Hipótesis especificas

With regard to rights to education and the legislative changes, the introduction of Part 4 of the DDA 1995 the ‘Special Educational Needs and Disability’ Act 2001 (SENDA), since September 2002, has made it unlawful to treat disabled students less favourably and a duty lies with schools, colleges and universities to make

‘reasonable adjustments’. In Section 316(2) it ensures that children with ‘SEN’ and without a ‘statement’ are educated in mainstream schools. Likewise, Section 316(3) ensures that children with ‘SEN’ and with a ‘statement’ are educated in a

mainstream school, part 1 states that:

If a statement is maintained under section 324 for the child, [s]he must be educated in a mainstream school unless that is incompatible with – (a) the wishes of [her]/his parent, or (b) the provision of efficient education for other children.

(SENDA, 2001, Section 316(3) part 1)

Part (a) means that where parents do not want a mainstream school, LEAs do not have to provide one. No doubt, the permutations of ‘choice’ between parental choice, children’s rights and the ‘choice’ of either mainstream or ‘special’ are extremely problematic. An interesting reflection of this tension is encapsulated by Anya Souza (2002) who provides a useful perspective on the attendance at segregated ‘special’ schools and the notion of belonging ‘here rather than there’.

Souza (2002) suggests that decisions about attendance at segregated ‘special’

school should not be made on the basis that it is at least ‘somewhere’. Souza’s recollections are of her mother being adamant that she would not attend a

segregated ‘special’ school, but later relented. On reflection, Souza commented that

‘she [her mother] must of thought that somewhere was better than nothing [no where]’ and asserted that ‘she was wrong. A school like that should not exist anywhere on Earth today’ (Souza, 2002, p.8, my insertion). Moreover, with respect to adult life and the issue of ‘learning difficulties’, Ward and Stewart (2008, p.305) argue that individuals are ‘frequently’ denied the opportunity ‘to live their lives

according to their own interests and preferences’ given the misguided view that ‘It is often assumed that they are eternal children, unable to speak on their own behalf and therefore not competent to make their own decisions’. They are also under-represented at polling stations (Oliver and Zarb, 1989; Redley, 2008). Ward and Stewart (2008) list a ‘wide range’ of violations and argue that for people described as having ‘learning difficulties’ the:

… violations could be much greater but suffices to press home an important point: distressingly intellectually disabled [sic] people are frequently treated as objects and not with the dignity due them as agents of a life. They are often vehicles through which others (even if well

intentioned) express their own preferences and interests.

(Ward and Stewart, 2008, pp.307 – 308)

Oliver argues that ‘critical voices of disabled people’ have begun to call for

‘decarceration’ of institutions of modernity such as from segregated hospitals, homes, villages, workplaces, ‘special’ schools or units and that political struggles have emerged around ‘our rights to go to the schools, colleges, and universities of our choice as well as all other areas of economic and social life’ (Oliver, 2001, p.159). Unfortunately, however, the critical voice of individuals described as having

‘learning difficulties’ are not always heard.

The Disability Discrimination Act (2005) places a legislative requirement upon all educational institutions to be proactive in engaging with disabled people as a

‘positive duty’ and goes further to be ‘anticipatory’ in order to eliminate

discriminatory practice. The Disability Equality Duty (2006), similarly, places a responsibility on the various Secretaries of State to publish a tri-annual report (from 1 December 2008) to provide an overview of progress made by public authorities to actively promote disability equality. In assisting this Duty, public bodies are

expected to produce an annual Disability Equality Scheme which should focus on specific actions in relation to the Disability Equality Duty. In an overview of the

Equality Duty for the public sector, Bert Massie, then, Chairman of the Disability Rights Commission, commented that:

The Disability Equality Duty is a new way for public authorities to tackle disability discrimination in a practical way by introducing policies that actively promote

opportunities and so prevent discrimination taking place. By taking an organisation-wide approach you can achieve tangible outcomes and improvements for disabled people. It will need the personal commitment from the top of your organisation and will make a real, positive change to your employees and service users. (DRC, 2006, n.p)

The Duty required all public authorities to have published their Disability Equality Schemes by 4 December 2006; although primary schools were given and additional year. As is pointed out, crucial to the Disability Equality Duty is the ‘requirement to involve disabled people in producing the Disability Equality Scheme’ and that ‘it is important to consider the full diversity of disabled people – in terms of type of

impairment and barriers people experience, as well as other equality issues such as ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation and religion or belief’ (DRC, 2006, pp.10 – 12).

In adopting a rights-based model to evaluate inclusive education, Peters et al.

(2005) concluded that the place of disability is:

... not simply to deepen our understanding of disabled people themselves. At a more fundamental level,

understanding the meaning of disability in society is a key to interpreting the very nature of human difference and diversity. (Peters, et al., 2005, p.155)

Despite the shift in terminology to inclusive education there continues to be competing and conflicting discourses. As was pointed out by the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee (DfES, 2006, p.22), the term and practice of ‘inclusion’ has produced considerable confusion with a wide range of meanings. The term evokes a ‘great deal of strong feeling and antagonism’ (DfES,

2006, p.22). Such confusion, and range of meanings, is manifested in practice and arguably reflected in the findings by the Centre of Studies for Inclusive Education (CSIE) which in a report by Rustemier and Vaughan (2005, p.22) revealed a

‘postcode lottery’. Despite local authorities being duty bound by the same legislative framework on inclusion, ‘there are huge variations in the placement of children in segregated settings by LEA in England’ (Rustemier and Vaughan, 2005, p.22). The authors make the point that ‘a child with a statement maintained by South Tyneside LEA was a staggering 24 times more likely to be segregated from the mainstream than a child with a statement maintained by Newham LEA in 2004’ (Rustemier and Vaughan, 2005, p.22).

The UNESCO Salamanca Statement (1994) made a direct link with human rights and inclusive education and called upon all Governments to adopt the principles of inclusive education. One of the educational industry’s most quoted paragraphs of the 1990s (Thomas and Vaughan, 2004) states:

Regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an inclusive society and achieving education for all. Moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system (UNESCO, 1994). (cited in Thomas and Vaughan, 2004, p.128)

The declaration provides an action plan for an inclusive agenda where 92 countries and 25 international organisations signed-up to comprehensive human rights in education across the world. For example, in England in 1997, the incoming New Labour government published their Green Paper ‘Excellence For All Children Meeting Special Educational Needs’ (DfEE, 1997) in support of the UNESCO Salamanca Statement to promote ‘the inclusion of children with [sic] SEN within mainstream schooling wherever possible’ (DfEE, 1997, p.5). Five years on

UNESCO (1999, p.10) reported that the task of attaining the ‘universally accepted goal of Education for All’ remains one of the most ‘daunting challenges facing the global community today’. Such a challenge is acknowledged to be part of a ‘wider struggle’ against exclusion and against the ‘ideology that each individual is

completely separate and independent’: reiterating that ‘inclusion is about the improving of schooling’ and that it ‘lays the foundation for an approach that could lead to the transformation of the system itself’ (UNESCO, 1999, p.9).

The idea that inclusion ‘could’ lead to the transformation of the education system is not necessarily the articulation of the situation argued earlier by Oliver (1995) but rather that it will. Oliver argues that the whole system of segregated ‘special’

schooling is one of ‘abject failure’ (Oliver, 1995, p.68). No longer believing in

‘tinkering’ with the ‘massive failures of special education’, he argues that nothing short of ‘a radical deconstruction of special education and the reconstruction of education in totality will be enough, even if such a journey takes us another hundred years’ (Oliver, 1995, p.68). Oliver (1996) contends that further questions need to be asked about wider notions of education in general and argues that the old view of integration is underpinned by deficit and personal tragedy theory. He asserts that:

… the new view of integration is underpinned by an entirely different philosophy, what might be called the politics of personal identity which demands through a collective identity, that difference not be merely tolerated and accepted but that it is positively valued and celebrated.

(Oliver, 1996, p.89)

Thomas et al. (1998, p.15), rather than adopting the term integration, use the term

‘inclusion’ and argue that it is about a philosophy of acceptance, and that it ‘... is about providing a framework within which all children – regardless of ability, gender, language, ethnic or cultural origin – can be valued equally, treated with respect and provided with equal opportunities at school’. Thomas argues that such a shift,

towards schools becoming more inclusive, will depend on society’s values and attitudes, and that if inclusion succeeds ‘it will have done so because society considers it is right to do so’ (Thomas, 1997b, p.104). Acknowledging detractors to an inclusive philosophy, Thomas points out that the argument for inclusion ‘should reside elsewhere than in empirical evidence’ and not just in curriculum, pastoral systems, attitudes, and teaching methods, but also in wider notions of inclusion in society. Thomas (1997b) makes the point that principles are the key, and that research can only provide a crude pointer to the success of inclusion. Considering the future, Thomas proffers that inclusion will increasingly happen over the new century regardless of dissenters in that such individuals will ‘have to respond to an increasingly anti-discriminatory legislative environment backed by vigorous rights movements across the world’ (Thomas, 1997b, p.106). The United Nation

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), for example Article 24, relates specifically to Inclusive Education to mean all disabled children can attend mainstream school with ‘reasonable accommodations’. Furthermore, the

Convention (2006) also includes non-discrimination, full-participation and

inclusiveness in society and respect for difference. The Convention came into force in May 2008, a number of countries ratified it. However the UK placed a reservation against fully endorsing an inclusive education system, in affect meaning that

segregated ‘special’ school will remain under the guise of ‘parental wishes’ (Joint Committee on Human Rights, 2009).

To summarise, in redefining disability, a rights-based model emerged out of atrocities experienced during the Second World War. Since its conception in 1948, the Declaration of Human Rights has been influenced by the political activism of disabled people. The incorporation of a human rights perspective has broader European and global concern with discrimination against disabled people. However, the rights-based model, defines ‘disability’ in individual/medical (biophysical) model

terms, it ascribes a label and it makes comparisons with ‘normal day-to-day activities’. ‘Reasonable adjustments’ is however, arguably, in social model terms.

Nonetheless, for individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’ their individual struggle for systemic change, equality and participation as citizens, arguably, makes their exclusion all the more puzzling. Not so puzzling given that human rights has its roots in Enlightenment thinking. Indeed, as has been argued by Rae (2009, pp.72 – 73) the ‘underpinnings of Enlightenment humanism may be one of the greatest impediments to the universalisation of ‘human’ rights’. Given the notion of freedom⁵ and that Article 1 states that ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’, pertinent questions arise when understanding the experience of individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’, particularly in terms of trying to gain mainstream experiences and entry qualifications for higher education

participation.