Nombre Genérico

The rise of the institution (Foucault, 1967), and its role in structuring the exclusion of disabled people from mainstream society, has been noted (S.Tomlinson, 1982; Skrtic, 1995; Oliver, 1990). Oliver (1990, p.42), for instance, contends that the institution has ‘played a key role in structuring both perceptions and experiences of

disability, and facilitated the exclusion of disabled people from mainstream social life’. With regard to segregated ‘special’ schooling, Skrtic’s (1995, p.xv) summation

is that it is the ‘dark side of public education’ born out of ‘the institutional practice

that emerged in twentieth-century industrialised democracies to conceal its failure to educate all citizens for full political, economic, and cultural participation in

democracy’. Sally Tomlinson (1982, p.2) too argued that the segregated ‘special’

subsystem emerged out of the ‘dominant social and economic and professional

vested interests’ and not just out of humanitarian motives. As with industrialised

societies and the demand for qualifications, Tomlinson stressed that:

… to be categorised out of ‘normal’ education represents

the ultimate in non-achievement in terms of ordinary educational goals. Occupational success, social mobility, privilege and advancement are currently legitimated by the education system; those who receive a ‘special’ rather than an ordinary education are by and large, excluded from these things. The result of exclusion is that the majority of the children are destined for a ‘special’ career and life-style in terms of employability and self-sufficiency. (Tomlinson,

1982, p.6)

In terms of the segregated ‘special’ school curriculum, Tomlinson (1982, p.134) further suggested that ‘at the heart’ of a sociological analysis is a consideration of ‘what teachers and pupils actually do’ and that it is here that the ‘beliefs that the

special needs of children are being met can be tested’. Tomlinson noted that the

‘unofficial, informal activities which count as learning, but which would not appear on

a timetable’ – i.e. the hidden curriculum of mainstream schools – ‘becomes the

In addition, as to ‘race’ and segregated ‘special’ schooling and the over-

representation of racial and ‘migrant minorities’, Tomlinson (2004, p.84) asks ‘What is going on?’ and notes that the use of a ‘special subsystem’ to ‘remove black

children in disproportionate numbers from mainstream education must be questioned’. Education and its subsystems are not neutral elements. Tomlinson

argues (2004, p.77) that it is important to discuss the persistent assumptions behind placements in segregated provision of ‘racial and migrant minorities’ given that this ‘does not appear to be changing significantly’.

Oliver makes the point that ‘the twentieth century for disabled people has been one

of exclusion’ and notes that the twenty-first century will see the struggle of disabled

people going from strength to strength in which ‘segregated education has no role to

play’ (Oliver, 1996, p.94) and neither, as argued earlier (Walker, 1981, p.196), does

segregation in hospitals and employment. Further, Skrtic (1995) was of the view that:

Had the profession of education been grounded in different discipline or in one of the other paradigms of modern knowledge, special education would be something other than what it is today. Indeed, had the profession of

education been grounded in a different paradigm, the need for special education might not have emerged at all. (Skrtic,

1995, p.76)

Barnes et al. (1999, p.107) state the position adopted within the disabled people’s movement; namely, that ‘the special education system is fundamental to the

disabling process and therefore must be abolished’. They assert their view that:

… the British education system has failed disabled children

by not providing the same educational opportunities as for non-disabled children and, moreover, through special provision, helping to reproduce their isolation and exclusion from mainstream society. (Barnes, et al., 1999, pp.109 –

Moreover, Vernon and Swain (2002, pp.92 – 93) reiterated the point that segregated ‘special’ schooling not only separated disabled people from non-disabled people but also ‘separated disabled people from other people, as categorised by impairments,

and continues to do so’. As was argued by Finkelstein and Stuart (1996, pp.172 –

173), services for disabled people and the idea that disabled people’s ‘needs’ are ‘special’ has become part of the uncritical dogma that informs service provision. It has furthermore become part of a ‘disabling culture’ (Finkelstein and Stuart, 1996, p.175). It has become the discourse in which the exercise of power is all too enlightening. Jenny Corbett maintains that the label ‘special needs’ implies relative powerlessness on the part of those to whom it is applied and that it is ‘the language [and discourse] of sentimentality and prejudice’ (Corbett, 1996a, p.5, my insertion). Indeed, Fulcher (1999, p.15), in her work, established policy within a political framework consisting of discursive social practices arguing that it had the ‘capacity

to make decisions and to act on them and this involves, by definition, the exercise of power’, making decisions whether to ‘divide schoolchildren into those with

disabilities and those without …’. Moreover, as madhouses replaced leper colonies

at the close of the Middle Ages (Foucault, 1967), marking a shift from the body to the mind, so too began the age of Reason which made visible not only deafness (Davis, 1995) but also ‘feeble-mindedness’; becoming a discourse of treatment by professionals. Indeed medical, educational and social care professionals are all, it seems, dedicated to the proposition that disabled people, particularly people labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’, have ‘special’ needs that require their expertise.