus far leaves us unconvinced by the argument that school development necessarily implies the development of consensus. Notions of ethos, culture, shared meanings and values, or consistent practices - which are so important in the effective schools literature, and upon which the organisational paradigm appears to have drawn - seem to us highly problematical. We find the promise of a richer account of school development held out by those who, like dialectial analysts, mistrust consensus around absolutist positions and give some credence to the roles of diversity, ambiguity and conflict (Hargreaves, 1994; Hassard, 1994; Martin and Meyerson, 1988; Schulman, 1993). The task in schools, therefore, may be much more one of surfacing and testing assumptions, of advocating/resisting and reconstructing resolutions than of building consensus around supposed solutions. Such a view may be sceptical about the imminence of a final 'solution' to the problematic nature of special needs. However, it does offer a way forward in the prospect of investigating and participating in the continuing reconstruction of this practice.

Chapter 8

Mapping Inclusion and Exclusion: Concepts for All? Tony Booth

Lancey: A map is a representation on paper - a picture - you understand picture? - a paper picture - showing, representing this country - yes? - showing your country in miniature - a scaled drawing o f - o f - o f Owen: It might be better if you assume they understand you Lancey: Yes? Owen: And I'll translate as you go along. (Brian Friel, 1981, p. 406)

Introduction: the assumption of difference It is a stereotype of English people abroad that when faced with a native speaker they attempt to communicate by slowing down their speech and turning up the volume. Brian Friel's play is set in a hedge school, an informal school for the celebration of learning, in 1833 in a Gaelic-speaking community in the county of Donegal, Eire. The English army are carrying out a plan to map the area to assign land rights and taxes and to replace the place names with their closest English equivalents. The political motives of the English are clear: they wish to enforce the replacement of one way of life with another though this is not how they put it in their official documents. Equally clear are the difficulties of translation involved, for example, in representing the history and significance of a place name in a new language. Many of the processes depicted in Brian Friel's play are present in research on education, and these are highlighted by contemplating an international audience. We may assume that we share definitions of concepts and that translation between languages is unproblematic. We may be tempted in the wish to contribute to international conferences, books and journals to simplify the problems of interpreting policy

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and practice. The domination of the English language and the size of the American market creates a form of academic imperialism. The use of English and American terms by people from other countries may lend a spurious similarity to local experiences. Instead of viewing education through preconceived templates and making the assumption of similarity in concepts, categories and structures we should start from an assumption of difference. We should seek to understand the development of schools or curricula or policy through the eyes of those who create them and react to them. We should expect complexity and conflict and inconsistency of view. We should tease out the nuances of meaning and allow this understanding to be difficult and rewarding. This is not a new suggestion. I am reminding myself and others of an old tradition of anthropological or interpretive or hermeneutic research. It is a tradition reflected in the analysis of perspectives in Chapter 6 by the editors of this book. It is the opposite of the approach to social science illustrated by David Reynolds in Chapter 9. The inconsistency of view applies to ourselves, too. At the same time as describing education systems using a standard set of concepts we may be aware of the dramatic clashes of world-view between some parents, some disabled people and the professionals who claim to work in their interests (e.g. Goodey, 1992; Morris, 1991; Oliver, 1990), and this is one of Keith Ballard's major themes (Chapter 1). A taboo about the political nature of education helps to minimise differences in educational practice. Macro- and micro-politics are part of the science of education and to deny them in the interests of diplomacy is to falsify our findings. This diplomatic imperative may be potent when people see themselves as national representatives rather than social and educational critics and analysts. But it is a pervasive tendency. We fillet our accounts of policy and practice to make them more palatable for the subjects and funders of our research. The perspectives of the people involved in education, and the language that they use to describe it, are part of the subject matter of research. In describing and explaining these practices we have to avoid language which implies that we unquestioningly share the perspectives we seek to explain. The language of 'special needs' for example is a feature of the landscape of the education system which has appeared over the last twenty years or so. It needs to be described and explained, not taken for granted. We inherit a map of education drawn up by our predecessors. If we wish to explore new ways of understanding special education then we have to be prepared to jetison the language that ties us to old habits of thought.

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I use the term 'special education' in a number of linked ways. I view special education as concerned with difficulties in learning, disability and disaffection in education; with children and young people who face exclusionary pressures in education because of views of their attainment or 'ability' or behaviour; and with the systems of education, including the categorisation systems and systems of value, which give rise to these pressures. The study of special education attempts to answer the questions: How do schools and other educational institutions respond to the diversity of their learners?; How do we understand the responses that are made?; and how should they respond? Special education merges with other concerns about inequality and discrimination in education. The identification of oneself as a 'special educator' involves an attempt to understand education from the perspective of those who experience difficulties in it and involves a position of advocacy for the rights of such students and their families. This is a political position because it is about the transfer of power. It is a perspective that many researchers bring to their work but sometimes they do not make it explicit. Recognising and revealing the commitments we bring to research makes it more scientific, not less. In the next section I look at the nature of concepts that allow us to distance ourselves from, and discuss, a range of perspectives in education. I take a critical look at the notion of effective schools as a way of charting the aims of special education, and at the replacement of integration with the notion of 'inclusive education'. I then offer a number of concepts that might provide the basis for making a national and international map of inclusion and exclusion. In the following section I describe the beginnings of a research project about the way secondary schools categorise students in terms of their attainment and 'presumed ability' and the light this throws on the inclusion of students who are categorised in England and Wales as having 'severe learning difficulties'. I will show that approaching special education through an analysis of the processess of categorisation by attainment, leads us in fertile directions for research. Concepts for all? In order to be useful as a way of reporting research our concepts must enable us to discuss a variety of perspectives and systems and processes of categorisation. They must allow us to describe local practice and policy and to make comparisons with contexts expressed in other languages. We can think of concepts like 'special needs' as first

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order concepts linked to particular cultural practices. Notions of categorisation and valuation by attainment or behaviour or disability might be seen as second order concepts which permit us to deconstruct first order concepts and to interpret and translate them. Yet all concepts have local meanings. For example, Roger Slee (Chapter 3) and Keith Ballard (Chapter 1) use the term 'disability' when some authors writing in the UK would talk of 'special needs' or 'learning difficulties'. I am not sure of the extent to which the use of the term disability in Australia and New Zealand is meant to carry an implication of bodily impairment. I use it with that implication and resist extending its medical connotations to notions of learning or behaviour 'disability' even though such use is popular in the US and elsewhere. My notion of disability is strongly linked to the way disabled people self-describe themselves, though I have to take ultimate responsibility for the language I use. The notion of 'special needs' is dominated by official definitions in the UK which are confusing and discriminatory (Booth, 1994). I find it very difficult to make its use serve a project of creating 'inclusive' or 'comprehensive' community schools despite my earlier attempts to define 'special' as 'unmet' needs. If I use the term 'special needs', people take it to imply that there is a division to be drawn between 'normal' and 'less than normal' learners. It implies exclusion. The avoidance of its use makes space for the development of different perspectives on difficulties in learning. Effective schools? The notion of 'effective schools' has been used to direct the task of special education to creating schools which minimise the difficulties of students (Ainscow, 1991). As argued by Mel Ainscow in (Chapter 6), in seeking to reduce the exclusion of some students from the heart of schools and curricula are we not seeking to make schools 'effective' for all students? I am very attracted to the notion that schools which value diversity are effective schools for all. I have used a variant of this argument myself. Let me give an example. I have been giving support to a parent who has faced tremendous obstacles to achieve her right to have her son attend his local 'community' secondary school. William is thirteen years' old and has attended his local primary school since he was five, although students in his area commonly transfer to secondary school aged eleven. He has a complex understanding of social situations but his attainments in producing and understanding language

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are considerably restricted compared to any other student currently attending the secondary school. He has Down's syndrome. As part of an attempt to break down the mystique of William's week at the secondary school I suggested that his present and future teachers might sit down together with three timetables. One would show what William does now, another what students in the first year of the secondary school are usually doing and the third would be blank to be filled in tentatively for William as an indication of how he might spend his week at his new school. This suggestion met a familiar block: 4 We couldn't do that because all students in the first year follow the same timetable.' In minor ways, instrument lessons and classroom absence through illness, for example, this is superficially false. And in terms of the experience of learning it is false at a fundamental level. Nevertheless, it serves to justify exclusion. But it also serves to block solutions to under-achievement. Girls tend to perform badly at science at this school, and the solution involves recognising that their experience of learning science differs from that of boys. Problems are created too by having an examination for all students at 16+. For many students the first three years of secondary schooling can seem like marking time before the real course starts in their final two years. The detachment of the qualification from an age group might be part of the process of attending to the differing possibilities of learning for each student. So in this and other ways if we undo the block that prevents William following his own timetable, we might benefit everyone. But even as I use this argument I am aware that there is an element of strategy in it, which reduces its validity. I want it to be true because schools which celebrate the diversity they include, and are hence led to want more of it, conform to my values. They are part of the way of life I want for myself and my children. Yet different political perspectives provide arguments against the notion that looking after vulnerable people benefits everyone. Redistribution of wealth makes some people worse off financially even if we can argue that it leads to moral and spiritual gain or the reduction of social unrest. It would be perfectly possible to have a school system in which the majority of the resources were given to a relatively small number of students provided the problems of control arising from disaffection with the system were tolerated or dealt with by repressive measures. In fact many people would argue that this is precisely the system that is being fostered by the policies of central government in the UK though with more limited success in Scotland than elsewhere. The introduction of elements of a free market in education exacerbates the differences

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between schools. Some schools succeed in terms of reputation and resources at the expense of others. 'Effective schools' cannot have a single meaning nationally or internationally. They embody a set of local values and political aspirations. Yet the version of effective schools research provided by David Reynolds (Chapter 9) appears to ignore cultural, historical, political and moral contexts which determine both what will be regarded as an effective school and how one might improve it. The research looks at the characteristics of schools associated with certain academic and social outcomes preselected according to one perspective on education. Such associations differ from country to country and region to region and school to school. Yet in implementing the findings of the research countries may apply the general findings rather than their local ones. This is the positivists' fallacy; that a generalisation abstracted from individual cases has validity for each case. But it is valid only in each case if it is true in all cases. Inclusive schools? The notion of 'inclusion' is beginning to replace the term 'integration' in reports of special education. For me, integration is the process of increasing the participation in their schools and communities of people subjected to exclusionary pressures and practices. If I switch to using inclusion then it will continue to carry these implications. Further, my approach to integration is based on a notion of 'comprehensive community education' which has a cultural and political meaning and history which is not evoked by the idea of 'an inclusive school'. The former term links to battles over selection and local participation which are at the heart of political debate about education in the UK. It may be that some people use the term 'inclusive education' to obscure its political assumptions but they can be revealed with ease. If we wish to create inclusive schools and the values on which they depend, what implications does this have for our views about inclusion outside schools? On the segregation of the elderly in homes and hospitals? Or on inclusive labour markets and the regulation of poverty and greed? A number of local circumstances in England and Wales make the replacement of 'segregation' with 'exclusion' sensible in most contexts. It enables links to be made between exclusions following categorisation as having 'special needs' and exclusions because of conflicts over discipline as well as with other forms of direct and indirect exclusions because of racism, pregnancy or having a Travelling

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lifestyle, for example. I argue that devaluation of students lies at the heart of all such exclusions. Mapping inclusion and exclusion If we want to map inclusion and exclusion in different schools and cultures, how should we proceed? I have drawn up a list of concepts that could provide a framework for comparative research. It is not exhaustive and different lists would reflect other perspectives on this task. Community Notions of inclusion and exclusion presuppose a 'community' which we are included in or excluded from. Such 'communities' differ from educational institution to educational institution, region to region, country to country, and they are supported by differing sets of values. Ideas about community change over time and are linked, too, to political projects. There is a relationship between definitions of family and community and the value that is attached to each as the carrier of social cohesion or disintegration. Ideas of community relate too to notions of independence and interdependence. Participation Inclusion and exclusion also presuppose ideas about participation. Each school, cultural group and society will embody different conceptions of participation and democracy, and the value to be placed on each. It is not a simple matter to compare participation or integration or inclusion and exclusion rates between schools, regions and countries. It is relatively easy to record the differences in the number of students assigned to special schools in different countries, but this has limited meaning without information about all categories of exclusion and an understanding of the quality of mainstream participation. Them and us Well you know that was the worst of it - this suspicion of their not being inhuman. (Joseph Conrad, 1902, p. 51) (my italics)

The way others challenge our ideas of what it is to be human, and thereby threaten our identities, is not a common part of professional special educational discourse. But it is more common among parents of children with disabilities and among disabled people themselves. Diana Simpson is one of the parent organisers of the campaigning

103 and support group, Parents in Partnership. The disabilities of her child challenged her views of humanness from the start: Parents have a tremendous sense of grief about their child's difference which has a lot to do with expectations set up in society about what being human is. You don't know that you have got that set of expectations in your head until you are presented with something different. Perhaps you have never thought about it or challenged it until that moment. (Diana Simpson, in Paige-Smith, 1994) Chris Goodey opens an article on his research about the experiences of parents of children with trisomy 21 with the question, 'What is it to be human?' (Goodey, 1992). Within the chapter one of the parents provides a response to the questioning of her child's humanity: In actual fact me having Devon, I've never met so many real people... He's made us really meet real people, you know what I mean, people with handicapped children, and to me I find them more real than some of my friends that live in another world, fantasising about the future, you know, 'What's the kids going to be when they grow up?' I wouldn't plan a life out for my child, I couldn't possibly do it, you know... My priorities, my mind's eye is better. Their priorities to me are out the window... My priorities in life is smaller, more compact, but their priorities is for about ten, fifteen years from now. God forbid anything should happen to their children, never mind their house, or their car. It stands out like a sore thumb sometimes when I'm with them. I find people with handicapped children are real people, are people with their children, being, talking to them, instead of things that they can give them, you know. Maybe I've swapped lenses. (Beverley, in Goodey, 1992, p. 174) How many research projects could be launched by an analysis of what Beverley has said here about the nature of her perspective and its shifts, the political challenge it poses to the perspective of others and the forms of resistance that this challenge might elicit? Authority and disobedience Ligarius: Set on your foot, And with a heart new-fired I follow you To do I know not what; but it sufficith That Brutus leads me on. Brutus: Follow me then. (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 2, Sc. 1,11. 330-4) The 1986 (No. 2) Act in England and Wales places on headteachers a duty to instil in their students 'a proper regard for authority' (DES 1986). This 'proper regard for authority' is entirely unexplained but

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one is left with the impression that it is close to the chilling and unthinking obedience of Ligarius towards Brutus as they set off to topple Caesar. The way schools construe authority sets the context for understanding disobedience and departures from norms of behaviour. Investigations of 'behaviour difficulties' can start from an examination of the authority relationship between students and teachers and their local and national histories. Attainment and 'presumed ability' The categorisation of students as having 'special needs' or 'learning difficulties' is part of a system of classification of students by their attainment and 'presumed ability' in schools. We can ask of any school system and any particular school how students are classified in terms of their attainment both formally and informally. We can ask whether schools operate policies of selection, overtly or by default. We can look at the way the categorisation processes change with age, and at the extent to which grouping by age overrides grouping by attainment. We can look for the subtle indications of the way student attainment is treated and valued in groupings within classes, mentions in assembly and displays in entrance halls and classrooms. Following leads at Firth High School With a colleague, Felicity Armstrong, I attempted to map the terrain of inclusion and exclusion at Firth High School, in the North-east of England. I will sketch the beginnings of this process concentrating on categorisations by attainment and 'presumed ability' and how this reveals other categorisations particularly by gender. Firth is a mixed comprehensive school, established in 1974 for students aged thirteen to eighteen. It was formed from the amalgamation of two secondary modern schools for students who were not selected for a grammar school education. Male employment in the area was provided by mining and fishing. Now, the fishing industry has virtually collapsed, and there are no working deep mines. The school has strong community links. The library is shared with the local community, and some retired people use the canteen for a reasonably priced meal alongside students and staff at the school. In 1991 it incorporated the senior department of a special school for students who had been categorised as having 'severe learning difficulties'. Some of these students have very little competence in language and cannot move around on their own.

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Attainment groups The head teacher had taught previously at the neighbouring grammar school attended by students selected on the basis of their high attainments. He was clear from the start that his new school had to emphasise achievement: We believed very strongly to begin with that we wanted to encourage success, that we wanted to be achievement-orientated. And so when we first opened we had a lot of debates about to stream or not to stream or be completely unstreamed and in the end we arrived at a compromise. It's a compromise that is based on multiple setting so that it's possible for somebody to be in the top set for mathematics and the bottom set for English and that does happen sometimes.

This system is still in operation. In their first year at the school, students join a mixed attainment tutor group and spend the last period each day with their tutor. For the rest of the day they are taught in one of five sets. English and maths sets are created in the first year on the basis of their attainments and views of their ability at their previous school. These are used in the main as the basis for grouping in other subjects, though departments are free to devise their own system. In science, for example, there are three divisions according to attainment with Sets 1 and 2 followed by what the staff call three 'mixed ability' sets. A final set? The fifth English set is not like the others. Students in it have a very restricted opportunity for mobility through the sets. It contains all the students categorised by the learning support co-ordinator as having 'special needs' when they enter the school. They are withdrawn for extra English teaching during most French and German lessons. This practice of assuming that a second language is of less importance for students who have difficulty in reading and writing English is common in the UK. It was explained to me that the school had moved away from the practice of having a special 'remedial class' and that students categorised as having 'special needs' were now integrated. This meant that, although they were together as a class group, like other groups they moved around from subject teacher to subject teacher. It might have been more accurate to say that students were still in a 'remedial' class but that their teachers were not categorised as being remedial or 'special needs' teachers.

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Outside the sets The introduction of the new students from the special school added a new layer of categories. They were based in a new 'special needs department' run by a 'head of the special needs department'. The young people in the department continued to be described as 'special needs' rather than 'mainstream' students and when in the department they were said to be in 'mixed ability' age-based groups. A year previously, in their special school, groups had been mixed in age and based on attainment. At that time, the young people seen to be the most disabled and called 'special care' pupils had been kept separate from other students. Students from the 'special needs department' were not included formally within the setting system, although a few students joined lower sets for some subjects. Nor were they attached to the mixed attainment, mixed age, tutor groups although many other students and some teachers thought they should be. If they could eat unaided they attended the canteen with other students. There was considerable informal mixing of students at break and lunchtime when students from the rest of the school visited the department. There was a greater exchange of staff for lessons than students. Subject-based staff worked with students categorised as 'having severe learning difficulties' and the 'special needs department' staff worked with students outside the department. The overt categorisations became even more complex as students progressed through the school and chose examination course options. However, there were covert categorisations that also became clear. The head of the special needs department argued that some staff questioned the relevance of education to the students in her department: I mean, we're already having to justify to some extent why these students are in school because some of the mainstream staff have been feeling, 'Well, what's the point of having these students here?' That has actually been said...that, you know, they can't understand why those students aren't at home being cared for. So trying to get over the fact that they are, er, entitled to an education, as such, is something that we'll have to work at...

The classification of these students as 'very different' or 'other' was also revealed by the absence of a middle group of students categorised as having 'moderate learning difficulties' who attended a special school. The headteacher felt that their presence might have a detrimental effect on the way the school was labelled in the area. It seems that students who could be clearly seen as 'different' did not pose the same threat.

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Undercover categories A further set of categorisations was brought into focus by chance because an English lesson was being devoted to the appropriate use of standard and non-standard English. The students had to produce small plays to illustrate their points. One concerned a television interview with the manager of a football club who was speaking in local dialect. At the end of the playlet the teacher called for reactions: Right. So what sort of impression does this manager of a fairly major football team create on national television? Come on, let's have some comments on it please.

After a pause a student responded: 'Geordie [a native of Tyneside, UK] manager - an idiot.' This one comment summarises feelings about regional hierarchies, class and class-based dialect as well as the acceptance of discrimination based on notions of ability. However, a second covert category system required no analysis to tease out. After even a cursory observation of the setting system in action, it was striking that despite roughly equal numbers in the school, there was a very great imbalance of boys and girls in the sets. Girls in top sets outnumbered boys by as much as 4:1, and there was a corresponding majority of boys in bottom sets. Because games sets were timetabled against modern languages, even these groups had strong gender imbalances. The teachers and students had a range of explanations for the gender disparity in the students. Some teachers felt it must be a reflection of 'ability' because it was this on which sets were based. Most of the students and some of the teachers thought that the inequality had more to do with behaviour. Other teachers thought that, in an area where, in the past, men had been virtually guaranteed a manual job, there had been little incentive for boys to gain qualifications through education and that this had persisted in the culture. No one pointed to the contradiction in the 'top set' of staff. The senior management team at the school contained only one woman. Yet, whatever the local explanation for the gender imbalance in sets at this school an association of 'learning difficulty' with boys is a common feature of education systems. The detailed examination of this case suggests ways in which differences in cultural expectations and categorisation of boys and girls may construct difficulties in learning. The over-representation of black British Afro-Caribbean boys in provision for students excluded from mainstream schools on the grounds of behaviour (Bourne, Bridges and Searle, 1994; Cooper,

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Upton and Smith, 1991; Cohen, Hughes, Ashworth and Blair, 1994) or the assignment of British Asian students more generally to lower sets in some schools in ethnically mixed areas (Commission for Racial Equality, 1992; Troyna and Siraj-Blatchford, 1993) provide a complex interplay between categorisation by attainment, behaviour and 'race'. The exploration of these relationships, and their variations between schools nationally and internationally, provides a fertile area for research. Attainment and 'ability' appear to provide a screen on which a variety of categorisations can be projected and then hidden from critical gaze. Concluding remarks In this chapter I have argued that the attempt to conduct research in education which has an international audience highlights a need to frame questions about our own and other peoples' education systems in terms which do not obscure differences of culture, politics and values. We have to portray these differences and ask questions about them, and these tasks require the subtle skills of translation. I have explored some concepts which either do or might form the basis of international research on inclusion and exclusion and suggested that we should not take common meanings for granted. I offered an example of an investigation of one school using notions of categorisation by attainment and 'presumed ability' which could be extended to provide a method for interrogating and comparing practice between countries. But it also revealed that a departure from concepts which originate in medical categories and form the traditional concerns of special education may lead to new territories for research and novel maps of special education.

Chapter 9

Using School Effectiveness Knowledge for Children with Special Needs - The Problems and Possibilities David Reynolds

Introduction It is clear from the other chapters of this book that the movement to integrate children with special educational needs into mainstream or 'ordinary' classes and schools is now so firmly established in many societies that it can be called a world-wide movement in educational reorganisation. Linked with this trend has been the associated movement to relocate helping initiatives for pupils to the ordinary school, rather than at the level of separate specialist provision. At the same time as the new ideological paradigms and associated methods of education and support have grown in popularity within the special education community, the school effectiveness and school improvement 'movements' (as they have been labelled by friends and foes alike) have also generated a growing international reputation for offering helpful blueprints of 'good practice' that may, if implemented, improve the education of all pupils within schools, both those with special needs and those without. Within the community of special education practitioners, researchers and policy-makers, there is no doubt that the stress within all school effectiveness research upon the school as the unit of analysis has linked well with the special education community's stress on 'whole school' policies, since the latter involve the organisational change of all educational arrangements within schools, rather than merely those educational arrangements within schools that relate to the experience of those children with special educational needs. Similarly, the emphasis within the school improvement movement (Fullan, 1991) on wholeschool change to benefit children with problems, rather than on the use of additional outside school specialist institutions and personnel to

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combat learning and behavioural difficulties, has been appealing to those within the special educational needs community who have been consistently arguing for the inclusion of these services within normal school provision. Additionally, the heated rejection by those in the school effectiveness community of 'individualised' explanations for pupils' problems and special needs has synchronised with the rejection of 'personal pathology' or 'socio-medical' perspectives within the special needs community. More latterly, the school improvement tradition (as represented in this book by the work of Ainscow) has also begun to be utilised within the writing on special needs, further adding to the popularity of what Clark, Dyson, Millward and Skidmore refer to in Chapter 7 as the 'organisational paradigm'. This chapter attempts to outline the knowledge base of school effectiveness research which now exists for utilisation within the special needs community and within schools, and then goes on to outline the implications for the special needs community of recent, rather littlenoticed findings which question some of the more recent intellectual 'taken-for-granted' tenets within the field. The attempt is then made to use an ongoing school effectiveness study, and the school effectiveness perspective itself, to shed some light on some of the contemporary problems associated with the integration of children with special needs within British schools and classrooms. It is argued that apparently effective practices utilised within other societies and the cutting edge literature now emerging on effective 'high reliability organisations', which are two contemporary interests within the school effectiveness community, may be of even greater utility to the special educational needs community than the existing school effectiveness material. The possibilities offered by the appreciation of a school effectiveness perspective concludes the chapter. The school effectiveness knowledge base The last decade has seen a veritable explosion in the quantity, and the quality, of the knowledge available concerning the role of the school in generating positive, or for that matter negative, pupil social and academic outcomes from schools. In Britain early work by Power et al. (1967) on substantial variations between schools in their delinquency rates was followed by research from Gath (1977) into the reasons for the large variation between schools in their rates of referral for child guidance. Subsequent work has included work on Welsh schools (Reynolds, 1976,1982; Reynolds, Sullivan and Murgatroyd, 1987), the

Ill well-known study of Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore and Ouston (1979), work in Sheffield and New Zealand by Galloway et al. (1982, 1985), work by Gray, lesson and Sime (1990), and the important studies into primary school effectiveness by Mortimore, Sannons, Ecob and Stoll (1988) and by Smith and Tomlinson (1989) into secondary school effectiveness. Reviews are available in Reynolds (1991b) and in Reynolds etal. (1994). In the United States, the early research contributions came out of both educational practice and the educational research community, with Ron Edmonds, a black school board superintendent responsible for the former, and Brookover et al. (1979) for the latter. Recently, the 'cutting edge' research has been generated by the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study, a multiphase, mixed methodology study which has produced substantial increments in knowledge (Teddlie and Stringfield, 1993; Wimpelberg, Teddlie and Stringfield, 1989). Reviews of these, and other, studies are available in Levine and Lezotte (1990). Other areas productive in generating school effectiveness research include the Netherlands (see chapters in Creemers, Peters and Reynolds, 1989; Reynolds, Creemers and Peters, 1989), where the particular focus has been on the effects of the classroom or instructional level upon development. Australia also now has the beginnings of a knowledge base concerning 'effective' practices (see review in Chapman and Stevens, 1989), together with recent national policy initiatives that involved data collection about perceived 'effective practices' in the Effective Schools Project of the Australian Council for Educational Research. This British and international knowledge base relates generally to four key questions which I have expanded upon below. How much do individual schools affect their pupils9 academic and social development? The early work by Reynolds and Rutter in Britain above argued for schools having substantial effects, as did the early work of Gray (1981), who argued that the 'competitive edge' possessed by the most effective tenth of state secondary schools amounted to approximately one to one-and-a-half of the old British 'O' level passes or their equivalent. This work was followed by a series of studies which showed smaller-sized-school effects, such as the subsequent studies of Gray, lesson and Jones (1986), who concluded that the difference between their most effective and least effective schools was of the order of only an old low-grade British 'CSE' examination pass in size.

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More recently, substantial effects of pupils' schools have again been argued for. Cuttance's (1988) Scottish data suggest that 8-10% of the differences between individual pupils' examination results is due to the effects on them of their schools and also that the difference between the most effective and the least effective groups of schools is in size: approximately two old 'O' level examination passes per pupil. Smith and Tomlinson's (1989) study also shows large differences in the effects of schools, with, for example, a child of above average ability who managed to obtain an old 4CSE' Grade 3 in English at one school obtaining an old 'O' level Grade B in the same examination at another school. For certain groups of pupils, in fact, the variation in examination results between individuals in different schools was as much as one-quarter of the total variation in their examination results. Whatever the precise size of school effects - and contemporary research is suggesting they are of moderate to large size - it is important to note that the school environment is a modifiable or alterable influence on young people, unlike their community, family background or the wider systems of inequality and social stratification that affect them. Schools can do little to change these wider influences on young people but it is clear that they can have substantial direct, positive effects upon young people's development. Are effective schools consistently effective upon all areas of pupils9 academic and social development? Early suggestions had been that effective schools were consistently effective across a wide range of types of pupil 'outcomes', such as academic attainment, levels of attendance, rates of delinquency and levels of behavioural problems (Reynolds, 1976; Rutter et al., 1979). However, more recent work has suggested that schools may be differentially effective on different areas of pupil development, as shown for example by the Reynolds et al. (1987) study comparing the comprehensive and selective systems of education, in which comprehensive schools performed well academically but under-performed on their social outcomes by comparison with the selective system. In Galloway's (1983) study of four effective schools in New Zealand with very low levels of behavioural problems, one of the schools had unexpectedly low levels of academic attainments which was also, no doubt, the result of a policy of imposing minimal demands on pupils to reduce the behavioural problems! Mortimore et al.'s (1988) study also shows a substantial independence in the academic and the social outcomes of primary schools.

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Are 'effective schools so for all their different types of pupils? Recent findings suggest that schools can have somewhat different effects upon pupils of different backgrounds or abilities. Cuttance (1992) argues that pupils from disadvantaged home environments are more affected by their schools than more socially advantaged pupils. Similarly, McPherson and Willms (1987) provide interesting evidence that comprehensivisation in Scotland varied considerably in its effects upon pupils according to their backgrounds, with pupils from working class homes consistently benefiting more than others. Using the statistical techniques of multi-level modelling, which enable the differences within the pupil group in different schools to be explored, Nuttall, Goldstein, Prosser and Rasbash (1989) show large differences, for different types of pupils, in the relative effectiveness of schools in London. If we look at the experience of able pupils (labelled VR Band 1 in London) and the experience of less able pupils (labelled VR Band 3 in London), in some schools the difference in the groups' performance as they leave school is as small as eleven VRQ points and in others is as large as twenty-eight points, even after adjusting for differences in the pupils' abilities at the time of joining their schools. In this study, the performance of schools also varies in the way they impact upon boys and girls and in their effects upon pupils who come from different ethnic groups, with some schools narrowing the gaps between these different groups over time and some widening the gaps in both instances. What factors exist in schools which are effective? If we look in detail at British research, the important factors within school determining high levels of effectiveness were argued by Rutter(1980)tobe: • the balance of intellectually able and less able children in the school - when a preponderance of pupils in a school were likely to be unable to meet the expectations of scholastic success, peer group cultures with an anti-academic or anti-authority emphasis may form • the system of rewards and punishments - ample use of rewards, praise and appreciation are associated with favourable outcomes • school environment - good working conditions, responsiveness to pupil needs and good care and decoration of buildings were associated with better outcomes • ample opportunities for children to take responsibility and to

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participate in the running of their school lives - this appeared to be conducive to favourable outcomes successful schools tended to make good use of homework, to set clear academic goals - and to have an atmosphere of confidence as to their pupils' capacities outcomes were better where teachers provided good models of behaviour - by means of good time-keeping and willingness to deal with pupil problems effective group management in the classroom - preparing lessons in advance, keeping the attention of the whole class, unobtrusive discipline, a focus on rewarding good behaviour and swift action to deal with disruption were all important factors outcomes were more favourable when there was a combination of firm sensitive school leadership - together with a decisionmaking process in which all teachers felt that their views were represented.

Work in South Wales, although undertaken in a group of secondary modern schools and in a relatively homogeneous former mining valley that was very different in its community patterns to the communities of Inner London, has produced findings that in many ways parallel those of Rutter. We studied the school processes of eight secondary modern schools, each of which was taking the bottom two-thirds of the ability range from clearly delineated catchment areas (see references above for full details of methods and findings). We found substantial differences in the quality of the school outputs from the eight schools: a variation in the delinquency rate from 3.8% of pupils delinquent per annum to 10.5%; in the attendance rate from 77.2% average attendance to 89.1%; and in the academic attainment rate from 8.4% proceeding to the local technical college to 52.7% proceeding to further education. These differences were not explicable by any variation in the intakes of the schools. Detailed observation of the schools and the collection of a large range of material upon pupils' attitudes to school, teachers' perceptions of pupils, within-school organisational factors and school resource levels revealed a number of factors within the school that were associated with more 'effective' regimes. These included a high proportion of pupils in authority positions (as in the Rutter study), low levels of institutional control, positive academic expectations, low levels of coercive punishment, high levels of pupil involvement, small overall school size, more favourable teachenpupil ratios and more tolerant attitudes to the enforcing of certain rules regarding 'dress, manners and morals'.

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In addition to research on secondary school processes, characteristics of effective primary school organisations have been identified that are associated with high performance in cognitive areas such as reading and writing and in non-cognitive areas such as truancy (Mortimore et al., 1988). Mortimore's research identified a number of schools, which were effective in both academic and social areas, which possessed the following characteristics: • Purposeful leadership of the staff by the head. This occurred where the head understood the school's needs, was actively involved in leadership but was good at sharing power with the staff. He or she did not exert total control over teachers but consulted them, especially in decision-making such as spending plans and curriculum guidelines. • Involvement of the deputy head. Where the deputy was usually involved in policy decisions, pupil progress increased. • Involvement of teachers. In successful schools, the teachers were involved in curriculum planning and played a major role in developing their own curriculum guidelines. As with the deputy head, teacher involvement in decisions concerning which classes they were to teach was important. Similarly, consultation with teachers about decisions on spending was important. • Consistency among teachers. Continuity of staffing had positive effects but pupils also performed better when the approach to teaching was consistent. • A structured day. Children performed better when their school day was structured in some way. In effective schools, pupils' work was organised by the teacher, who ensured there was plenty for them to do yet allowed them some freedom within the structure. Negative effects were noted when children were given unlimited responsibility for a long list of tasks. • Intellectually challenging teaching. Not surprisingly, pupil progress was greater where teachers were stimulating and enthusiastic. The incidence of 'higher order' questions and statements was seen to be vital - that is where teachers frequently made children use powers of problem-solving. • A work-centred environment. This was characterised by a high level of pupil industry, with children enjoying their work and being eager to start new tasks. The noise level was low, and movement around the class was usually work-related and not excessive. • A limited focus within sessions. Children progressed when teachers devoted their energies to one particular subject area and

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sometimes two. Pupil progress was marred when three or more subjects were running concurrently in the classroom. Maximum communication between teachers and pupils. Children performed better the more communication they had with their teacher about the content of their work. Most teachers devoted most of their time to individuals, so each child could expect only a small number of contacts a day. Teachers who used opportunities to talk to the whole class by, for example, reading a story or asking a question were more effective. Thorough record-keeping. The value of monitoring pupil progress was important in the head's role, but it was also an important aspect of teachers' planning and assessment. Parental involvement. Schools with an informal open-door policy which encouraged parents to get involved in reading at home, helping in the classroom and on educational visits, tended to be more effective. A positive climate. Overall, the atmosphere was more pleasant in the effective schools for a variety of reasons.

Whilst there are some clear differences between the three British studies in their respective findings, the degree of communality on the factors associated with organisational effectiveness is impressive. However, it is of course important not to over-emphasise the extent of the agreement between the various British studies and between these British studies and the international literature. Rutter et al. (1979), for example, found that high levels of staff turnover are associated with secondary school effectiveness, a completely counter-intuitive finding that is not in agreement with the Reynolds' (1976, 1982) findings of an association between high levels of staff turnover and ineffectiveness. Similarly, the consistent American findings on the link between frequent monitoring of pupil progress and academic effectiveness are not in agreement with the findings of Mortimore et al. (1988) that pupil monitoring which involves frequent testing of children is a characteristic of ineffective schools. In addition to the three studies outlined above, which all possess data on a comprehensive range of school (and to a lesser extent classroom) processes, there are a number of further British studies which have data on a more limited range of school data. A clutch of studies on behavioural problems have appeared in the last few years, with Maxwell (1987) suggesting that high levels of suspension from school arise from schools where staff groups do not believe in their capacity to affect these problems. McManus (1987) related school suspension rates and

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school organisational policies on 'pastoral care', showing that an incorporative, relationship-based approach minimised pupil problems. McLean (1987) also suggested a preventive, child-centred approach minimised pupil disruption, and Gray and Nichol (1982) generally replicated the findings of Rutter, and the Reynolds' findings on effective schools' more sensitive rule enforcement policy, in their study of two differentially effective secondary schools in disadvantaged communities. Many of the British findings about the characteristics of effective secondary schools are also paralleled by the large volume of international studies into school effectiveness, although the great majority of work in all other countries has been undertaken in samples of elementary rather than secondary schools. In the US, Lezotte (1989) and others have argued for a 'five-factor' theory of school effectiveness, which sees schools which are academically highly performing as possessing the following characteristics: • strong principal leadership and attention to the quality of instruction • a pervasive and broadly understood instructional focus • an orderly, safe climate conducive to teaching and learning • teacher behaviours that convey the expectation that all students are expected to obtain at least a basic mastery of simple skills • the use of measures of pupil achievement as the basis for programme evaluation. Although the original development of the five-factor theory was from research in the elementary school sector, very similar theories have been utilised to describe and explain the highly effective high school in North America, and such research as there has been into the secondary sector again confirms the general applicability of the theory above (for a comprehensive summary of research see Levine and Lezotte, 1990). Corcoran and Wilson's (1989) study of exceptionally successful secondary schools generated a list of common elements in their effective schools which has distinct similarities with the findings noted above from the British secondary school studies. Their common elements were: • a positive attitude towards the students by teachers and the principal • strong and competent leadership • highly committed teaching staff • high expectations and standards

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• an emphasis upon high achievement in academic subjects • intensive and personal support services for at-risk students • stable leadership and public support in the catchment area of the school for a period of years sufficient to implement new policies. Challenging the 4taken-for-granted' factors of the integrational paradigm The above description of research findings in the school effectiveness field is not, of course, an untypical one. Similar conclusions are on offer in many other places (Reynolds and Cuttance, 1992; Scheerens, 1992). What it is also important to do, however, is to highlight some of the ways in which this recent 'cutting edge' material raises doubts about some of the more popular policy positions often taken within the special education needs community, among school improvers related to it and among adherents to what Clark and colleagues elsewhere in this book call the 'organisational paradigm'. • The differential effectiveness of schools noted above opens up the possibility that change in schools to help one group of pupils may not necessarily improve the performance of other groups, since children are differently affected by their schools. It follows that schools may have to choose between maximising the performance of their more able children, say, and maximising the potential of their children with special educational needs. Given the nature of current performance indicators (which are more likely to reflect the results of an investment of effort in more able children rather than in less able children), it is not difficult to imagine a situation where 'whole school' policies which have been argued to improve all children's achievement become less tenable. • The independence of school outcomes means that the possibility exists of schools being 'good' in some areas of their functioning and 'less good' or 'poor' in others. If the social outcomes of education (which are likely to be those that tap differentially the contribution of children with special needs) are independent of the academic outcomes, schools may find it difficult to be 'good' in both areas of outcomes and must, therefore, choose to an extent either academic or social effectiveness. In an international current policy climate of substantial concern over schools' academic outcomes, it is easy to predict which outcomes schools will increasingly see as important and which outcomes (and therefore

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children) schools may neglect. Whilst it is not impossible to achieve academic and social effectiveness - indeed, sixteen of the fifty schools in the Junior School Study of Mortimore et al. (1988) had managed to achieve this the fact that overall, for the entire sample of fifty schools in this study, there was little or no positive relationship between the outcomes suggests that schools are encountering difficulty in being effective across the board, to say the least. Whilst we know a number of factors related to the generation of positive academic outcomes from schools, we are much less certain of those factors relating to the social outcomes that may be more important for children with special educational needs. Rutter et al. (1979) identified over twenty factors associated with academic effectiveness but only seven associated with social effectiveness as measured by a school's possession of a low delinquency rate. The London study of Mortimore et al. (1988) found only six factors associated with social effectiveness in terms of good pupil behaviour and thirteen school factors associated with positive reading scores, even though size of the schools' effects were the same for the two different outcomes. Schools clearly do not have the knowledge base on which to ground programmes to improve their social outcomes, which may be particularly important to children with special educational needs. It is increasingly clear that the effects of school and of pupil background may be additive, in that the schools which are the least effective are those situated in the most disadvantaged catchment areas. (This has been shown, variously, by Gray, 1981 and by Grosin, 1992.) Given the well-known association between catchment area, social disadvantage and the proportion of pupils in schools who have special educational needs, it can be safely predicted that a high proportion of the total number of pupils with special educational needs are in the schools ranked lower in effectiveness. These schools may have found it difficult to follow the guidance on 'good practice' concerning integration and that on breadth, balance, differentiation, continuity and progression, additionally. Whilst one cannot be sure, the reality of the integrational enterprise may be that it has been the schools lowest on effectiveness which have been required to make the most considerable organisational changes, because they have the highest proportion of pupils who have been in special provision. Recent evidence, in fact, suggests that whole-school policies may themselves be deficient in that they are attempting policy

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manipulation of a 'level' of education which does not possess much influence over young people. In virtually all the most recent studies (see review in Creemers, 1992), the amount of pupil variance that is explicable by the school level is only a small fraction of that which is explicable by the classroom level. Children learn in classrooms, not at the principal's knee (as an American school effectiveness researcher, Sam Stringfield, puts it)! It follows that programmes of integration, and other 'school improvement' policies in education, which have been concerned with the creation of a school-level setting for classroom-level approaches that are unspecified and which have to be 'filled in' by organisations as appropriate, run risks of not impacting upon children's learning experiences. What these five points suggest is that some of the most favoured beliefs of the 'integrational enterprise' may be difficult to validate. Wholeschool policies may not be productive of changed classroom experiences for children with special needs. Schools may be involved in complex 'trade-offs' in which certain goals have to be maximised (academic ones), which may lead to deficiencies in the attainment of goals in other areas. Different subgroups of pupils may be advantaged differently by different ways of running schools. Schools cannot even be told from research what the ways are of maximising the social outcomes so appropriate to children with special educational needs. Schools that have higher proportions of children with special educational needs may well be the least able to progress their children and may, if this is true, be the least able to change their organisational functioning. The contemporary problem If we have seen so far that the whole-school policies may be increasingly difficult to support as providing the necessary remediation to secure the position of children with special educational needs, then one's concerns about the position of such children can only be magnified by assessment of the educational policy changes that are currently affecting schools in Britain. First, the integration of special needs children itself increases the influence of schooling on children (and the influence of ineffective schools correspondingly) because all the evidence is that such children are more sensitive to variation in the quality of the school environment than other children (see Reynolds, 1992, for a summary of the evidence).

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Second, the integration of special needs children is paralleled by the keeping in schools of children who would formerly have been sent away to community homes. The Intermediate Treatment and other community-based schemes that have been developed to reduce the need for expensive, specialist residential accommodation have, therefore, kept in schools a small percentage of the total pupil range who would have gone 'off site'. Quite apart from the extent to which these children are changing the balance of the special needs communities within schools, their own sensitivity to the nature of the school environment is again likely to be differentiating schools and increasing the salience of the 'school' variable. Third, governmental policies are also likely to be differentiating schools further in their quality by the decentralisation of power to school level. A common result is likely to be a substantially enhanced variation in their quality between schools, since the common factors that schools possessed collectively when their school districts or educational authorities were involved with them are being removed. Huge additional ranges of powers, roles and responsibilities that are being relocated to schools will further increase variability, since schools' power to cope with the changes varies so substantially. The net effect of integrating special needs children, keeping delinquent children in school and increasing the powers and responsibilities of the school level is to increase the influence of school, whilst at the same time maximising the variation in the quality of the regime provided. If superimposed on these changes one takes account of the introduction of policy changes that measure and emphasise academic outcomes and which direct attention to the needs of able children who are believed to contribute more to academic outcomes for any given 'investment' of staff time and resources, then the prospects and position of special needs children within schools in Britain can certainly be seen as vulnerable. First cutting edge issue: international research So far we have argued that the contribution of school effectiveness research has been to provide a 'paradigm' of concentration upon the school level and of delineating effective school 'processes' that have been utilised frequently as a resource within what we have called 'the integrational enterprise'. We have argued that the most recent research evidence may cast doubt on the validity and practical value of the enterprise and that a 'school effectiveness' perspective upon current educational policies would foresee further enhanced variation in school

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quality and in school effects. If the 'need' for intervention is enhanced by the wider range of school quality, and if one accepts that the more ineffective (and increasingly ineffective) schools are those that have a higher proportion of children with special needs, then the 'need' for more appropriate policies than ones concerned with simple integration becomes appropriately enhanced. There are two current directions within school effectiveness research which may provide some of the knowledge which the integrational enterprise needs in order to conceptually and practically generate the goals of its proponents. The first 'cutting edge' area is that of internationally based studies which look outside individual cultures to delineate effective practices from other countries and cultures that may be of use in enhancing both our understanding of school processes and our programmes to enhance schooling for children with special educational needs. Such studies are not, of course, a feature only of recent research on school effectiveness (see earlier work by the IEA in Reynolds et al, 1994) but at present as part of ISERP (the International School Effectiveness Research Project) researchers are following a cohort of approximately 2000 pupils in junior schools through their classrooms and schools in eight different countries (the UK, US, Norway, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, the Netherlands and Canada). In none of our British sample of schools is there any evidence of the 'interestingly different' or 'innovatory practices' noted by Clark, Dyson, Millward and Skidmore in this volume (Chapter 7) or of any redefinition of knowledge or redefinition of the role of the learner and special needs child. Instead, one sees teachers struggling to devise appropriate strategies for a range of children with, in many cases, minimal additional classroom help. In classes where two age cohorts are taught together, a basic variation of two years in chronological development may increase to a seven- or eight-year variation in reading or mathematical ages. (It is not uncommon in our classes to see eightyear-olds with a reading ages of between 4.0 and 12.0 years within the same class.) It is not surprising then that, given the increased range of ability associated with integration, the 'pressure' of managing groups in the classroom working on their differentiated tasks, the pressure of managing mixed ability groups during 'topic' work, and the additional pressure of co-ordinating the limited classroom support, whether parental or professional, more of the teachers we are studying are not overly enthusiastic about 'integration'. Some, especially older teachers, remain hostile, and one is reminded often, as one listens to

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those teachers, of the pivotal findings in the classic Barker-Lunn (1970) study on streaming in the primary school: namely, that the poorest academic and social outcomes occurred when teachers who didn't believe in unstreaming were told to do it, without help to tell them how to unstream and without subsequent detailed monitoring of the change process. Concerns about the 'integral! onal paradigm' and about the effectiveness and efficiency of the 'integrational enterprise' are magnified when one sees what other societies we are studying have had to do to deliver high quality academic and social outcomes for their own children with special needs within regular schools. Societies in countries like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea are notably successful in all international school effectiveness studies in reducing the standard deviation or range of their pupils: what they do in effect is to knock the bottom of their distributions into the middle, rather than having the elongated 'tail' of special needs children and others that we possess in the UK. Put simply, they progress probably up to the 95th or 97th percentile by initial ability over the educational 'hurdles' of basic skills acquisition by the end of third or fourth grade (ages eight or nine) (see survey in Reynolds et al., 1994). In our schools within Hong Kong and Taiwan, this success is bought at the cost of a formidable investment of teacher effort in the education of children with special needs. In any lesson, the teacher will move up and down rows or around groups and give virtually all his/her attention to such children. The children themselves are required to finish work, if they have fallen behind others, during lesson transitions and, during breaks, and have specially segregated 'catch up' sessions after school. Such children may even have a higher load of homework in terms of hours, since other children will have been able to start their homework (an hour per night at age six, on average) during the end of their lessons. The result of these practices that give differential effort to, and demand differential effort from, children with special educational needs are children who do not differ as greatly from their peers in their academic (and, where it has been measured, their social) development as do those undergoing simple 'integration' within the schools of the UK. Second cutting edge issue: the highly reliable school organisation Accepting the danger of over simplistic cross-cultural translations of so called 'effective' school recipes from other cultures, it is likely that there are useful insights to be gained from the practices of other

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countries. Expressed in methodological language, these societies have evolved reliable schooling which, through a variety of strategies, ensures that all children can learn. The cost, though, is increased teacher workloads and selective strategies utilised with special needs children, within a continuing universal framework of mixed ability classes in the early, junior years. The insights that can come out of 'cutting edge' effectiveness research in 'reliable countries' in terms of maximising children's educational outcomes, limiting the range and where all children progress to similar basic levels, have been recently joined by insights from the study of highly reliable organisations (Stringfield and Slavin, 1991). This knowledge base is moving 'beyond' school effectiveness because the issue addressed is no longer whether we can find some relatively more successful schools than others which may still not be completely successful for their children; the issue addressed is the generation of organisational processes which ensure completely successful and reliable schooling - absolutely, not relatively. This literature comes from studies of organisations that are not permitted to fail because of the financial, human and social costs of that failure. (One might argue the applicability of the same logic for children with special needs and, additionally, include moral as well as those financial, human and social factors necessitating action.) These organisations are represented by such people as airline traffic controllers, nuclear power operators and, electricity supply engineers. Their organisational processes are distinctive in the following twelve areas which cohere and interact together to make up the ethos of the High Reliability Organisation (HRO): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6.

HROs require clarity regarding goals, and staff in HROs have a strong sense of their primary mission. HROs extend formal, logical decision analysis, based on standard operating procedures (SOPs) as far as extant knowledge allows. HROs recruit and train extensively. HROs have initiatives which identify flaws in Standard Operating Procedures and nominate and validate changes in those that prove inadequate. HROs are sensitive to the areas in which judgement-based, incremental strategies are required. They, therefore, pay considerable attention to performance, evaluation and analysis to improve the processes of the organisations. In high reliability organisations, monitoring is mutual (administrators and line staff) without counterproductive loss of

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overall autonomy and confidence. HROs are alert to surprises or lapses. The experience of HROs is that small failures could cascade into major system failures, and are hence monitored carefully. 8. HROs are hierarchically structured, but during times of peak loads, HROs emphasise a second layer of behaviour which emphasises collegial decision-making regardless of rank. This second mode is characterised by co-operation and co-ordination. At times of peak activity, line staff are expected to exercise considerable discretion. In HROs potentially disastrous situations are regarded as being far too important to trust to rules alone. Authority patterns shift from hierarchical to functional, skillbased authority as needs arise. 9. Especially during times of peak performance, staff are able to assume a close interdependence. Relationships are complex, coupled and sometimes urgent. 10. Key equipment is maintained and kept in the highest working order. 11. HROs are invariably valued by their supervising organisations. 12. Short-term efficiency takes a back seat to very high reliability.

7.

Obviously, the translation of the organisational requirements of being an HRO to the educational settings of schools and classrooms is not straightforward, nor is it necessarily simple. Whether it is possible to have standard operating procedures within education, and whether the complete goal certainty and clarity of the HRO is ever achievable within schools, are highly debatable issues. However, what it is important to take from the HRO model is not so much a blueprint of what the highly reliable school would look like in detail but more the general managerial principles that any educational system that educates all children without fault might need to adhere to. Clearly, following the general HRO pattern, these would need to concern: • specifying the school and classroom processes offered children in fine detail • training intensively, both pre-service and in-service • adopting hierarchical forms of leadership, where those possessed of superior knowledge manage those with less knowledge • paying attention to minor details of organisational functioning • generating strong systems of monitoring, evaluation and appraisal.

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Conclusions We have attempted in this chapter to show how the school effectiveness knowledge base has possibilities for persons within the special educational needs community. The early certainties of this knowledge base which helped to form the paradigm and policies we have called 'the integrational' and 'whole-school' enterprise have now given way to doubts in certain areas, and the new knowledge, it is argued, needs to be used to reconceptualise the nature of the interventions that have been targeted at special needs children within schools. In particular, two 'cutting edge' explorations of the school processes in other societies that have reduced their range of pupil achievements and of the factors that may reliably deliver the goal of 'effective schooling for all' are argued also to be of utility to those working in the field of special educational needs policy and practice. It is clear from even a cursory glance at the knowledge base we have reviewed that the school effectiveness perspective is a very different one in its orientation, conceptualisation and measurement decisions by comparison with the other perspectives on view in this volume. School effectiveness research is usually positivistic in orientation and quantitative in method, working from the belief that it is possible to generate empirical truths about the world. It is a discipline of the 'taken-for-granted', in terms of its acceptance of the importance of conventional school outcomes and in its celebration of those effective schools and practices that exist within the current range of schools and practices as they are, not schools as they could be. The research paradigm also has the 'agreed upon' procedures of normal science (a journal, a professional association) that act to sift valid from invalid accounts (or to prevent the flowerings of new approaches and insights, depending upon one's perspective). It is nevertheless to be hoped that the interaction between effectiveness research and the concerns of those interested in special educational needs will continue. There is abundant evidence of the potential intellectual and practical results that come from the interactions between bodies of knowledge that share both similarities and differences - between circles of knowledge that only partly intersect, to put it simply. The experience of interacting with knowledge bases that are similar but not too similar is exactly that which historically has proved so potent (as in the cases of clinical medicine and physiology, for example) in many fields. It is to be hoped that school effectiveness researchers and those interested in special educational needs retain enough similarity and enough difference to make continuing intellectual conversations possible.

Chapter 10

The Aftermath of the Articulate Debate: The Invention of Inclusive Education Linda Ware

Introduction Inclusive education is an umbrella term used in the United States to describe the restructuring of special education to permit all or most students to be integrated in mainstream classrooms through reorganisation and instructional innovations (e.g. co-operative learning, collaborative consultation and team teaching). It suggests the redesign of the traditional special education service delivery model to integrate students into regular education classrooms and to promote collaboration between educators in regular and special education. Since its evolution in the late 1980s, inclusive education has increasingly challenged the legitimacy of virtually every professional and institutional practice of twentieth-century schooling. The structural implications of inclusive education are quite clear: it requires fundamental changes of the most basic structural features of schools as organizations, that is, the very ways in which the work in schools is divided and co-ordinated among professionals (see Skrtic, 199la; Skrtic and Ware, 1992; Ware, 1994a). The cultural implications turn on recognizing the historical separation between general and special education and the structural isolation of all teachers. Thus, the need for collaboration between general and special educators has been recognized as the key barrier to improved delivery of services for students with special needs in mainstream settings (Phillips and McCullough, 1990; Pugach and Johnson, 1989; Wesson, 1990; Ysseldyke, Thurlow, Wortuba, and Nania, 1990). Collaboration is premised on the ability of professionals to work together to identify common problems and, through collective reflection, to devise, test and revise solutions, and yet, prior to the

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inclusion movement, the education of students with disabilities was the sole responsibility of special education. Will (1986) charged that an unintended outcome of the implementation of PL 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (ERA), was the establishment of two distinct and separate systems in which programs, personnel and students were assigned to one of two structures supported by separate funding mechanisms. She suggested a merger of these systems 'to form a partnership between regular and special programs and the blending of the intrinsic strengths of both systems' (Will, 1986, p. 12). Thus, inclusion has been advocated as the means to insure that schools educate all students in the mainstream where 'everyone belongs, is accepted, supports, and is supported by his or her peers and other members of the school community' (Stainback and Stainback, 1990, p. 3). Background The research reported in this chapter is drawn from two qualitative research investigations initiated in Midwestern American schools. First, the Emerson Project (1990-94), an interpretive study of educational change and cultural transformation in a rural school district. Data was collected over one academic school year during the implementation of constructivist mathematics, co-operative learning, and inclusive education. Extended classroom observations and intensive follow-up interviews were conducted in five elementary classrooms, and the design of the study was modified to include repeated member checks, thus giving the participants a critical voice in the direction and interpretation of the research. Of significance in the Emerson Project, is that the member checks provided the only vehicle for the teachers collectively to consider reform, thus the project was an educative endeavor. The second investigation, Project SEIK (Supported Education in Kansas) is an ongoing five-year federally funded project awarded to the Kansas State Board of Education (KSBE), the six Regents Institutions of Higher Education, various parent organizations, the Department of Health and Environment and the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. Project SEIK is a collaborative, interagency and community-based project focussing on statewide systems change for persons with severe disabilities in the state of Kansas. The significance of this research is that it challenges the tendency to approach inclusion in much the same way that all prior change has been attempted in schools - in rigid compliance with educational 1. Project SEIK has just concluded year two of a five-year project, thus the findings are less conclusive than those reported from the Emerson Project.

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policy and instructional practice mandates that have been externally driven. With control as a central component of this reductionist/mechanistic paradigm, mandate and compliance have been easily confused with motivation for change in schools. In the instance of inclusion, change must be viewed as internally driven, grounded by interpretation, interchange, reflection and evaluation. Moreover, given that change begins at its smallest unit - the level of classroom practice rather than conform to the implementation of inclusion, the charge for schools is the invention of change to support inclusion from a constructivist rather than a mechanistic paradigm. In sum, inclusion assumes policy and practice will be defined at the local level in a process that emerges from the ground up, an educative approach to change that challenges the conventional didactic and formulaic attempts that have characterized public education reform throughout the twentieth century. Educative change Educative change is characterized by an ongoing search for what works locally rather than that which seems to work elsewhere. It seeks to interrupt the normative priorities that limit and define educational policy, practice and research in narrow ways, and instead promotes invention and its correlates - human agency, self understanding, interpretation and dialogue - all uncommon features of educational change (Ware, 1994a). Although educational reform typically is undertaken in the absence of providing teachers a voice in the change process, if teachers are to change their practices in meaningful and productive ways, they must have the occasion to express their beliefs about themselves as teachers and about their students and their practices and, based on this narrative, collectively to consider change. The convergence of three trends in the American educational system support educative change in general and thus the success of inclusion. First, the reorganization of schools through site-based management (SBM) structures has led to revised school governance and promoted a new awareness of cultural considerations among professionals in schools. SBM provides the backdrop against which schools can respond to change that is more educative than evaluative, and therefore share responsibility for the invention of policy and practice. Second, nationwide curriculum renewal in mathematics, science and language arts has reshaped state and local expectations of instruction, student learning and authentic assessment. Third, the increased use of qualitative research methods in educational settings has gained in

130 appeal and application over the past decade (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). It is important to note as well a nascent trend in national, state and local efforts to promote collaborative, interdisciplinary, interagency wrap-around services that emphasize school and community partnerships, as in the example of Project SEIK. Individually, each trend poses a challenge to the conventional wisdom that guides the work of schools but, in combination with interpretation and meaning-making as the nexus, these trends suggest the fundamental transformation of schooling in the United States. In the section that follows educative change is described beginning with educative policy, followed by educative practice and concluding with educative research. The positive interdependence among these components will be stressed as central to the successful invention of inclusion. The shift to educative policy Historically, American educational reform has been prompted by demands from society and its policy-makers or by key decision-makers in education who largely function outside the school (Berman and McLaughlin, 1974; Fullan, 1982; Miles and Huberman, 1984; Rosenblum and Louis, 1981; Smith, Kleine, Prunty and Dwyer, 1986). Federal, state or local authorities and their reform initiatives are the typical external forces that influence change on the internal structure of schools and classrooms. Moreover, policy has assumed the existence of a model bureaucracy in schools to insure the swift implementation of change through regulation (Darling-Hammond and Wise, 1985). The bureaucratic organization of the school, with its hierarchical authority and well-established power structures insured that reform by fiat was logical, while consideration ojf the meaning of reform by the individuals involved was illogical. Simply put, the need to make sense of reform policy by those charged with its implementation has only recently surfaced as an issue among policy-makers, educational researchers, and educators. Educative policy views this conventional didactic, top-down approach to policy development as static and obsolete, shifting its focus to those individuals motivated to attempt new policy, to inform policy based on their own practice, and to reshape policy in an continuing cycle of invention and revision (Cohen, McLaughlin and Talbert, 1993; Gitlin, 1990; Skrtic, 1991b; Ware, 1994a). More dialogical than monological, educative policy is inspired by conversation that engages participants based on a 'tacit sense of relevance' and the

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expectation of novelty and unpredictability (Bernstein, 1983). With a revised focus on individual schools and communities the metaphor of schools as institutions is rendered obsolete and, in its place, internally driven reform characterized by SBM and grass-roots policy development emerges. Somewhat similar to the 'Local Management of Schools' (LMS) in the United Kingdom which emphasizes autonomy through budgetary discretion, SBM is more accurately characterized by autonomy through policy and practice initiatives. Nationwide, fiscal accountability remains the responsibility of central administration and locally elected school boards. The fundamental shift characterized by SBM is its emphasis on recognizing and valuing school culture. Ideally, SBM parallels John Dewey's (1916) democratic conceptualization of schooling in that it is derived dialogically from community ideas, interests and actions. Conceived of as more than a simple aggregation of individuals in schools, community assumes and celebrates idiosyncrasy, spontaneity, increased discretion and professional autonomy. Since its beginnings in the mid to late 1980s, SBM has continued to evolve, encouraging school/community partnerships in which collaborative, interdisciplinary, interagency wrap-around services are recognized as central to successful schooling. These linkages become more vital when universities and/or state boards of education support school/community partnerships as in the example of Project SEIK. Site-based management and the invention of inclusive education More than any prior educational reform, the success of inclusive education turns on providing teachers with the opportunity to consider its significance and meaning in the context of their own classrooms and schools. Through SBM schools can examine their structures, organizations, and practices, and from this self-critical/self-reflective stance challenge established norms and traditions - many of which are meaningless or contrary to the spirit of inclusion. When a school launches inclusive education, how it begins holds implications for how it is likely to be sustained. Initial experiences recounted by individuals involved with Project SEIK illustrate this point. Sandy, the lead special education teacher at Willa Gather High School located in an urban setting recalled: I used to think we started this whole thing off the wrong way - you know, we were just told by central administration that we were going to do inclusion the following year. Just like that - no guidance, no training, no vote -just do it. The expectation was for us to figure it out. So, during the

132 summer two of us got together and decided that if we started small, we could make inclusion what we wanted it to be. In the fall, we paired up in regular education/special education teams, self-selected by established friendships and pretty soon we had nearly all the basic courses - math, science, English, history - covered by team-teaching. We didn't know if what we did was working for a long time - but each year we included more regular education teachers. Now our kids can take all their required classes in a regular placement with a range of instructional support provided in the classroom. Today, four years later, this program continues to be a highly successful instance of educative policy. Launched by a few, but not all of the 130 teachers at Willa Gather High School, theirs was a collective approach to 'make inclusion what they wanted it to be'. At another Project SEIK site, the principal explained their initial motivation as a 'kind of accident by necessity'. Prior to 1989 students with severe disabilities received services in a nearby school district. When the contract was unexpectedly cancelled, the students were returned to their neighborhood schools. The principal explained that in the process of attempting to create a separate classroom for the program, the special education teacher challenged the plan, suggesting 'something like inclusion'. The principal reflected: As we got into it and started talking about inclusion - it seemed to be the most appropriate thing to do. We had people who cared about kids and who wanted to do the humane thing. I did not consider myself as part of a major innovation. Inclusion just seemed like the natural thing to do - the best possible situation for the kids. To have them as much as possible around their age peers seemed to be more appropriate than for them to be isolated in a room by themselves all day. One regular education teacher agreed: [F]or some of us, I won't say all the staff, but for quite a few of the staff, it was not difficult to begin inclusion. I guess maybe we just believed in it without even knowing that we did. Another recounted: I was involved in the pilot program the very first year - by that time I'd probably been into the school improvement movement for four or five years. I had bought into the belief that all kids can learn and all kids can be successful. Also, I thought, this could be a good experience for me because it's going to make me feel more comfortable around kids with special needs. I felt my students needed to be more comfortable too. The desire to attempt the unorthodox, to challenge, and to be challenged as professionals was articulated by all of these individuals

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as they willingly became a part of the local solution to inclusion. Typical of educative reform, these projects began less than fully operationalized, in the absence of models or a priori guidelines and with the assumption that policy and practice would evolve through reciprocal reshaping and persistent refinement. Rather than duplicate another educational trend, the response of these individuals was forged of the creativity common to socially based transformation which accompanies the realization that yesterday's institutions have become obsolete and pose an obstacle to progress (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983; Skrtic, 1991b). In summary, educative policy assumes interchange, reflection and dialogue. Although the provision of adequate time for teachers to meet face-to-face is important to this end, it is more likely that the absence of a shared, articulated guiding philosophy in schools will prove the greater obstacle to successful inclusion. Biklen, Ferguson and Ford (1989) explain: A school's experience with integration reflects other aspects of the school culture such as the overall commitment to problem solving, the style of interaction between students and teachers, the concern for affective as well as academic education, the sense of school community, a common set of rules and expectations as well as rewards and support, and the degree to which every student is regarded as a valued participant. The way a school community responds to the issue of integration depends on the way it thinks about schooling. The promise and problems of both special education and regular education inform and affect each other, linking the integration of children to the integration of adults, and eventually, to the larger community, (pp. 266-7)

For this reason, SBM with its focus on the development of a school culture, must be assumed as the foundation from which to consider inclusion and all reform attempted by schools. However, at this juncture, the culture of shared community is not an inherent feature of most schools, therefore the challenge lies in establishing a sense of community while simultaneously addressing the demands of restructuring through SBM. Given that the whole of previous reform in education has privileged mandate over meaning-making, some individuals in schools may refrain from participation in a 'conversation' about change, particularly when the focus includes special education. Nonetheless, this conversation is essential and must precede the debate on curriculum and the determination of appropriate instructional practice for all students. The implications of this conversation for special education are more profound as issues of curriculum will likely become the crucible for inclusive education.

134 The shift to educative practice Positive interdependence between educative policy and educative practice has yet to be realized in America's schools. Throughout the twentieth century instructional practices have been influenced by the organization of the school itself, that is, hierarchical, mandate-driven, compliance-monitored and unreflective as a system. With control as a central feature of change, individuals have adopted beliefs and practices conducive to institutional demands rather than those reflective of personal significance and meaning. For the most part, the reform demands that evolved during the twentieth century preserved and extended the only structure thought to be conducive to schooling the bureaucratic system of hierarchical authority. In the absence of an alternative approach from which to consider change, individuals need not pursue a more reflective stance, nor alter their teaching approaches, nor revise their organizations until so directed by others through didactic policies and practices. Not surprisingly, inertia and resistance have become embedded in this conventional reductionist paradigm for change as suggested by Charles Taylor (1984): Freeing oneself from a model cannot be done just by showing an alternative. What we we need to do is get over the presumption of the unique conceivability of the embedded picture. But to do this, we have to take a new stance towards our practices. Instead of just living in them and taking their implicit construal of things as they are, we have to understand how they have come to be, how they came to embed a certain view of things. In other words to undo the forgetting, we have to articulate for ourselves how it happened, to become aware of the way a picture slid from the status of discovery to that of inarticulate assumption, a fact too obvious to mention, (p. 21)

SBM and its assumptions for interpretation, interchange, and reflection suggest an alternative to the bureaucratic structure of schools. Together with new practices that promote dialogue and reflection among teachers and students premised on the assumption that all students be provided with the opportunity to improve their learning, the invitation exists for special education to join in this conversation. In this way, the partnership Will (1986) urged is more likely to evolve. Educative practice in the movement toward inclusion As schools explore the possibility of inclusion, educative practice issues are likened to another fundamental concern, that of appropriate instructional practice (see Bailey (Chapter 2) and Udvari-Solner and Thousand (Chapter 11) in this volume). Co-operative learning is

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often suggested as the means to facilitate inclusion, along with experiental learning, peer tutoring, parallel programming and community based, functional programming (Biklen, Ferguson and Ford, 1989; Lipsky and Gartner, 1989; Stainback and Stainback, 1990). Likewise, team teaching is suggested as a means to involve all teaching staff to the greatest extent possible so as to capitalize on a broader base of instructional expertise (e.g. Bauwens, Hourcade and Friend, 1989; Idol, Paolucci-Whitcomb and Nevin, 1986; Thousand and Villa, 1990). Increasingly, these solutions have gained in popularity, although they remain far from the norm in most schools. The concern of this author is that these approaches suggest the existence of a 'right' teaching method or means to entice students to master the 'regular' curriculum. Rather than isolating the extant curriculum as problematic, it is too often the student who is identified as in need of help (see also Booth (Chapter 8), and Slee (Chapter 3)). For this reason an alternative perspective is suggested in which special education joins regular education in support of curriculum reform through the development of national standards in mathematics and science which stresses meaningful teaching and improved learning by all students (e.g. Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, 1989; the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, 1991; Project 2061: Science for All Americans, 1990; Benchmarks for Science Literacy, 1993). This fundamental reform in both mathematics and science has 'adopted the view of reality as a personal construction of complex interactions between the environment and the learner and thus rejects behaviorism in favor of constructivism' (Ware, 1994a, p. 395). In turn, formidable challenges to well-established teaching routines and learning structures have prompted the reconsideration of learning time, subject matter, instructional materials and the classroom and school environment to accommodate educative practice. The potential is clear for educators from general and special education to develop educative practice that blends the intrinsic strengths of both systems into a single inclusive system (Ware, 1994a). Renewed curriculum and the implications for inclusive education At the heart of educative practice is the transformation of conventional beliefs about teaching and learning from behaviorist to constructivist influences. Cohen, McLaughlin and Talbert (1993) distinguish teaching for understanding by the dual goal for student development of critical thinking skills and authentic learning. They claim that: 'rather than reproduce facts, teachers expect their students to explain their

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ideas, support their conclusions, and persist when they are stumped' (p. 2). In a departure from the orthodox pedagogy which places teachers in control of the curriculum and students as the receivers of knowledge, teaching for understanding undermines the transmission model that pervades education. Suggestions for change include new classroom management strategies and revised routines similar to those endorsed by NCTM (mathematics), Project 2061 (science) and reading through whole-language instruction. Although the actual content of these curricula represent significant challenges to all learners and prompt important new definitions about the nature and meaning of learning, the scope of this topic prohibits extensive consideration here. (For a more comprehensive discussion, see Ware, 1994a.) Research into classrooms where educative practice is evidenced, in the form of renewed curricula in mathematics, science and reading through whole-language instruction, indicates that teachers have, in fact, challenged their own assumptions about the nature of teaching and learning (Cohen and Ball, 1990; Schifter and Fosnot, 1993). Moreover, the degree to which these innovations challenge the conventional paradigm of practice prompts a range of teacher response from acceptance to avoidance. That is, in those instances where curriculum renewal occurs in the absence of SBM or an ongoing critical conversation on change, frustration and anxiety among teachers is likely to be increased. In the example of the Emerson Project, while some teachers made progress toward educative change, most did not. Initially, uninformed of the national policy behind the change in mathematics, most were unwilling to move 'too quickly' from 'proven' conventional practices. Even among those who willingly attempted the implementation of innovation, doubt about the legitimacy of new practices persisted. Teachers were troubled about what to expect from students and anxious about assessing mastery. One teacher explained: I just wonder whether this will really help them do any better than the way we used to teach math... I can see that my students are more interested and curious using the manipulatives, but whatever is supposed to happen with these activities, still seems too unclear to me... I just don't feel comfortable with it yet. (Ware, 1994b, p. 145)

Another teacher expressed similar frustration as she implemented cooperative learning in her third grade classroom. When I think about how I taught reading before - we would read together as a class. That way, I knew who had trouble with vocabulary, or comprehension, and we could go through problems together. Now I give the class their instructions, we go over the assignment together, and that's it. I just

137 don't feel like I know what's going on like I did before. I don't know who's getting what. Are there still comprehension problems? Vocabulary problems? They're reading 3-4 pages on their own now, but there's no one there to make sure they understand it. (Ware, 1994b, p. 171)

Quite simply, co-operative learning clashed with her preferred traditional approach to teaching: When I walk around the classroom I hear them tell each other the answers instead of talking through their answers, or the discussion is way over the lower-level kids' heads, and the higher-level kids don't seem to have the patience to wait for the others. (Ware, 1994b, p. 171)

Over the course of the school year, these teachers evidenced an inability to free themselves from traditional teaching models. They dithered between embrace and rejection of constructivist mathematics and cooperative learning unable to contend with the radical paradigmatic shift in practice each innovation characterized. Abandonment of tradition and of routine expectation posed the greatest obstacle to change as noted by the special education teacher responsible for developing the district inclusion model: I think that a lot of what these teachers are doing in their classrooms with mathematics and cooperative grouping is going right over their heads. It seems to me that they just don't get the point of this kind of teaching and learning. So many still can't see that what the traditional school has always required - the basal text, workbooks, seatwork, fixed objectives, and so forth; you know, the whole paper/pencil approach - is in direct conflict with the approach needed to make these innovations work. I think that before any of these innovations work, teachers are going to have to see how little will match the traditional expectation for learning. (Ware, 1994b, p. 205)

This teacher, more than any of the other Emerson teachers, challenged the implicit construal of conventional practice urged by Taylor (1984). Her presence in classrooms as the inclusion facilitator provided her with first-hand observations of teachers as they adopted instructional innovations and struggled to mesh two conflicting paradigms of practice. She witnessed their moments of tension and puzzlement when non-traditional lessons fell short of the anticipated success. By her account, the general education teachers held too firm a grip on traditional expectations for learning. More accustomed to teaching by prescription than by invention, the teachers' frustration resulted from a lack of confidence in, and familiarity with, practices that empowered them to be the ultimate 'judges' of their students' success. On this, the special education teacher explained:

138 These innovations really require teachers to know immensely more about learning that they've ever had to know before. It immediately takes them out of the realm of where anybody who walks into the classroom can pick up the basal reader and teacher's manual, and do the class. I'm sure this will scare the dickens out of someone, to think for the first time now, that they're going to have to get more informed about teaching for understanding concepts and more awareness of kids' individual responses. It's ironic but the system really hasn't expected this from teachers. So not only do we have the problem of trying to get rid of the textbook, bringing in manipulatives in place of workbooks, and teaching the teachers how to use these materials, but more, you've somehow got to get the teachers to consider the bigger changes behind this approach to teaching. (Ware, 1994b, p. 206)

The 'bigger changes' behind this approach to teaching were, in fact, far from realized by most teachers associated with the Emerson Project. In the absence of a structural change to accommodate the development of a new professional culture to support the shift to constructivist mathematics, and co-operative learning, these innovations were ultimately abandoned. Moreover, in the instance of inclusion, efforts to work along common lines, to share a common spirit, to seek common aims likewise failed. The special education teacher was deterred by those unwilling to consider the cultural implications of the traditional separation of regular and special education, those who voiced the intractable history of exclusion without apology. One veteran high school mathematics teacher who staunchly rejected both the reform in mathematics, and that in inclusion, claimed that 'the regular education classroom is not the place for remedial or special education students' (Ware, 1994b, p. 200). Teaching in a rural setting with a less-than-twenty faculty, his was, by all standards, an ideal context for inclusion; nonetheless, his attitude was framed by the 'if one/then all' argument - that is, if one student in the regular education classroom can do the work without modifications, then all students can do the work. Inspired to preserve the institution as it currently exists, his perspective characterized the 'institutionalized ostracism of special education students' (Ware, 1994b, p. 201). In contrast, teachers at Willa Gather High School were clearly involved in educative change through ongoing transformation of policy, practice and, some might argue, the transformation of persons. Consider Jonathan, the US History and Government teacher who evaluated his personal growth as follows: Since I started working with Julie (special education co-teacher), I think a lot of her patience has rubbed off on me. I was always one who believed

139 that all kids were the same - kinda my rationalization for equity. But you see, that meant I expected the same thing from each one of them and I was pretty inflexible - no excuses accepted, no allowances made. Over the past three years I've been able to appreciate each kid individually - to see that there are differences, but their differences don't have to be strikes against them. In our classes, when a kid makes the effort - he generally makes the grade. The power of this perspective gains with consideration of the following excerpts from this teacher's former classroom rules: Classroom rules, procedures, policies and expectations. 1. You are expected to be in class on time! Tardies will not be tolerated!! A tardy will result in being given a 15 minute detention that will be served between 7:30 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. daily. Every two tardies not made up with detention time, will result in the reduction of one's classroom grade by one letter grade. (See Appendices A and B for complete versions of both former and revised rules.). The following revised class rules were issued in the form of a memo to his students after two years of inclusion team teaching: Current class rules TO: The Students of Willa Gather High School FROM: Mr. Jonathan Lamont SUBJECT: New Beginnings Each year a new class becomes a part of my team. It is my intention to pass out the following information. It's important we all clearly understand and operate under the same set of expectations. It is my intention and your goal to successfully complete the task at hand. It may not always be easy but it will be an experience we all will remember. This may not be like any class you have taken before so I encourage you to open up and examine what the course has to offer. And who knows, maybe we'll learn something together. Jonathan was quick to assert that he could never return to teaching in his 'pre-inclusion' style. His transformation to a more humane interaction style with students, a more collaborative spirit with his fellow teachers, and the creation of a more democratic classroom supports the adage that 'people don't change, but they can'. In summary, educative practice, informed by educative policy presents a unique opportunity for regular and special education teachers to join forces to invent their own solutions. Derived from curriculum reform inspired by invention and a constructivist rather than a mechanistic perspective - one in which inclusion is an integral - signals

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the emergence of a new professional culture sustained by SBM. However, the day-to-day context of American schools remains one of controlled chaos in which teachers move through their day, week, semester and sometimes the school year, in the absence of structured time in which to reflect upon and evaluate their progress. This is not to suggest that teachers lack the capacity to evaluate, rather, as schools are currently structured, teachers are not afforded the occasion to evaluate their own actions, interactions, and progress (see also Ainscow (Chapter 6) and Clark, Dyson, Milward and Skidmore (Chapter 7). For this reason, educative research is suggested as the third component in support of educative change as its methods capture that which might otherwise be overlooked or lost in the ongoing action of change agents. The shift to educative research The significance of educative research in the progress toward educative change can be characterized as part of a larger movement in American education. Over the past decade a new emphasis on qualitative methods in educational research has paved the way for researchers to reconsider how method structures relations in schools and how specific historical contexts have influenced the existence of these structures. Criticism has expanded to include a broad range of issues including: those related to the replication of race, class and gender relations (Schaafsma, 1993; Simon and Dippo, 1986; Walkerdine, 1988, 1990; Weiler, 1988); openly ideological research methods grounded in feminism and a critique of oppression (Ellsworth, 1989; Gergen, 1988; Hekman, 1990; Lather, 1991; Luke and Gore, 1992); a more highly politicized form of action research (Carr and Kemmis, 1986); hegemony (Giroux, 1988b; Lather, 1986; McLaren, 1988; Shor and Freire, 1987); critical theory (Bowers, 1984; Cherryholmes, 1988; Skrtic, 1990, 199la); and emancipatory change in schools (Freire, 1970; Gitlin, 1990; Maeroff, 1988; Sirotnik, 1991). Each has prompted new consideration of the ways in which qualitative research in educational settings can empower individuals to articulate their purposes, intentions, emotions and consciousness in attempts at fundamental transformation of school culture. And whereas qualitative inquiry once focussed on the description of real contexts and the rendering of real voices, its current formulation - that of action that interrupts mythical norms and the embedded nature of unchallenged paradigms - make it particularly well-suited to those issues related to inclusion reported in this paper. Educative research is integral to educative change given that schools

141 reproduce many of the attitudes and dispositions that help structure social relationships. They are in a unique position to reflect upon issues related to class, race, gender and disability - and to revise their policies and practices accordingly. Educative research is proposed as a more dialogical approach to inquiry, wherein a mutually shaping relationship is attempted between the researcher and the researched. Drawing on the notion of full participation, Gitlin (1990) suggests that 'one criteria of validity would be the degree to which the research process enabled disenfranchised groups to fully participate in the decision making process; examine their beliefs, actions, and the school context; and make changes based on this understanding' (p. 446). Moreover, Gitlin contends that if actions are to be taken that confront school-wide structures and normative priorities that define: educational relations and activities in narrow ways, then some form of collective action is necessary. The intent of collective action is not to silence minority opinions or actions, but rather to enable ever-changing groups with common interests to act in concert on the limits of public education... Educative research expands the authority to produce knowledge beyond the researcher; attempts to restructure the researcher-subject relation such that both are involved in identifying and examining beliefs, practices, and normative truths; invokes the moral claim against silencing the other in the name of research; fosters a political view of knowledge; and attempts to encourage a more collective approach to research that can mobilize groups typically left out of educational policy discourse, (pp. 448-9) Educative research and the implications for inclusion Educative research was utilized in both projects reported here. First, in the Emerson project the research design was modified to include multiple member checks which served as a 'conversation on change' informed by the researcher's observations and interviews with the participants. Given the absence of SBM, the member checks prompted the realization of a need for increased professional dialogue. In addition, the participants, through this conversation, reshaped the design and focus of the research in an attempt to promote transformation and change. On occasion, comments made during the member checks were startling to the researcher and to some participants, nonetheless they revealed the intractable history of the exclusion of students in Emerson. Comments like those made by the high school mathematics teacher were less prevalent among the elementary teachers, however there was little evidence of shared common ground or commitment to inclusion. Although the conversation on change was slow to take hold given the tense moments and the emotions expressed in face-to-

142 face encounters, in the process many came to realize the comprehensive nature of the changes they were attempting. The obvious parallels between the implementation of meaningful reform were realized by some participants; however, the absence of an identified structure to support human agency, self-understanding, interpretation and dialogue - those traditionally uncommon features of educational change, proved too great an obstacle to overcome in the Emerson Project. Despite the interest and support of some teachers and administrators involved, the conversation on change was terminated at the conclusion of the project. Given that Project SEIK is still in the stage of data collection, it is anticipated that follow-up activities for Year 3 will include structured conversations on change, and ongoing member checks following individual participant interviews and classroom observations. The issues identified, and the questions posed at the end of Year 2 suggest the need for continued shaping and reshaping of inclusion policy and practice. For instance, at one site, concerns were raised by the researchers who observed that the bulk of instructional intervention for the students with severe needs was, in fact, the responsibility of the classroom paraprofessionals (an issue likewise raised by Slee, Chapter 3). Their conversation prompted questions about meaningful practice in general as several teachers voiced frustration and decreasing confidence in determining instructional content for students with special needs. Through this research, they articulated an underlying concern relative to ownership issues that are central to the merger of general and special education. In this way, educative research served to: [C]hange the focus of research from problem solving to question posing, and fostering teachers' voices by enabling those who work in schools to tell and retell their stories based on a critical examination of teaching and schooling. When successful, research of this kind is no longer a one-way process from researcher to subject but a dialogical process that brings researcher and subject together in the quest for an understanding that recognizes the political moment. (Gitlin, 1990, p. 464) To summarize, through educative research, understanding turns more on personal relevance and the articulated goals of individuals motivated to make change, as judgment, persuasion and idiosyncrasy converge to reshape the purpose of inquiry. As communities contend with inclusion and the implications for reform, the research agenda becomes a 'transformative one' which Lather (1986) stresses has its emphasis on shared meaning-making that educates both the researched and the researcher. Dialogical methods capture the telling, and retelling of

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the stories of inclusion, which at once reveal and promote self-critical evaluation of site-specific inclusion practices and policies. Conclusion Throughout this chapter educative change has been characterized by interpretation, meaning-making, reflection and dialogue. Invention and an ongoing search for what works locally rather than that which seems to work elsewhere have been described as the natural outcome of efforts grounded by positive interdependence between educative policy, educative practice and educative research. Educative change advances the interrogation of mythical norms embedded in everyday schooling which, in turn, enables those persons most responsible for creating change at its smallest unit (the classroom) to promote inclusion. The success of this local endeavor will enable schools to become more capable, willing players in the wider context of special education reform through inclusion.

144 APPENDIX A FORMER CLASS RULES (Jonathan Lament) 1. You are expected to be in class on time! Tardies will not be tolerated!! A tardy will result in being given a 15 minute detention that will be served between 7:30 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. daily. Every two tardies not made up with detention time, will result in the reduction of one's classroom grade by one letter grade. 2. You are expected to bring your book(s), pencils/pens, paper and notebooks to class every day. Be prepared to work. 3. You and your attitude are expected to be positive every day. You are expected to participate in classroom discussions or activities. When class is in a discussion or having lectures, you do not interupt the speaker of the class. 4. You are expected to clean up after yourself. Do not write on desk tops or trash the bottom rack of your desk. Take pride and be responsible for yourself in dealing with these matters. 5. Students are to remain quiet during all 'P. A/ announcements. 6. Mr. Lamont reserves the right to deal with hall passes on an individual basis. 7. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to get with the teacher, before or after class to see what assignments need or can be made up. NOT ALL ASSIGNMENTS CAN BE MADE UP! The make-up procedures and the excused/unexcused absence policies are outlined in the student manual. Do not let your absences get out of hand or you will be dropped from the course. 8.1 DO NOT ACCEPT LATE ASSIGNMENTS! If a student forgets to turn in an assignment or fails to complete an assignment, then he/she will receive an T' or ZERO points for the assignment. Please, no excuses need to be given because no excuse will be accepted. 9. Because of the high cost of reproducing handouts and other materials, only one copy will be given to each student. Lost materials are your responsibility. 10. What it takes to pass:

Be on time. Pay Attention. Stay out of trouble. Give 100%.

145 APPENDIX B CURRENT CLASS RULES (Jonathan Lament) TO: The Students of Willa Gather High School FROM: Mr. Jonathan Lament SUBJECT: New Beginnings Each year a new class becomes a part of my team. It is my intention to pass out the following information. It's important we all clearly understand and operate under the same set of expectations. It is my intention and your goal to successfully complete the task at hand. It may not always be easy but it will be an experience we all will remember. This may not be like any class you have taken before so I encourage you to open up and examine what the course has to offer. And who knows, maybe we'll learn something together. What I Believe In: 1. We must have a clear vision and understanding of our purpose and mission. Everything we do must support the mission of this class. 2. Do the day's duties well. Be on time and avoid tardies. Bring your book, pencil and paper every day. Be the total student. Be the person you should be. 3. Research, read and study. Never tire, nor be satisfied with what you know. There's always more to learn. Be the best student you can be. 4. Communicate with each other and with all students. 5. Support each other in the class. We are a team. No secrets - just support. 6. Be a model student. Take reasonable risks. Be creative. Ask 'why' a lot. Be a positive force. 7. Deliver high quality work. Recognize, and never forget our mission. Be dependable and reliable. Have integrity. 8. Make efficient use of your time. Turnaround time on make-up work is 24 hours. If you're absent, make some type of contact as soon as possible. 9. My door is always open. Use it. Just be courteous to those already occupying my time. 10. Credibility is essential. It's earned. 11. Thinking is paramount. Think for good reasons. Believe in yourself and

146 be committed to what you believe in. If your thinking is wrong - fix it, but don't blame someone or something else. The worst thinking is not to think at all.

DQi 1. Always ask why. Just because we've always done it one way doesn't mean it is best or right. 2. Work must be complete and detailed. Use your complete thought process. Do your best and improve on it. 3. Challenge me. Challenge yourself. Challenge those around you. Allow freedom to fail - yourself and others. Some of the greatest lessons are learned through failure. 4. Keep me informed. I don't like surprises. I don't need to know everything - just the important items. 5. Applaud success - even the little ones. We can all be humbled if only our errors are highlighted. DON'T: 1. Don't surprise me. 2. Don't cover up for others. Get problems out on the table. Don't place blame. Just solve the problem. 3. When you come to me with a problem, don't come without a possible solution in mind. 4. Don't make commitments you can't keep. 5. Don't be late. Only crises are the exception. / look forward to working with each and every one of you. We have a big job ahead of us. We'll do it together. Jonathan Lamont

Chapter 11

Effective Organisational, Instructional and Curricular Practices in Inclusive Schools and Classrooms Alice Udvari-Solner and Jacqueline Thousand

Introduction What is inclusive education? A number of school reform initiatives in the United States have led to the call for education restructuring relative to students with disabilities. Among the initiatives are those that hope to include in school and community life those students who in the past have been excluded. Today, many people are using the terms inclusion or inclusive education to refer to the concept of educating all children within their local community. Communities striving to practice inclusive education attempt to structure a school environment whereby the needs of every student are accommodated and success is fostered for all. All children regardless of the type or intensity of their perceived educational, physical or psychological challenge are valued; and school personnel, family members and friends work together to develop and support caring learning communities that nurture friendships and commitments among their members (Stainback, Stainback and Jackson, 1992). Inclusive education is seen as a process of operating a classroom or school as a supportive community. Thus, it is different from integration and mainstreaming which focus upon how to help a particular category of students (e.g. students with severe disabilities) fit into the mainstream. Mounting evidence suggests that schools and communities that have not incorporated the concept of inclusion into their lives have had increased problems with under-achievement, students dropping out of school, and gang violence (Coleman and Hoffer, 1987; Maeroff, 1990; Villa, Udis and Thousand, 1994).

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What is the curriculum for the twenty-first-century? Given an inclusive education context, will the goals of education and the corresponding curriculum need to change? To explore this question, we invite the reader to think about and answer the following question: 'What should be the goals of public education?' In other words: 4 What are the outcomes, attitudes, dispositions and skills you want the children you care about to possess by the time they exit high school?' Over the past decade this question has been posed to tens of thousands of parents, teachers, administrators, students, university professors and concerned citizens of the United States, Canada, Honduras, Micronesia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, China and Russia. What is notable is that regardless of the divergent perspectives, vested interests or locale of the people queried, their responses are very similar and tend to fall into one or more of the four categories shown in Table 11.1 that have been borrowed from Native American culture. Table 11.1 Frequently identified goals of public education by category Belonging Having friends Ability to form and maintain relationships Getting along with others, including co-workers Being part of a community Being a caring parent and family member Mastery Having success and becoming competent in something or some things Being well-rounded Being a good problem-solver Flexible Motivated Literate Able to use technology Life-long learner Reaching potential in areas of interest Independence Having choice in work, recreation, leisure or continued learning Confidence to take risks Being as independent as possible Assuming personal responsibility Accountable for actions and decisions Being able to self-advocate Generosity Being a contributing member of society Valuing diversity Being empathetic Offering compassion, caring and support to others Being a responsible citizen Global stewardship

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Traditional Native American education was based upon the culture's main purpose of existence; that is, the education and empowerment of its children. The educational philosophy and approach was holistic, with the central goal of fostering a child's 'Circle of Courage' (Brendtro, Brokenleg and Van Bockern, 1990, p. 34). The circle was comprised of four educational objectives or components of self esteem - belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. As already noted, these four dimensions of education correspond with the responses articulated today by concerned citizens worldwide (see Table 11.1). It seems, then, that despite the diversity among the people sampled, they still share common beliefs as to the desired outcomes for students. Furthermore, these outcomes are the same for children with identified educational, physical, social and emotional challenges as for children who are never labelled 'special' in some way. Examining the outcomes of education listed in Table 11.1, it becomes clear that people want a curriculum for the 21st century that goes far beyond traditional academic domains - a curriculum that both reflects and supports the inclusive education concept. Unfortunately, the organizational, instructional and curricular practices of many US schools do not promote the achievement of the goals of education articulated above. For example, curriculum long has been perceived as a standard set of sequenced requirements from a predefmable body of knowledge that all students must learn in order to receive a satisfactory 'grade'. Instruction often is passive, competitive, didactic, teacher-directed and geared toward middle-achieving students. Grade level placement is considered synonymous with curricular content, so children who do not 'learn' the curriculum given the instructional methods and timelines employed are failed or excluded altogether from the classroom. As many have pointed out (e.g. Giangreco, Cloninger, Dennis and Edelman, 1994; Smith, 1986; Udvari-Solner, 1994a), standardized curriculum and delivery approaches have proven to be uninteresting, void of meaning or purpose, and unresponsive to the inherent diversity in background experiences, learning rates and styles, and personal interests of many students. Further, the organizational practices of ability grouping and tracking emphasize student differences rather than their commonalities and fail to facilitate constructive interactions that build social competence and the sense of community that inclusive education and the goals of education as represented by the Circle of Courage embody. Over the past decade the authors have studied schools that have attempted to promote the goals of education for all students including those who have been traditionally marginalized, perceived as dis-

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abled, at risk or gifted. What we have discovered is that teachers in these schools have at their command two sets of practice, we will refer to as 'core' and 'adaptive'. First, teachers ground their instruction in core educational practices established or emerging as exemplary initiatives in general education. In addition to these broad core initiatives, educators in inclusive schools develop and use an adaptive process to design accommodations for students with unique learning characteristics so that individual instructional needs can be met. The remainder of this chapter briefly presents the most often observed core practices and identifies how these practices interface with and foster inclusive education. This is followed by a detailed description of a curricular adaptation decision-making process that represents an heuristic model employed by teachers to accommodate students with unique needs. This adaptive process emerged from a three-year investigation that examined teacher thinking, as educators, paraprofessionals and parents engaged in creative problem-solving regarding daily curricular, instructional and learning outcomes for their students. Core educational practices The school reform discussions of the past decade in the United States have yielded a broad range of initiatives to improve educational practice and measurement of student performance. Among the initiatives that hold great promise for building inclusive schools are outcomesbased education, multicultural education, constructivist learning, interdisciplinary curriculum, authentic assessment of student performance, multi-age grouping, peer-mediated instructional approaches, and collaborative teaming among adults. Table 11.2 presents the link between Table 11.2 Interface between core educational practices and inclusive education Core practices

Principles consistent with inclusive education

Outcomes-based education

• Curriculum and outcomes are defined in broad, balanced areas of knowledge and skill rather than narrow subject areas (e.g. communication, reasoning and problem-solving, personal development and social responsibility) (Mclaughlin and Warren, 1992; Vermont State Department of Education, 1993). • Premised on the belief that all children can learn and succeed (Spady and Marshall, 1991). • Schools/communities establish the means (the curriculum) by which significant outcomes are achieved. • Students are expected to demonstrate success in their own way.

151 Multicultural education

• Same ideological framework, with goals to: (a) foster human rights and respect for difference; (b) acknowledge the value of cultural diversity; (c) promote an understanding of alternative life choices; (d) establish social justice and equal opportunity; and (e) facilitate equitable power distribution among individuals and groups (Gollnick, 1980; Grant and Sleeter, 1989). • Commitment to empower students and increase academic achievement. • Advocates re-design of entire educational agenda to make learning environments responsive to cultures, behavior and learning styles (Banks and McGee Banks, 1989). • Reconstructionist orientation (i.e. students evaluate inequities, instances of discrimination and identify strategies for change (Brameld, 1956; Sleeter and Grant, 1994).

Constructivist learning

• Knowledge is not quantitative but interpretive and develops in social contexts of communities and communicative exchanges (Peterson and Knapp, 1993). • Challenges current reductionist, deficit-driven approaches that suppose children are unable to learn higher order skills before mastering those of lower order (Peterson, Fennema and Carpenter, 1988-89). • Assumes all people are always learning, and few, if any prerequisites for learning exist (Poplin and Stone, 1992). • Assumes child must be met at his/her current level of performance without undue focus on remediation (Stainback, Stainback and Moravec, 1992). • Expects teachers to relate new information in meaningful ways to learner's existing knowledge.

Interdisciplinary or thematic curriculum

• Employs methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine central theme, issue or experience (Jacobs, 1989) rather than unitary discipline-based approaches. • Minimizes fragmentation of learning for students with disabilities by presenting curriculum in a related and contextual manner with consideration for generalization and transfer (Ackerman and Perkins, 1989; Udvari-Solner and Thousand, in press).

Authentic assessment

»Closely linked to individualized, performancebased assessment that has been the preferred mode assessment in special education. • Offers variety of vehicles to assess multiple views of intelligence. • Allows expression or demonstration of knowledge in multiple and non-traditional ways (e.g. demonstrating the principles of physics by building a model structure that withstands specific weight) (Perrone, 1991). • Less likely to be culturally biased relative to students who are limited in English proficiency or in

152 any other intellectual, physical or emotional capacity. • Assessment activities inform and influence day-today teaching. Multi-age grouping

• Emphasizes a single learning community with a heterogeneous collection of students in gender, ability, ethnicity, interests and age levels (Kasten and Clarke, 1993). • Views learning as a continuous and dynamic process in which children are expected to learn at different rates and levels, thus requiring differential instruction (Eklind, 1987). • Growth is viewed in biological and psychological time so that learning experiences are designed as developmental^ appropriate for each child. • Multiple years with same teacher and classmates promotes long-term networks of support for students with disabilities. • Minimizes transitions from setting to setting and teacher to teacher thus combating generalization and associated adjustment difficulties for some students with disabilities (Udvari-Solner and Thousand, in press).

Peer-mediated instruction: Co-operative learning models

• Enables students 'to learn and work in environments where their individual needs are addressed' (Sapon-Shevin, Ayres, and Duncan, 1994, p. 46). • Transforms classroom into a microcosm of a diverse society and work world into which students will enter. • Students acquire social skills to appreciate and cope with people who initially might be perceived as 'different' or 'difficult'. (Johnson and Johnson, 1994). • The quality of instruction from peers may be more effective than from adults because children use more age-appropriate, meaningful language and may better understand their partner's potential frustrations. • Students who teach concepts and procedures understand them at a deeper level, thus engaging in meta-cognitive activity.

Peer Tutoring/partner learning

Collaborative teaming among adults

• Schools have restructured and realigned staff and their responsibilities to bring together into teams educators who formerly were separated from one another (e.g. regular educators, special educators, paraprofessionals, bilingual educators, vocational educators, etc.) (Thousand and Villa, 1992). • Students and staff benefit from combined conceptual, material, technical and human resources created in collaborative teams. • Leadership functions are distributed creating coequal partnerships among professionals (Thousand, Villa, and Nevin, 1994). • Responsibility and decision-making for students with unique learning needs are shared. • Teachers model co-operative teaching and

153 decision-making expected of students in inclusive classrooms. • In classrooms with collaborative instructors, the teacherrstudent ratio is higher, allowing for more immediate and accurate intervention for social/academic needs of students. • Instruction improves as teachers acquire skills and methodologies of team mates with different (i.e. special vs. general) training.

these core practices and inclusive education. A common objective to all of these practices is the creation of learning environments that reflect and celebrate diversity, and create experiences that acknowledge different learning rates, levels, and styles. This list is certainly not exhaustive, and the reader is encouraged to stay abreast of the continual invention and reconceptualization of best practice that takes place each day in the dynamic interactions between students and teachers. For a more in-depth discussion of these issues see Udvari-Solner and Thousand (in press). Implementation of the exemplary or promising practices identified in this chapter will establish a strong infrastructure within which the principles of inclusive education can be achieved. These initiatives, although global in nature, have potential to create unified philosophies and set clear standards of practice within schools. Adaptive strategies to accommodate students with unique learning needs The movement toward inclusion is a socio-political process (Wisniewski and Alper, 1994) that not only requires shared values about students and learning but also requires significant innovation and adaptation in instructional practices for those values to be realized within the day-to-day workings of a classroom. Udvari-Solner (1994b) conducted a qualitative study to examine this process of innovation by documenting, explicating and interpreting the adaptive strategies and instructional decisions made by general and special educators as they attempted to include students with disabilities. The primary questions that framed the investigation were: • How do educators formulate, identify, select or create curricular adaptations? • What teacher behavior positively influences the social, physical and academic inclusion of a student with disabilities? • What elements of the classroom climate or organizational structure positively influence the inclusion of the student with disabilities into the classroom culture?

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• What type of general education activities and curricular adaptations are most successful in engaging students with disabilities in the life of the general education classroom? The investigation was formulated to explore the impact of reflective practice and to deconstruct teacher thinking as educators engaged in a dialogue about curriculum and instructional considerations for students with significantly different learning needs. Utilizing the constant comparative method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), semi-structured interviews, and participant observations across multiple classroom sites, three distinct bodies of information emerged: (a) common dilemmas experienced by teams of educators when designing inclusive classrooms; (b) the form and function of successful adaptations; and (c) a process for decision-making when curricular adaptations are needed. Common dilemmas experienced by educators designing inclusive classrooms During interviews with individuals and participant observations of planning meetings, team members were asked to discuss any initial barriers experienced in the process of adaptation, communication and team decision-making. A number of common constraints or dilemmas were revealed. Specifically, teachers from general and special education disciplines did not share a common language to discuss curricular adaptations, often resulting in miscommunication and misunderstanding of expected responsibilities and outcomes. When an agreed upon planning process to select adaptations was absent, inefficient use of time and ineffective methods of modification ensued. Despite awareness of the need for collaboration, lessons and activities frequently were already planned or 'in place' before the involvement of the student with disabilities was discussed. The combined effects of these dilemmas had deleterious repercussions on the participation of students with disabilities within general education classrooms. Adverse consequences included: (a) continued use of traditional methods of lesson design and instruction without considering the student's need for alternative approaches; (b) over-use of 'parallel' activities for the student with disabilities (i.e. tasks that are unrelated to the content and activities of non-disabled classmates) rather than having a true vision of the student's participation; (c) reliance on paraprofessionals or specialists to provide one-to-one assistance or to adapt 'on the spot' for the student with disabilities; and (d) dependence on one professional to bear the weight of modification

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design and implementation. The existence of these dilemmas confirms the importance of shared values and teaching philosophies, and a common, agreed-upon process for adaptation that can be used collaboratively among team members. The form and function ofcurricular adaptations Modifications that relate specifically to instruction or curricular content in general education environments are referred to as curricular adaptations. A curricular adaptation represents any adjustment or modification in the environment, instruction or materials used for learning that enhances a person's performance or allows at least partial participation in an activity (Baumgart et al., 1982; Udvari-Solner, 1992). An adaptation identified as 'effective' by teachers, parents, paraprofessionals, therapists and students themselves fulfilled one or more of the following functions: (a) assisted the individual to compensate for intellectual, physical, sensory or behavioral challenges (Nisbet et al., 1983); (b) allowed the individual to use his/her current skill repertoire while promoting the acquisition of new skills; (c) prevented a mismatch between the student's skills and the general education lesson content (Giangreco and Putnam, 1991); (d) reduced the level of abstraction of information so as to make content relevant to the student's current and future life; and (e) created a match between the student's learning style and the instructor's teaching style. Formulating the purpose of the adaptation in relationship to the learning needs of the student was an essential step in the design and selection process employed by educators. A curricular adaptation decision-making process Teachers who successfully include students with diverse learning characteristics are constantly making decisions about what will be adapted, adjusted, reconfigured, streamlined and clarified in their curriculum and instruction. To better understand this process an attempt was made to deconstruct teacher thinking relative to the development of curricular adaptations. Teachers appeared first to engage in an internal, personal dialogue; in a sense using a sequence of questions that guided reflection of their own practices. Consequently, this private dialogue became a public exchange with other educators, parents or professionals as decisions about what to teach and how to teach were made. Teachers reflected upon and subsequently called into question the arrangements and lesson formats of their instruction, the demands and

156 evaluation criteria of the task, elements of the social and physical learning environment, materials used for learning, and the human support structure provided to the student. In addition, some teachers called into question the overall usefulness of the existing curriculum and proposed alternative activities when the other adaptation strategies were inadequate or insufficient. To capture and conceptualize the act of selecting and utilizing curricular adaptations, a decision-making process is proposed (UdvariSolner, 1992, 1994a). This process, which can be viewed as heuristic, is organized as a series of questions to mirror the internal dialogue engaged in by teachers. When viewing teachers' decisions collectively across multiple settings, a hierarchy of instructional strategies emerged. Thus, the adaptation strategies embedded in the decision-making process progress from the least intrusive to more intrusive means of modification thereby guiding teachers first to consider changes in the essential elements of lesson design before imposing more complex and potentially stigmatizing adaptations. The questions associated with the decision-making process are articulated below. Each question is followed by an explication or illustration of decisions educators may make in regard to instructional practices. Can the student actively participate in the lesson without modifications and will the same essential outcome be achieved? There are many points in the day or week when adaptations are not needed. Just as there is danger in not providing sufficient adaptations, there is danger in over-adapting or over-supporting a student with adult supervision when it is unneeded. As a guideline, teams determine if, without modification, the student with disabilities will achieve or experience the same essential outcome as non-disabled peers. If they determine not, then supplementary adaptations are most likely warranted. Can the student's participation be increased by changing the instructional arrangement? There are a number of instructional arrangements from which teachers choose to structure any given subject or lesson. The most common alternatives for student groupings include: (a) large group or whole class instruction; (b) teacher-directed small group instruction; (c) small group learning; (d) one-to-one teacher/student instruction; (d) independent seat work; (e) partner learning, peer tutors or cross-age tutors; and (f) co-operative learning groups. The instructional arrangement can have a profound effect on how the lesson is taught and how the student

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is expected or allowed to participate. The instructional groupings of choice in most American classrooms continue to be whole group and independent seat work: arrangements that often pose problems for students with disabilities. The decision to depart from traditional instructional arrangements and employ small group or peer-mediated learning may be one of the most effective steps to facilitate the inclusion of a student with disabilities. Teacher-directed groups and small group learning allow more opportunities for teacher/student and student/student contact than either large group or independent seat work. The use of peer-mediated learning including co-operative groups, and peer or cross-age tutoring, provide frequent opportunities to build social skill repertoires, improve active participation, promote student initiation and apply skills contextually (Davidson, 1994; Harper, Maheady and Mallette, 1994). Can the student's participation be increased by changing the lesson format? Lesson format refers to the organizational anatomy of an activity which influences how information will be imparted to the student and how the student will take part in learning. The traditional and most frequently used lesson format is the expository mode of teaching, also known as lecture/demonstration/practice (Callahan and Clark, 1988). In this format the teacher is often referred to as 'the teller': providing an explanation of a concept or topic, then supporting verbal information with an illustration or model. Typically students participate in a class discussion or practice the concepts following the teacher's lecture/demonstration. Unfortunately many teachers and students, particularly at the secondary level, have come to believe that teaching is synonymous with lecturing (Novak, 1986). This traditional teaching paradigm is commonly textbook driven and employs a teach-practice-test methodology. In keeping with best practices of classroom organization, teachers must consider the use of thematic, activitybased, experiential and community-referenced lesson formats to facilitate the participation and learning of students with disabilities. These formats are generative by reinforcing or extending the lesson content and encouraging students to apply the information that has been previously taught or discussed. Plainly, students do something that helps illuminate the concept or skill. Learning takes place as a dynamic interaction between the student and the environment (Sharan and Sharan, 1976). Characteristics common to all of these formats are that students: (a) are actively engaged; (b) participate in the planning process and

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help define the content (Perrone, 1994); (c) learn by discovery; and (d) construct their own knowledge. Can the student's participation and understanding be increased by changing the delivery of instruction or teaching style? As stated previously, one of the essential functions of an adaptation is to create a match between the student's learning style and the teacher's teaching style. Frank Smith (1986) relates the importance of teacher behavior in the following statement: Teachers are effective when they make themselves understandable to the learner, no matter how little the learner knows, not when they overwhelm the learner in vain hope that understanding will eventually follow. It is the teacher's responsibility to be comprehensible, not the student's to comprehend, (p. 42)

The teaching style or the delivery of instruction employed by the general educator directly affects the need a student with disabilities may have for supplementary assistance from other adults (i.e. support facilitators, paraprofessionals, etc.). The words, cues, prompts, checks for understanding, corrective feedback, questioning procedures and physical guidance used by the teacher as well as the pacing or sequence of instruction are included in the broad definition of teaching style (Salend, 1994). The most well-designed adaptations in the form of instructional arrangements, lesson formats and materials may be in place, but if the general education teacher does not interact proactively and take instructional responsibility, the student with disabilities is often destined for failure. The decision to alter one's teaching style requires the most personal reflection by those who instruct the student. In the authors' experience, when educators view changes in the delivery of their instruction as a legitimate form of adaptation and openly discuss the potential impact of instructional style, effective student-specific teaching strategies are usually generated. Will the student need adapted curricular goals? In a classroom of heterogeneous learners it is predictable that students will acquire knowledge at different levels and will use that knowledge with varying degrees of proficiency (Bloom, 1956). Consequently, students' learning priorities will vary in complexity, depth and breadth. Specifying multi-level or flexible learning objectives (Giangreco and Putnam, 1991;, Stainback, Stainback and Moravec,

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1992) will be necessary to individualize the goals and outcomes of the lesson for many students. Prescribing curricular goals and outcomes prior to each lesson can help to ensure that educators establish reasonable expectations while at the same time arrange learning that challenges the student. Establishing curricular goals as they relate to new activities also prompts the team to revisit the student's broader individual educational goals and objectives. Curricular goals can be modified to: (a) relate to the same content but be less complex; (b) have functional or direct applications; (c) reduce the performance standards; (d) adjust the pacing of a lesson (e.g. the student may require more or less time to complete a task); (e) adjust the evaluation criteria or grading system; and (f) alter behavior management techniques. (For a more detailed discussion of alternative evaluation systems, see Cullen and Pratt, 1992; and UdvariSolner, 1994a.) To illustrate these modifications, consider the following case example of journal-writing in a third grade classroom. The curricular goal for the majority of students is to preface their journal entries with their name and the date, then write a brief paragraph to summarize their thoughts and feelings about the day. These goals reflect skills that require application, analysis and synthesis. Justin, a member of the class with moderate intellectual and physical disabilities, uses picture symbols for communication, is unable to write and does not construct complex sentences. His goals are to: use a date and name stamp to preface his journal entry; select one picture symbol and glue it into his journal representing an activity that occurred during the day; and use his journal entry to initiate a conversation with a classmate. Justin's goals represent learning at the knowledge and comprehension levels. His goals relate to the same content (i.e. journal writing) but are less complex. The performance standards have also been varied to correspond with and advance Justin's primary mode of communication. Can changes be made in the classroom environment or lesson location that mil facilitate participation? From a socio-ecological perspective, the physical environment and social climate of a classroom exert influence on the behavior and interactions of its members (Moos, 1979). Circumstances in the learning environment can affect any student's ability to acquire information. Upon entering an environment individuals attempt to adapt or adjust to the physical setting, the people around them and the social milieu. However, some students may be less able to establish personal

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congruence with the pre-existing conditions of a classroom or school setting (Moos and Trickett, 1979). For these students, the physical and social environment may need to be consciously engineered. Environmental elements such as lighting, noise level, visual and auditory input, physical arrangement of the room or equipment, and accessibility of materials may need to be altered to accommodate students who experience sensory impairments, physical disabilities, information-processing difficulties or who use alternative communication methods (Casella and Bigge, 1988). Making changes in the social climate or social rules of the classroom can have powerful effects on the satisfaction, comfort level and personal growth of a student with disabilities. Modifications in social rules may relate to time allowed to converse and socialize in the classroom, the noise level typically tolerated during work periods, or the flexibility to leave your seat or be moving about in the classroom during instruction. Teachers must consider the explicit and implicit social rules they have constructed in their classrooms and determine if any elements require change to promote better student/environmental matches. Will different instructional materials be needed to ensure participation? Instructional materials are the medium through which teachers edify essential concepts and constructs. Materials are also the means by which students access information and demonstrate their comprehension and understanding. The traditional artefacts of teaching - standard curriculum texts, worksheets, paper and pencils - offer a very narrow range of access and expression. The more varied and rich the materials, the more avenues for expression and opportunities to capture evidence of the student's knowledge. Students with disabilities may use the same materials as other students in class, require slight variations or need alternative materials. Materials may be changed or created to be more manipulable, concrete, tangible, contextually-based, simplified and matched to the student's learning style or comprehension level. When variations in materials are made, team members should evaluate the products to ensure that they remain age-appropriate and status enhancing. Changes in materials can allow a different mode of output by the student or allow a different mode of input to the student. Consider the following example. In a ninth grade high school drama class students are expected to perform a dialogue with a peer partner using an excerpt

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from a screenplay. Paul is a student with Down's syndrome who reads at approximately the first grade level. To take part in this activity, Paul's peer partner modifies the screenplay by rewriting his part in simplified and common language. Picture symbols also are added for clarification. The peer also records the modified dialogue on an audio-tape so that Paul can review and practice using auditory input, thereby guiding his pacing and voice intonation. As part of the requirement for the class all dialogue partners are expected to modify their screenplays in some fashion. Some students choose to change the gender or professions of the characters. Others may take a screenplay written in the 1950s and update it with contemporary language and social issues. Because the expectation to change materials is applied to all class members, variations for Paul are not considered unusual, stigmatizing or unreasonable. The adaptations developed for Paul represent variation in form and complexity and provide a different mode of input. This example also illustrates how the formulation of adaptations can be infused into the daily operation of the classroom and student assignments. Will personal assistance be needed to ensure participation? To facilitate inclusion and independence, an implicit goal should be to reduce a student's need for paid or specialized assistance over time. Consequently, it is preferable that natural supports or support that can be provided by the general education teacher and peers be employed to the greatest extent possible. It is true that some students with disabilities need higher levels of assistance or intervention than are provided to typical students. Support needs may vary from day to day or be required at predictable times, but rarely do students need continuous, ongoing supervision. Thus, assistance and instruction from someone outside the classroom structure should be considered flexible and determined by the student's need within a particular setting or lesson. Unfortunately, the assignment of additional human support to a classroom is frequently made at the beginning of the school year, and more often is based on the general educator's desire for 'additional help' than it is based on the student's true need for assistance. Permanent, full-time assistance within a classroom must be assigned cautiously. When there are no concerted plans to fade the level and intensity of outside support, few efforts are made to facilitate ownership on the part of the general educator for the student with unique learning needs. The type of support needed for the student to participate meaningfully, and whether that support can be provided

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as an unobtrusive part of the general educator's current instructional routine, must be considered as lessons are designed. When additional support is warranted a variety of members in the school community including peers, cross-age tutors, related service personnel and classroom volunteers may serve as viable instructional agents (Vandercook and York, 1990; York, Giangreco, Vandercook, and MacDonald, 1992). Will an alternative activity need to be designed for the student and a small group of peers? An alternative activity is a curricular adaptation that can be employed when changes in the previous eight instructional conditions are insufficient. By design, the activity includes the student with disabilities and a partner or small group of non-disabled peers (Udvari-Solner, 1992). Merely arranging one-to-one instruction with an instructional assistant in the same room does not constitute an alternative activity. An alternative activity is: (a) often activity-based or experiential in nature, and in some instances may be community-referenced; (b) similar or related to the curricular content of the class (e.g. language arts, science, health, etc.); and (c) meaningful and age-appropriate for all of the students involved. When teachers employ alternative activities there is a commitment to allow more than one task to take place within the classroom or to allow activities to take place outside of the classroom when appropriate. As one example, school-wide survey teams were employed as an alternative activity by a 7th grade language arts teacher. Each week the class selected a question related to the course content or an issue of school community importance. Equipped with 'the question of the week', a small survey team including a student with disabilities was assigned to poll a representative number of the student body. The survey team was arranged in a co-operative format allowing roles for an interviewer, transcriber and data analyzer. This ongoing and readily available activity allowed the student with disabilities and his classmates to apply necessary language and communication skills. The decision-making process presented here is just one attempt to deconstruct and capture a portrait of teacher thinking. The articulation of this or other conceptions of decision-making may assist teachers to reflect upon current practice, employ a systematic and shared approach to problem-solving that promotes dialogue among team members, and advance exploration of new perspectives and instructional strategies.

163 Implications for supporting teachers in the formation of inclusive schools and classrooms Doing better at the same old thing isn't good enough. The idea is not to fix things, it is to change them. (Walsh, cited in Maulson, 1991, p. 49). This quote by Deborah Walsh, a Chicago public school teacher, embodies the spirit of innovation needed to foster the common educational goals of belonging, mastery, independence and generosity that are at the heart of inclusive education. The success of this change process ultimately relies upon the determination of practicing educators and their ability to translate and implement the principles of contemporary reforms. Fullan (1993) explicitly points out, 'You can't mandate what matters' (p. 125). Instead, the complex goals of change require knowledge, skills, creative thinking and committed action. If progress toward our educational goals is to occur, teachers must not view inclusive education as an 'add on' to other more pressing initiatives. Change must also not be viewed as something that has been imposed for the good of one child or one population of children. Consequently, teachers must be integral members of the scholarly discourse (Peterson and Knapp, 1993) on educational trends so that the interface between inclusive education and other exemplary practices is evident. The installation of innovation into classroom practice is a highly personal and often emotionally charged experience. Change may be positively promoted by supporting teachers to engage in reflective action: the active, thoughtful and rigorous consideration of beliefs and practice (Dewey, 1933). There appears to be value in providing teachers with an initial framework (e.g. a decision-making process) to initiate reflective action, aid development, and prompt them to utilize existing knowledge in new configurations for all students.

Chapter 12

Towards Inclusive Schools: Mapping the Field Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson and Alan Millward

Diversity and coherence Traditionally, the task of editors of a collection such as this is to bring the book to a satisfying conclusion by presenting a coherent summary and overview of the individual contributions. In attempting this task, however, we were immediately struck by the diversity which is apparent in the preceding chapters. We had anticipated - however naively - that there would be considerable cohesion around the theme of how schools can become more responsive to diversity, and that it would be possible to identify certain common threads between chapters which would constitute newly established pieces of knowledge in the emerging field of 'inclusive education'. In fact, it is evident that different contributors have responded to this theme in quite different ways. Not only have they chosen different units of analysis - teachers, classrooms, schools, local, national and regional education systems - but they appear to have utilised different research paradigms (positivism, naturalistic inquiry, participatory action research, dialectical analysis), and have ranged in their stances towards inclusion from committed advocacy to historical analysis, critique and 'scientific objectivity'. The question arises, therefore, whether such diversity is a reflection of the individuals who have contributed to this volume or whether it tells us something about the state of the field of 'inclusive education' as it is currently constituted. Our contention would be that the latter interpretation is closer to the mark. A cursory survey of recent literature reveals a considerable diversity stretching from the organisational analyses of Tom Skrtic (199la) to the sociological analyses of Barton (Barton and Oliver, 1992), the policy analyses of Fulcher (1989,1993), the 'rights' perspectives of Oliver (Oliver, 1992a), or the European

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integrationist movement (Evans, 1993; Fletcher-Campbell et al., 1992). All of these writers - and many more - have some claim to being regarded as participants in the inclusive education debate, and yet their contributions are no more uni-dimensional than the contributions to this volume. This diversity begs a serious question for inclusive education - and one which is hinted at in the contribution from David Reynolds. Those of us who are, in whatever form, active within inclusive education, seem to make the assumption that we are contributing to something in particular. We define that something in different ways - as a movement, or a paradigm, or an approach - but nonetheless, there seems to be a presupposition that inclusive education constitutes a 'field' of activity and inquiry. If this is the case, then we ought to be able to say in what sense it is a field. Does it, for instance, have the coherence, methodological sophistication and purposefulness of apparently equivalent fields, such as 'effective schooling', or 'gender studies', or even 'special educational needs' ? Or is 'inclusive education' simply a convenient umbrella term under which diverse, contradictory and counterproductive contributions will shelter for a short while until its inherent instability causes them to scatter? This is not a trivial point. Policy and practice are increasingly coming to reflect notions of inclusion. If those notions are incoherent, unfounded or contradictory, if they are inherently unstable and disappear as quickly as they have appeared, then it is vulnerable children, and not simply academic careers, that will suffer. A map of the field

We are, therefore, setting ourselves the task in this final chapter of answering the questions of whether inclusive education is indeed a genuine field and, if so, what sort of a field it is. To begin with, it seems fairly clear that inclusive education is making claims to be regarded as a field which is defined in terms both of practice and inquiry. Like effective schooling or special educational needs, for instance, but unlike, say, the sociology of education, it is concerned both with the development of particular (i.e. inclusive) practices and with inquiry into those practices. That being so, it might not be unreasonable to suggest that it ought to have the sorts of defining characteristics which those equivalent fields display: • a capacity to delineate the nature and scope of its concerns • sets of established and developing practices which realise its emerging aims

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• means and methodologies for inquiring into its area of concern • a knowledge-base generated by inquiry such that particular practices and propositions have demonstrable grounding, develop in some coherent manner and do not sit in (unresolved) contradiction to one another. These characteristics, we would argue, constitute the minimum criteria for accepting inclusive education's claims to being more than a catch-all slogan. The diversity which we have noted within inclusive education does not augur well for its ability to meet these criteria. Although there are undoubtedly areas of agreement between those who are active within the inclusion movement, it is difficult to see how a consensual knowledge-base or agreed set of practices, let alone a common methodology for inquiry can be extracted from the multiplicity of individual, not to say idiosyncratic, contributions. The prospect of inclusive education advancing through the painstaking accumulation of established knowledge seems remote. If it is a field, therefore, it is so in spite of its apparent lack of coherence. Fortunately, experience elsewhere in the social sciences suggests that there may be forms of coherence within a field which are different from a simple unity amongst the findings and propositions of individual contributions. Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Morgan (1983) in organisational sociology, Morgan (1986) in organisational analysis, Flood and Jackson (1991) in systems thinking, Guba (1990) in social science research methodology, are amongst those who have sought to map out similarly diverse fields. Their strategy has been to interrogate the surface diversity of contributions in order to understand their underpinning constitutive assumptions. The concern of such analysts, therefore, has been less with what is actually said by contributors than with the 'paradigms' (Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Guba, 1990), 'images' (Morgan, 1986) or 'metaphors' (Flood and Jackson, 1991; Morgan, 1983) that underpin and are implied by what is said. In so doing, they have been able to identify coherence and consensus between contributions at a 'deep' level. They have also, of course, identified equally deep divisions. However, they have argued that making the bases of such divisions explicit opens up the possibility of genuine dialogue between different positions. In this way, the field comes to be defined not by its surface unity, but by its capacity to engage with its area of concern from fundamentally different positions, and by the capacity of those positions in turn to engage with each other in a dynamic process of exploration and development.

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There are, of course, many ways of moving from surface features to deep assumptions. Since our particular concern is with inclusive education as a field of inquiry, we have found it useful to interrogate contributions in terms of the nature of the inquiry that each is making. In other words, we have worked from the hypothesis that each contribution is seeking, explicitly or implicitly, to investigate one or more questions about inclusive education. Our suggestion is that four broad questions have emerged within inclusive education: • • • •

What should we be doing? How might we do it? How does it work? Why is it like it is?

We have deliberately expressed these in general terms and a nontechnical language since they are intended to indicate a broad direction of inquiry rather than anything so specific as a set of research questions or hypotheses. Nonetheless, these questions, we would argue, delineate the scope and structure of inquiry into inclusive education. Moreover, each question seems to us to imply one or more particular modes of inquiry which, at their most explicit and elaborated, may take the form of specific research methodologies. Out of these modes of inquiry emerge findings and propositions - answers to the starting questions which constitute the knowledge-base(s) of inclusive education. These in turn imply (and occasionally make explicit) certain claims to the validity of that knowledge. Finally, each question, we suggest, presupposes, at a deep level, a view of the world in which such a question makes sense, and, in particular, an image of inclusive education as the object of such an inquiry. There are some similarities between this analysis and the three-level model which Morgan (1983) applies to the field of organisational analysis. We would, therefore, map our 'mode of inquiry' on to his 'methodology'; our 'knowledge-base' and 'validity-claims' on to his 'epistemology', and our 'image' of the object of inquiry on to his 'ontology'. If this mapping is not exact, it is partly because we are content to see our analysis as a first tentative step towards delineating the field of inclusive education, and therefore as one which is in need of challenge and refinement. However, it is also because, in its preoccupation with changing policy and practice, inclusive education has been little concerned with explicating the ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies upon which its inquiries are founded. This, as we shall argue below, is a challenge which should now be faced. Table 12.1 presents in schematic form our characterisation of the

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field in these terms, and we propose to amplify this for each question in turn. Table 12.1 The four questions which constitute the field of inclusive education What should we be doing?

How might we doit?

How is it working?

Why is it like it is?

Methodology

Explicating values-position by grounding inclusive values in broader rights issues and by identifying inclusive/exclusive practices on the ground

Engagement in processes of simultaneous practice-valuesorganisational change in particular sites

Analysis of practice as a phenomenon in the world, in terms of its workings, conditions and effects

Location of educational phenomena in broader social and historical processes

Intended knowledge-base

An explicated and elaborated values position; a purged discourse

Accumulated and ordered experience in the form of generalisations which guide future developments

Cumulative identification of mechanisms and effects of practice

Explanatory models of social and historical processes

Validity claims

Internal coherence; the authenticity of the voices of the excluded

Utility to researchers and practitioners in facilitating the process of change

Replicability of findings and testability of propositions

Explanatory and catalytic power of models

How inclusive education is conceptualised

Value position

Set of practices realising valueposition

Phenomenon with objective reality

Social phenomenon

What should we be doing? Inclusive education as a field is distinctive (though not, of course, unique) in making explicit its commitment to a particular values-position - in this case to the values of inclusion'. In common with many emerging fields in the social sciences, it abandons any pretence that questions regarding values can be answered from a position of valuefree neutrality. Answering the question, 'What should we be doing?', therefore, involves explicating and elaborating the commitment to inclusion that is adopted as a given. Such processes are intended to generate a knowledge-base in the form of an increasingly explicated and well-understood position, which can lay claim to a form of internal validity in terms of its inner coherence. Inquiry, therefore, proceeds in two ways. First, it seeks to ground the values of inclusive education in broader issues of social inclusion and fundamental human rights. Second, it attempts to identify and discriminate between inclu-

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sive and exclusive practices as they exist on the ground in order to refine our understanding of inclusion. The prior commitment to values of inclusion makes it imperative that this question should be addressed in a reflexive manner. In particular, the way in which that question is addressed should itself demonstrate a commitment to inclusion. The danger is that the nature of inclusion will come to be explicated by those - particularly professional groups - who have not themselves experienced processes of exclusion. Indeed, they may form part of the 'excluding' dominant groups in society, and their accounts may contribute more to processes of exclusion than to inclusion. Accordingly, explications of the nature of inclusion have two particular concerns. First, they have to examine their own use of language and seek to purge existing discourse of exclusive assumptions. Second, they have in some way to encompass the experiences of those who are currently excluded. Such explications derive their validity, then, not simply from their internal coherence, but also from the authenticity of the voices that are heard within them.

How can we do it ? On the face of it, this appears to be a simple question concerned with the development and evaluation of particular forms of practice. However, inclusive education, by definition, does not see practice as a form of value-free technology but rather as an embodiment and realisation of a particular value-position. The question, 'How can we do it?', therefore, can be reframed as, 'How can inclusive values be realised in action?' It follows that it is essentially concerned with how a synchronous transformation of values and practice can come about so that exclusive values/practice gives way to inclusive values/practice. This has a number of implications for inquiry: • The scope of inquiry is broadened from practices-in-themselves to practitioners, the values they hold and any factors which might impinge upon practice and values. Since practice is set within the context of classrooms, schools and national educational systems, inquiry has to address the extent to which these factors facilitate or inhibit inclusion. • Inquiry is necessarily concerned with the particularities of complex interactions between practice and values in a given organisational context. Whatever generalisations may be possible, they lose their validity if they cannot be used to bring about actual transformations in particular contexts. Inquiry, therefore, has to be concerned with the uniqueness of particular sites.

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• Inquiry has to be conceived as an interactive process. The only way to understand how transformations of values/practice can be brought about in particular contexts is to engage in a process aimed at promoting such transformations. There is, therefore, a constant interaction between the process of change in a particular site and the process of inquiry which seeks to learn from that change. This interaction is often characterised as an 'action research' process. • Inquiry is participatory. Since it involves seeking ways to transform values as well as (and alongside) practices, actors in particular sites have to participate in the transformatory process as purposeful, values-oriented practitioners. Their exclusion (the term is not accidental) from the process of inquiry simply ensures that apparently transformed practice will rapidly be undermined by untransformed values. It follows that this mode of inquiry too has to address the issue of which voices it will allow to be heard. In this case, it is practitioners' voices which have traditionally been silenced and which therefore have now to be heard. This mode of inquiry generates a knowledge-base of a particular kind. Because it focusses on the unique features of situations, it cannot seek law-like generalisations which apply to all cases. Instead, its generalisations consist of common features identified across a number of cases and progressively elaborated and refined as the number of sites investigated multiplies. These generalisations cannot be used to predict what will be found in any particular - and unique - site. Instead, they serve to guide transformatory action within sites. They constitute a body of accumulated and ordered experience upon which the researcher and/or practitioners can draw in order to facilitate the processes of change. That experience will not provide a blueprint for action, but it may help in understanding the unique features with which they are confronted. Its validity, therefore, rests less on notions of 'truth', 'verifiability' or 'falsifiability' than on its utility to researchers and actors in facilitating the process of change. How is it working? Whilst the previous question is concerned with inclusive practice as the realisation of certain values, this question addresses practice as a phenomenon in the world, existing independently of the values, beliefs or wishes of either practitioners or researchers. As such, it has its own form and structure, its own sustaining and inhibiting conditions and, particularly, its own consequences. All of these might be quite

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different from what practitioners and policy-makers suppose them to be, and therefore they can and should be studied in their own right in order to provide information on what is 'actually' the case. Such study will be undertaken from a viewpoint which is not dependent on commitment to any values other than those of the integrity of the inquiry, and which, therefore, is to that extent 'objective'. This is, of course, essentially a positivist stance. Answering this question demands the use of 'scientific' modes of inquiry and seeks to generate knowledge which is cumulative, valid in terms of its adherence to accepted methodologies, and publicly testable. Inquiry tends to have one of three foci: • Workings - inquiry can focus on generating accounts of what is 'actually' (i.e. observably) happening and how particular phenomena are connected through mechanisms of cause and effect • Conditions - inquiry can investigate factors which promote or inhibit the manifestation of certain phenomena • Effects - inquiry can investigate the actual effects that are created by particular practices. Through these investigations, a systemic or mechanistic (in a non-pejorative sense) picture of practice can be constructed which displays the interconnected mechanisms of practice so that they can be changed and fine-tuned in order to produce the desired effects. This approach can be applied to any phenomenon in the field of inclusive education, but the commitment to the notion of inclusion and the quest for 'the inclusive school' places a particular focus on understanding of how effects at the level of the individual pupil can be generated at the level of the classroom and the school as organisation. Why is it like it is? This fourth question is also concerned with inclusive education as a phenomenon in the world. However, its particular arena is the social world, and its view of inclusive education is as an essentially social phenomenon, emerging from complex processes of social construction. Answering the question, 'Why is it like it is?', therefore, involves understanding which social processes have interacted in what sorts of ways in order that this phenomenon should emerge at just this time. Inquiry proceeds by taking particular manifestations of the phenomenon in question and attempting to locate them in the broader social and historical processes out of which they arise. These processes can be understood at a number of levels from the individual to the

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organisational and the macro-economic and cultural. Since such processes may not be immediately observable, phenomena have to be 'interpreted' by building explanatory models of processes and their interaction. These models constitute the knowledge-base which inquiry seeks to generate. Their validity can be seen to derive from one or two sources. The first is some notion of the models' explanatory power - a power which can be tested through open debate and scrutiny and through an interactive cycle of model-building and model-testing in the field. The second source of validity is the ability of the models to enhance social actors' understanding of their situations in such a way that they are enabled to take effective action to realise their values and purposes. It is at this point where the attempt to answer this question comes close in some of its manifestations to the values-orientation of the first two questions. Like them, it is committed to inclusive values, to action which will realise those values and to deriving its validity from the voices of those who have hitherto found themselves excluded. Some implications It is perhaps worth saying something about the relationship of individual contributions - both to this volume and to the wider inclusive education literature - to these four questions. The issues which individual contributions seek to address, and the stances they adopt, are far too subtle and complex to be reduced to one or other of these questions. Nonetheless, we would suggest that underpinning that subtlety and complexity are the sorts of questions we have outlined here, together with their associated modes of inquiry and assumptions about valid knowledge. In our own contribution, for instance, we have tried to be clear both about our interest in the question, 'Why is it like it is?' and about our adoption of the sorts of assumptions we described as associated with that question. We believe we can detect a similar perspective in the (otherwise very different) contributions of Use Vislie and Roger Slee. Others' contributions seem to us to be underpinned by different questions. Are we correct in seeing the values question as predominant in the contributions of Keith Ballard and Tony Booth? Are Mel Ainscow, Alice Udvari-Solner .and Jacqueline Thousand and Linda Ware principally concerned with the question of 'How might we do it?' And can Jeff Bailey, Sip Jan Fiji and David Reynolds be understood to be addressing the question of 'How is it working ?' Readers (and no doubt the writers themselves) will have their own views as to whether our interpretation of individual contributions is

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correct. The point is not whether our proposed framework makes it possible to 'pigeon-hole' particular writers, but whether it maps out the concerns and methods of inquiry within inclusive education at the present time. For if our analysis is even partially correct, then it has, we believe, major implications for the field of inclusive education, and it is to these which we now wish to turn. First, it seems to us to have some very positive implications. The association which we have suggested exists between questions, methodologies and fundamental assumptions, and holds out the promise of the emergence of fully fledged paradigms of inquiry within inclusive education, each with its own explicit ontology and epistemology. If we have not quite reached that stage yet, then at least we may be able to claim that there are four broad 'approaches' to inquiry, each focussing on one of our four questions. This, it seems to us, guarantees a diversity which is potentially healthy. In particular, the four approaches we have identified are to some extent complementary, forming what could well become a self-generating cycle of development (figure 12.1). There is a natural interaction between concerns with values (Question 1), pragmatics (Question 2), workings and effects (Question 3) and interpretation (Question 4) in which one can, potentially, inform and develop the other. CRITIQUE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

NEW CYCLES OF * DEVELOPMENT

INTERPRETATION: Why is it like it is?>

WORKING AND EFFECTS: How is it working?

VALUES: What should \we be doing?

_ ~

" PRAGMATICS: How might we do it?

Figure 12.1 A possible cycle of development in inclusive education

174 To a certain extent, we can already see this process at work in this volume. More than this, however, we can look back at the history x>f special education to see the way in which such an interaction can lead to a process of development. If the 'psycho-medical paradigm' has indeed been successfully questioned, it is because critiques from a values position coincided with somewhat negative evaluations of its effects and with socio-historical interpretations which problematised its claims to scientific objectivity. These critiques in turn simultaneously informed the development of new forms of practice which offered a real alternative to traditional forms of special education. No doubt similar cycles of development can be identified in other fields contributory to inclusive education. There is no reason why such fruitful interactions should not continue within the emerging field of inclusive education. However, we also detect some early warning signs that such positive outcomes are by no means inevitable. We note with particular concern the sorts of divisions within the inclusive education movement in the US which Fuchs and Fuchs (1994) report and the ease with which adversarial positions can come to be adopted as signs of ideological purity. Moreover, we do not see such conflicts as a function of the particular personalities involved so much as indications of divisions within the field of inquiry itself. It is these we now wish to address. Conflict of approach The emergence of approaches centred around the four questions undoubtedly promises to give a coherence and rigour to inquiry within inclusive education. However, it also may have the effect of strengthening the boundaries between different positions, forcing researchers to use incompatible languages, and, ultimately, leading them to discount the validity of what each other claims to know. This situation is exacerbated by the ways in which different approaches sometimes do not fully articulate their knowledge claims. The primary focus of many researchers is the further development of inclusive educational practice. The priority is to remedy perceived injustices and inequalities; it is not to explore the intricacies and abstractions of ontology, epistemology and methodology. Consequently, there is an inevitable tendency, we would suggest, for researchers to use the modes of inquiry that are closest to hand and that seem to answer their more pressing purposes, without fully articulating their founding assumptions. Furthermore, we detect a sense amongst some researchers that

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established modes of inquiry, developed to serve the needs of an essentially exclusive society, are not appropriate to the project of inclusive education. Research into inclusive education, therefore, requires a simultaneous inquiry into the means and methodologies of that research. The consequence is that particular pieces of research cannot be based upon established research methodologies with their own fully elaborated ontologies and epistemologies. It may be that only in addressing the third question - 'How is it working ? - can researchers rest comfortably within an established tradition of inquiry. Finally, genuine engagement between approaches is made problematical by the tendencies for researchers working within an approach to restrict their engagements to those using the same approach. This may be the consequence of the phenomenon of research 'communities': particular approaches may generate a sufficiently rich knowledge-base and a sufficiently extensive research agenda for all their adherents to occupy themselves fully and productively without reference beyond themselves. Even where such approaches appear from the outside to be very close to each other, there is every possibility that communication will in fact break down (the disengagement between the school effectiveness and school improvement movements is a case in point). Our concern is that there may be a growing disengagement between the fields of special needs and inclusive education, and we foresee a real danger that the approaches which currently constitute the field of inclusive education may find it increasingly difficult to engage productively with each other. Distortion by dominant approaches If we are correct in this analysis, then a further danger can be foreseen. In a situation where different approaches disengage from each other, it is possible that one will become dominant within the field, determining research agendas and exerting an overwhelming influence on policy and practice. We would suggest that this phenomenon has been characteristic of the older field of special education. For many years, the 'psychomedical paradigm' - a mode of inquiry based, in terms of our cycle, on a positivist analysis of practice - dominated the field. Questions of underpinning values were taken for granted, and the contextualisation of practice in terms of broader social processes went largely unconsidered or was left to a few dissident voices. Although, as we have seen above, these dissident voices grew into a powerful multipronged critique of special education, it is at least arguable that this

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in turn came to be dominated by an uncritical advocacy of emerging forms of practice, such as (in the UK) 'support teaching', 'differentiation' and 'the whole school approach'. This time, it seems to have been the formerly dominant positivist-evaluative approach which was silenced. There must be real doubts as to whether such processes of development served the field of special needs well. Our concern is that they might be replicated in the emerging field of inclusive education. In particular, there is an inevitable tendency in any emerging field for the processes of development to take precedence over the processes of critical analysis. Such processes are, amongst other things, of more immediate 'use' to practitioners and policy-makers and make a more immediate impact upon perceived injustices. It may be for this reason that we detect an overwhelming concern in the inclusive education literature with our first two questions, and a much slighter concern with the third and fourth. Critical analysis is, we suggest, still focussed on the critique of special education and tends to attribute unsatisfactory attempts at inclusion to the persistence of the older model, rather than to any limitations in inclusive education itself. The challenge, therefore, is to allow development to engage productively with analysis without restricting the emergence of more just practices. The failure to do this will, in our opinion, reduce analysis to a peripheral and somewhat destructive activity, and will not, in the longer term, allow the process of development to escape the injustices it seeks to rectify. Future prospects: towards inclusive schools? It is now perhaps possible to return to the questions with which we began this chapter. In what sense can inclusive education be regarded as a 'field' of inquiry? It is apparent from all that we have said that it is most definitely not a field which is characterised by a unity of methodology, founding assumptions or foci of inquiry amongst those who might legitimately claim to be working within its bounds. Unlike some other fields of inquiry, inclusive education, because it has to engage with questions both of social values and the realisation of values, necessarily has to range across questions of classroom practice, national and local policy, changing notions of human rights, macro-level processes of social development, relationships between researcher and researched - to name but a few. If it lacks the surface cohesion of, say, the effective schools movement, that is because its concerns are complex

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and wide-ranging, and not, necessarily, because it is intrinsically incoherent. We would suggest that any attempt to give the field coherence by reducing this diversity would simply prevent it addressing effectively the multiplicity of questions with which it is faced. More important is that the field should find means whereby its diverse approaches can engage productively with each other. Those approaches can, even at this early stage, be characterised and presented within an organising framework, and the points at which they might inform each other can be identified. To that extent, inclusive education is indeed a coherent field of inquiry, and it can look forward to developing, if not its own knowledge-base, then at least its own knowledge-few^s. If, however, we are right in claiming that there is an internal dynamic within this field which is capable of leading to its continuing development, then we should also be prepared for such a process ultimately to lead us beyond inclusion as we currently understand it. The recent history of special education indicates the way in which even wellestablished fields can become destabilised, and that when this happens there tends to be a sudden (and perhaps short-lived) flowering of alternative perspectives which seek paradigmatic primacy. It may be too early to say whether inclusive education is merely one such transient bloom or is indeed a new paradigm which is destined to assert its dominance. In either case, there is no historical reason to believe that it will bring the development of educational responses to diversity to a full stop. Moreover, inquiry within the field of inclusive education is, we would suggest, reflexive. Not only does each approach both inform and problematise the other approaches, but the project of asking, 'Why is it like it is?', requires that inclusive education itself be located in a wider social and historical context. At one and the same time, the values of inclusion which are taken to be absolute are also seen as relative to the time and place within which they have emerged. Their claims to absoluteness are therefore open to critical scrutiny. There is, therefore, every prospect, not of the failure of inclusive education, nor of its disappearance, but of its ultimate development into something different and, in some unforeseen way, something more just and humane.

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Index Abbotts, P., Clift, S. and Norris, P. 20 Abbring, I.M., Meijer, C.J.W. and Rispens, J. 55 Abelson,A.G.21 accessibility of research 11 Ackerman, D. and Perkins, D.N. 151 action research 4-5, 63, 65, 68, 170 socio-political models 9-10 active learning 63, 68, 84, 134-5, 152 Adler, Susan 12-13 Ainscow, M. 31, 35, 39, 65, 67 and UNESCO project 78, 79-80 Ainscow, M. and Hart, S. 76 Ainscow, M. and Hopkins, D. 65 Ainscow, M., Hopkins, D., Southworth, G. and West, M. 66 Ainscow, M. and Muncey, J. 68 Ainscow, M. and Southworth, G. 67,70 Andrews, R., Elkins, J. and Christie, R. 36 Arnot, M. and Weiner, G. 38 Ashman and Elkins 35 assessment 150 adjustment of evaluation criteria 159; authentic 150, 151-2; pupil involvement in 63-4 assistance, levels of 161 -2 attainment, amd achievement 105 Attention Deficit Disorder 35,40 Australia Finn Review 18; government and education 16, 17-18; integration policies 32; national curriculum 18; research into effectiveness of schools 111 authority construction in school 103-4; of professionals 34-5,45 autonomy and flexibility 70-1 Bailey 21,23, 24 Bailey and Bailey 18, 23, 24, 25

Bailey, Berrell and Gibson 22 Ball, S. 33,40 Ballard 3, 7, 10 Ballard and Ballard 2 Ballard etal 4,6 Bandura 26 Banks and McGee Banks 151 Barker-Lunn 123 Barton, L. 2, 31, 34, 38,41 Barton, L. and Landman 31 Barton, L. and Oliver, M. 164 Barton, L. and Tomlinson, S. 78 Bartunek, J.M. 90 Baumgart, D., Brown, L., Pumpian, L, Nisbet, J., Ford, A., Sweet, M., Messina, R. and Schroeder, J. 155 Bauwens, J., Hourcade, JJ. and Friend, M. 135 Beare, H., Caldwell, J. and Milliken, R.H. 67 behaviourist model of teaching and learning 135-6 Belensky, M., Clinchy, B., Goldberger, N. andTarule, J. 13 Benson, J. 23 Benson, J.K. 89 Berlak,A.andBerlak,H.91 Berman, M. 13 Berman, P. and McLaughlin, M.W. 130 Bernstein, R. 130-1 Bevan-Brown, Jill 4, 9 Biklen, D. 2, 33, 34, 37 Biklen, D., Ferguson, D. and Ford, A. 37, 133,135 Billig, M., Condor, S., Edwards, D., Gane, M., Middleton, D. and Radley,A.91 Billingsley, B. 21 Bloom, B.S. 158 Bodna, B. 34 Bogdan, R.C. and Biklen, S.K. 5 Bologh, R.W. 13 Booth, T. 99 Booth, T., Swann, W., Masterton, M. and Potts, P. 31 Bourne, J., Bridges, L. and Searle, C. 108

202 Bowers, C. A. 140 Brameld,T. 151 Branson, J. and Miller, D. 2 Brendtro, L., Brokenleg, M. and Van Bockern, S. 149 Brieschke, RA. 30 Brodinsky, D. 25 Brookover, W.B., Beady, C., Flood, P., Schweitzer, J. and Wisenbaker, J. 111 Brown, B.W. and Saks, D.H. 55 Brown, Colleen 8 Brown, H. and Smith, H. 8 Brown, M. and Ralph, S. 19 Browne, S., Connors, D. and Stern, N. 13-14 Burrell, G. and Morgan, G. 166 Burt, C. 78 Cahill, Mark 4 Callahan, J. and Clark, L. 157 Callan, V.J. 27 Cambridge, Institute of Education, Developing Successful Learning project 65 Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. 7, 140 Casella, V. and Bigge, J. 160 Cerych, L. and Sabatier, P. 46-7 change 26-9 characteristics of educative change 12930; and educative research 140-3; facilitating 27-8; focussing of 47-9; as process 46-7; reactions to 75-6; resistance to 56,59-60; shift to educative policy 130-4; shift to educative practice 134-40; teacher resistance to 27, 134 Chapman, J. and Stevens, S. 111 Cherniss, C. 22 Cherryholmes, C. 140 Clandinin, DJ. and Connelly, EM. 14 Clark, C., Dyson, A., Millward, A. and Skidmore, D. 80, 82 co-operative learning 134-5, 152 co-ordination, and inclusive schools 69-70, 76 Codd, J. 5, 33 Cohen, D. and Ball, D. 136 Cohen, D.K., McLaughlin, M.W. and Talbert,J.E. 130, 135-6

Cohen, R., Hughes, M., Ashworth, L. and Blair, M. 107 Cohen, Upton and Smith 108 Coleman, J. and Hoffer; T. 147 collaboration 80, 127-8 exclusion from 85-6; and leadership 67; of pupils with disabilities 68; teaming among adults 150, 152-3 Collins, M.K., Integration Report 37 comprehension, as teacher's responsibility 158 Connell, R.W. 38 constructivist model of teaching and learning 135-40, 150, 151 control and decision-making 22-3, 25 Cook, S., Lewis, J. and Sword, B. 31, 37 Corbett, J. 34 Corcoran, T. and Wilson, B. 117-18 Cox, T. and Brockley, T. 19 Creemers, B., Peters, T. and Reynolds, D. Ill Creemers, B.P.M. 120 Cullen, B. and Pratt, T. 159 curricular adaptations 155-6 decision-making process 156-63 "curriculum" view of special needs 81, 83-7 Cuttance, P. 112, 113 Dangel, H.L., Bunch, A.W. and Coopman, M.P 21 Darling-Hammond, L. and Wise, A.E. 130

Daunt, P. 47 Davidson, N. 157 Davis, L. 52 Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. 133 Denmark, integration in 55-62 Deno, S., Maruyama, G., Espin, C. and Cohen, C. 59 Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. 130 devolving powers to schools 121 Dewey, J. 163 difference, assumptions of 1-2, 97 differentiation and integration 56-7; in use of methods and materials 59, 162 Disability Discrimination Act (Australia, 1992)38

203 disruptive behaviour 35, 36, 40, 117 increasing numbers kept in mainstream 121 diversity organisation to respond to 2-4; and paradigms of "differentness" 1-2 Donmoyer, Robert 11 Dyson, A. 20, 30, 80, 82 Dyson, A., Millward, A. and Skidmore, D. 80 Edmonds, R. 111 Education Reform Act (1988) 20 educational goals 148-50 educative practice, challenges of 136-40 effective schools, definition 99-101 effectiveness of schools and catchment area 119; classroom-level differences 120; consistency 112-13; contributing factors 113-18; and different types of pupils 113; influence on pupils 111-12; international research 121-3; ISERP 122; knowledge base 110-11; nature of research 126; and organisational paradigm 118-20; social and academic outcomes 118-19 Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S. and Sowa, D. 26 Eisner, Elliot 13 Eklind, D. 152 Elkins, J. 36 Ellsworth, E. 140 Emanuelsson, I. 60 England, integration in 55-62 Evans, P. 165 family breakdown 16 Family Network (Inc) 5-6 Farber, B.A. 19, 20 Feather, N.T. 26 Fisher, S. 19 Fletcher-Campbell, F. and Hall, C. 58 Fletcher-Campbell, E, Hegarty, S., Allan, J.,Munn,P.andWells,L165 flexibility 70-1 Flood, R.L. and Jackson, M.C. 166 Freire, P. 140

Friedman, I.A. and Farber, B.A. 23 Friel, Brian, Translations 96-7 Friend, M. and Bauwens, J. 27 Friend, M. and McNutt, G. 24 Fuchs, D. and Fuchs, L.S. 94, 174 Fulcher, G. 3, 31,32, 35, 164 Fulcher, G., Semmens, R. and Slee, R. 30, 34,35 Fullan, M. 67,72, 79, 109, 130, 163 Gains 20 Galloway, D. 34, 112 Galloway, D., Ball, T., Bloomfield, D, and Seyed, R. 111 Gartner, A. and Lipsky, D.K. 34, 78 Gath,D. 110 gender and inclusion 8; and learning difficulties 107-8; relations 140 Gerber, M.M. and Semmel, M.I. 55, 56 Gergen, M.M. 140 Giangreco, M., Cloninger, C., Dennis, R. and Edelman, S. 149 Giangreco, M. and Putnam 155, 159 Giroux, H.A. 140 Gitlin, A., Bringhurst, K., Burns, M., Cooley, V., Myers, B., Price, K., Russell, R. and Tiess, P. 81 Gitlin, A.D. 130,140,141,142 Glasser, B. and Strauss, A. 154 Golby, M. and Gulliver, R.J. 81 Gold, A., Bowe, R. and Ball, SJ. 31 Golmick, D.M. 151 Goodey, C. 97 Goodman, Jesse 12 government interest in education 16-17 Gow, L., Balla, J. and Purvis, S. 33 Gow, L. and Rigby, C. 33 Grant, C. and Sleeter, C. 151 Gray, J. 119 Gray, J., Jesson, D. and Jones, B. 111 Gray, J., Jesson, D. and Sime, N. 111 Gray, J. and Nicholl, J. 117 Greenberger, D.B., Stasser, S., Cummings, L.I. and Dunham, R.B. 22 Greenwood, G.E., Olejnik, S.F. and Parkay, F.W. 23 Grosin, L. 119

204 group work 63, 68 Cuba, E.G. 166 Hargreaves, A. 66, 74, 95 Harper, G.F., Maheady, L. and Mallette, B. 157 Hassard, J. 95 Hayes, A. and Elkins, J. 36 Hayes, A., Steinberg, M., Cooksley, E., Jobling, A., Best, D. and Coulston, A. 35 Hegarty, S. and Pocklington, K. 47 Hekman, S.J. 140 Heshusius, L. 13 Hetherington, M.E. 16 Heyderbrand, W. 88, 89 hierarchy of schools 86-7 Higgins, P. 37 High Reliability Organisations (HROs) 124-5 Hong Kong 62, 123 hooks, bell 11 Hopkins, D., Ainscow, M. and West, M. 65,73 Huberty, T. and Huebner, E. 19, 20 Humphries, S. and Gordon, P. 34 Idol, L., Paolucci-Whitcomb, P. and Nevin, A. 135 Imber, M., Neidt, W.A. and Reyes, P. 22, 25 inclusive education common dilemmas 154-5; conditions for 66-73; conflicts of approach 174-6; core practices 150-3; cycle of development 173-4; definition 127, 147, 165-8; and "effective schools" 15-16; and exclusion 102-4; framework for 15; future of 176-7; and integration 101-2 information collection and analysis 71, 77 Innovatory Mainstream Practice (IMP) project 30 integration as belief system 42,44-6; definitions of 33; effects of recession on 52-3; historical context 43-4, 51-2; implementation of 61-2; and inclusion 101-2; and "non-segregation" 60-1; and

special schools 54-5; teacher opposition to 122-3 interdisciplinary curriculum 151 International School Effectiveness Research Project 122 involvement, and inclusive schools 67-9, 76 IQ testing 33 Ireland, M. 34 Jackson, S.E., Schwab, R.L. and Schuler, R.S. 19 Jacobs, H.H. 151 Janis, I. 67 Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T. and Holubec, EJ. 67 Johnson, R.T. and Johnson, D.W. 152 Jordan, R.R. and Powell, S.D. 60 Joyce, B. and Showers, B. 72 Karmel, P., Schools in Australia 34 Karoly, P. 26 Kasten, W. and Clarke, B. 152 Keller, Evelyn Fox 11-12, 13 Kemmis, S. 11 Kenway, J. 38 Kenway, J. and Willis, S. 38 Kirner,J.31 Korea 62, 123 Krupp, J.A. 25 Kunc,N. 10 Kyriacou, C. and Sutcliffe, J. 18 Lament, Jonathan, class rules 138-9, 1446 Lather, Patti 11, 12, 140 leadership and effectiveness of schools 124-5; and inclusive policies 66-7, 76 lesson formats, expository mode 157 Levine, D. and Lezotte, L. 71, 111, 117 Lewis, J. 31,33, 35 Lewis, J. and Cook, S. 31 Leyser, Y., Kapperman, G. and Keller, R. 59,60 Lezotte, L. 117 Lipsky, O.K. and Gartner, A. 135 Local Management of Schools (LMS) 131

205 Locke, E.A. 23 Luke, C. and Gore, J. 140 McGuire, J.B. 89, 90 McLaren, P. 140 McLaughlin, M. and Warren, S. 150 McLean, A. 117 McManus,M. 116-17 McPherson, A. and Willms, D. 113 McTaggart, R. and Garbutcheon-Singh, M. 7 Maeroff,G. 140, 147 Maori culture 4, 9, 31-2 Marks, G. 31,33,34,35 Martin, J. and Meyerson, D. 95 mathematics, curriculum reform in 135 Maxwell, W.S. 116 Meadmore, D. 33 medical paradigm of special needs 78, 81-2, 110, 175-6 Meijer, C.J.W., Fiji, S J. and Hegarty, S. 55, 60,62 mentoring 22, 25-6 Miles, M. and Huberman, M. 130 Miller, D. and Mintzberg, H. 79 Moore Johnson, S. 25 Moos,R. 159 Moos, R. and Trickett, E. 160 morale in teachers 23-6 see also under change Morgan, G. 166, 167 Morris, J. 97 Morrison, A. 4 Mortimore, P., Sammons, P., Ecob, R. and StoIl,L. 111,112, 115,116, 119 Motowidlo, S.J., Packard, J.S. and Manning, M.R. 19 multi-age grouping 150, 152 multicultural education 150, 151 Munford, R. 8 Murphy, J. 67 Murray, M. 2-3 national curriculum, Australia 18 Navjug primary school, New Delhi 63-5 Netherlands, segregated education 55-62 New Zealand inclusive practice in 2-3; Maori issues 4, 9, 31-2

Nisbet, J., Sweet, M., Ford, A., Shiraga, B., Undvari, A., York, J., Messina, R. and Schroeder, J. 155 Norway, organisation of special education 50,51 Norwich, B. 59,91 Novack,J. 157 Nuttall, D., Goldstein, H., Prosser, R. and Rasbash,J. 113 observation, mutual 71 OECD/CERI, "The Education of the Handicapped Adolescent" 46,48 Oliver, M. 9, 13, 14,37,97, 164 O'Reilly, C. and Chatman, J. 26 organisation of special education 15, 49-51, 156-7 alternative activities 162; flexible 50-1; one-track 50, 51; problems of restructuring 80; two-track 50 organisational paradigm 110 ambiguity and conflict 95; dialectical analysis 88-90; and effectiveness of schools 118-20 O'Shea, L.J., O'Shea, DJ. and Algozzine, B. 18 otherness, disability as 37-8 outcomes-based education 150 parents aspirations for children 149-50; effects of disability on lives of 8; empowerment of 5-7; and family breakdown 16 Parmenter, T.R. 35 partnership teaching 64 paternalism 38-9 Patterson, G.R., Debaryshe, B.D. and Ramsey, E. 16 peer-tutoring 150, 152 People First (self-advocacy group) 7-8 Perrone, V. 151,158 Petersen, A.R. 34 Peterson, P., Fennema, E. and Carpenter, T. 151 Peterson, P. and Knapp, N. 151, 163 Petrick, J.A. and Manning, G.E. 25 Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. 26

206 Phillips, B.N. 16-17,26 Phillips, V. and McCullough, L. 127 Pickering, D., Szaday, C. and Duerdoth, P. 35 Fiji, S.J. and Meijer, C.J.W. 49-51, 54, 55, 57,60,61 planning, and inclusive policies 69, 76 Poplin, M.S. and Stone, S. 151 Porter, G. 3 Porter, G. and Richler, D. 2 Power, M.J. 110 Prunty, J. 35 Pugach, M. and Johnson, S. 127 Queensland Project on inclusive education 35, 36-9 race and learning difficulties 107-8 Ranson, S., Minings, B. and Greenwood, R.90 Raschke, D.B., Dedrick, C.V., Strathe, M.I. and Hawkes, R.R. 20 Rawls, J. 38 reflective practice 12-13, 65, 170 reform see change Reichers, A.E. 26 relativism 92 remedial classes 105 research action research 65, 170; comprehensiveness in 93; distortion by dominant approaches 175-6; implications for inclusion 141-3; qualitative 129-30, 140-1; "robustness" in 93-4; school effectiveness see effectiveness of schools "research as stories" project 7-9, 11,13 residential schools for special needs 121 resources allocation to special needs 58; as cultural determinants 39-40; politics of 35, 37, 52-3; and teaching methods 55-6 Reynolds, D. 68, 79, 110, 111, 112, 116, 120 Reynolds, D., Creemers, B. and Peters, T. Ill Reynolds, D., Creemers, B., Wesselrodt,

P., Schaffer, B.C., Stugfield, S.J. and Teddlie,C. 123 Reynolds, D. and Cuttance, P. 118 Reynolds, D. and Ramasut, A. 35, 39 Reynolds, D. and Rutter, M. 111 Reynolds, D., Sullivan, M. and Margatroyd, S.J. 110 Rorty, Richard 12 Rosenblum, S. and Louis, K.S. 130 Rosenholtz, S. 74 Rosenqvist, J. 55 Ruby, A., Cashman, M. and Byrnes, M. 18 Russell, D.W., Altmaier, E., and van Velzen, D. 22 Rutter, M. 113-14, 116 Rutter, M., Maughan, B., Mortimore, P. and Ouston, J. I l l , 119 Rutter, Mulligan and Murgatroyd 112 Salend,S. 158 Sapon-Shevin, M., Ayres, BJ. and Duncan, J. 152 Scandinavia, integration policies 47, 48-9, 55-62 Schaafsma, D. 140 Scheerens,J. 118 Schifter, D. and Fosnot, C.T. 136 Schon, Donald 12 Schonell, FJ. 78 school effectiveness see effectiveness of schools school improvement and staff development 72, 76; through special needs 73-5; see also change Schulman, PR. 95 science, curriculum reform in 135 self esteem, fostering of 148-9 Semmel, M.I., Abernathy, T.V., Butera, G. and Lesar, S. 60 Semmens, R. 33 SENCOs (Special Needs Co-Ordinators) 57 sensitivity and school influences 120-1 Sergiovanni, T.J. 67 Sharan, S. and Sharan, Y. 157 Sharp, R. and Green, A. 81 Shor, I. and Freire, P. 140

207 Simon, R. and Dippo, D. 140 Simpson, Diana 102-3 Singer, J.D. and Butler, J.A. 52 Sirotnik, K.A. 140 site-based management (SBM) 129-30, 131, 134, 140 Skrtic, T.M. 1-2, 12, 31, 32, 34, 41, 45, 48, 66, 68, 70, 78, 79, 80, 81, 127, 130, 133, 140, 164 Skrtic, T.M. and Ware, L.R 127 Slee, R. 30, 32, 35, 39,40 Slee, R. and Cook, S. 31,35 Sleeter, C. and Grant, C. 151 Smith, D. andTomlinson, S. I l l , 112 Smith, Frank 149, 158 Smith, Joan 12 Smith, K.R. 23 Smith, Linda Tuhiwai 4 Smith, L.M., Kleine, RE, Prunty, J.R and Dwyer, D.C. 130 Smyth, J. 8 socio-political paradigm of special needs 78 Sonntag, E. 4 Spady, W. and Marshall, K. 150 special schools 54-5 Spender, D. 38 staff development 71-3, 76, 79 Stainback, S. and Stainback, W. 3, 78, 128, 135 Stainback, S., Stainback, W. and Forest, M. 3 Stainback, S., Stainback, W. and Jackson, H.J. 147 Stainback, S., Stainback, W. and Moravec,J. 151, 159 Stedt, J.D. and Palermo, D.S. 24 Stoll, L. 68 stress in teachers 18-20 in special education 20-1; ways of reducing 21-3 Stringfield, S. and Slavin, R. 124 Styles-Johnson, G. and Germinario, V. 25 support mechanisms for teachers 21-3 support teachers, morale of 24 Sweden, integration in 55-62 Taiwan 62, 123 Talbert, J.E. and McLaughlin, M.W. 75

Taylor, Charles 134 Taylor, S. 3 teaching and learning co-ordinators 83-6 teaching materials 58-9, 160-2 team teaching 133, 135 Teddlie, C.T. and Stringfield, S. 111 Terry, D.J., Nielsen, M. and Perchard, L. 22 Thierbach-Schneider, G. 22, 25 Thousand, J. and Villa, R. 67, 68, 78, 135, 152 Thousand, J., Villa, R. and Nevin, A. 152 Tihi, H. and Gerzon, R. 4, 9 Tomlinson, S. 31,32,34 training of teachers 57 Troyna, B. and Siraj-Blatchford, I. 108 Tuettmann, E. and Punch, K.F. 23 turnover of staff 116 Uditsky, B. 33 Udvari-Solner, A. 149, 153, 155, 156, 159, 162 Udvari-Solner, A. and Thousand, J. 151, 152, 153 UNESCO, Special Needs in the Classroom project 31, 65, 72-3, 79-80 United States Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975) 52, 128; Emerson Project (1990-4) 128-9, 136-8, 141-2; government and education 16-17; integration in 18, 55-62; Native American education 149-50; Project SEIK (Supported Education in Kansas) 128-9, 130, 131, 142; Regular Education Initiative (REI) 59; research into effectiveness of schools 111 Vandercook, T. and York, J. 162 Villa, R., Thousand, J.S., Stainback, W. and Stainback, S. 78 Villa, R., Udis, J. and Thousand, J. 147 Vlachou, A. and Barton, L. 94 Walker, R. 4 Walkerdine, V. 140 Walsh, Deborah 163

208 Walsh, R. 34 Ward, J., Bochner, S., Center, Y., Outhred, L. and Pieterse, M. 35 Ware, L.P. 127, 129, 130, 135, 136-8 Warnock Committee Report (1978) 3, 37 Weick, K.E. 69 Weiler, K. 46, 140 Welch, M. 18 Wesson, C.L. 127 West, M. and Ainscow, M. 70 Whinnery, K.W., Fuchs, L.S. and Fuchs, D.60 Wilczenski, F.L. 18 Will,M. 128, 134 Williams, K.W and Lane, T.J. 23 Williams, K.W. and Petrie, I. 20

Wills, Rod 8 Wimpelberg, R., Teddlie, C. and Stringfield, S. 111 Winter, R. 91 Wisniewski, L. and Alper, S. 153 withdrawal programmes 61 Wood, S. and Shears, B. 2 world-views and exclusion 2 York, J., Giangreco, M., Vandercook, T. and MacDonald, C. 162 Ysseldyke, I.E., Thurlow, M.L., Wortuba, J.W.andNania,P.A. 127 Zeitz, G. 88, 89