Debating Special Education

Debating Special Education
Author: Michael Farrell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2010-04-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1136976604

Debating Special Education is a provocative yet timely book examining a range of criticisms made of special education in recent years. Michael Farrell analyses several key debates in special education giving balanced critical responses to inform policy and practice for the future of special education. The book identifies possible limitations to the current special education knowledge base and provision. Michael Farrell examines the value of labelling and classification, and asks if intelligence testing may have detrimental effects; and addresses a number of complex issues such as: how practitioners work within special education; and if, sometimes, professionals may be self-serving whether there is distinctive provision for different types of disabilities and disorders inclusion as mainstreaming offered as an alternative to special education, and the challenges this presents. The author's conclusion is that in responding to these challenges, special education demonstrates its continuing relevance and strength. Presenting a range of international, cross-disciplinary perspectives and debates – which are vital to an understanding of special education today, and written in Farrell's typically accessible style – this book will be relevant for teachers of special children in ordinary and special schools; those on teacher training courses and anyone whose work relates to special education.

New Perspectives in Special Education

New Perspectives in Special Education
Author: Michael Farrell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2012
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0415504228

New Perspectives in Special Education opens the door to the fascinating and vitally important world of theory informing contemporary special education. It examines theoretical and philosophical orientations such as 'positivism', 'poststructuralism' and 'hermeneutics', relating these to contemporary, global views of special education.

Inclusive Education: Global Issues and Controversies

Inclusive Education: Global Issues and Controversies
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2020-06-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9004431179

This volume brings together some thought provoking discussions on inclusive education within the current education climate. Is inclusive education worth pursuing or is the fervour for its implementation subsiding as the realities of its challenges are understood?

New Directions in Special Education

New Directions in Special Education
Author: Thomas Hehir
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2005-11-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1612500064

A comprehensive study that is also practical and realistic, New Directions in Special Education outlines principles for decisionmaking about special education at every level—from the family to the classroom, school, and district—and for state and federal policy. With this volume, leading scholar and disability advocate Thomas Hehir opens a new round of debate on the future of special education. Extending the conceptual framework developed in his seminal 2002 article in the Harvard Educational Review, "Eliminating Ableism in Education," Hehir examines the ways that cultural attitudes about disability systematically distort the education of children with special needs and uses this analysis to lay out a fresh approach to special education policy and practice. Hehir traces the roots of "ableism"—the pervasive devaluation of people with disabilities—and shows how negative attitudes continue to shape debates in the field. He assesses recent trends in special education policy, particularly the shift of emphasis from compliance to outcomes, and discusses in depth the successes and limitations of the inclusion movement. He also investigates the impact of standards-based reforms on children with disabilities and critically examines the promise of Universal Design for Learning.

Leading on Inclusion

Leading on Inclusion
Author: John Cornwall
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2012-08-06
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1136501959

Leading on Inclusion: Dilemmas, debates and new perspectives critically examines the current theory and legislative context of special educational needs and disability, and explores the enduring issues and opportunities that will affect future practice in all schools. The central theme throughout the book asks the inevitable question ‘What happens next?’ and the expert team of contributors, drawn from a pool of teachers, academics and researchers, consider wide-ranging issues such as: the voice of young people whole school development and planning for inclusion educational change within the context of inclusion the pros and cons of multi-professional working inclusive and ethical research international perspectives on inclusion, SEN and disability the development of teacher education and the notion of ‘joined up’ thinking. This forward-thinking and rigorously researched book will be essential reading for students, teachers undertaking school-based training, SENCOs, inclusion managers, higher education tutors and anyone with a professional interest in the future for inclusive education.

Inclusive Special Education

Inclusive Special Education
Author: Garry Hornby
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2014-08-20
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1493914839

Much has been written about special education and about inclusive education, but there have been few attempts to pull these two concepts and approaches together. This book does just that: sets special education within the context of inclusive education. It posits that to include, effectively, all children with special educational needs in schools requires an integration of both concepts, approaches, and techniques. It has never been more timely to publish a book that helps professionals who work with schools, such as psychologists, special education professionals, and counselors, to identify effective practices for children with special needs and provide guidelines for implementing these in inclusive schools.

Misguided Education Reform

Misguided Education Reform
Author: Nancy E. Bailey
Publisher: R&L Education
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2013-07-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1475803583

Misguided Education Reform: Debating the Impact on Students argues for reforms that will help, not hurt, America’s public school students. Early childhood education, testing, reading, special education, discipline, loss of the arts, and school facilities, are all areas experiencing reform in the wrong direction. This book says “no” to the reforms that fail, and challenges Americans to address the real student needs that will fix public schools and make America strong.

Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools

Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools
Author: Candy Gunther Brown
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2019-03-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1469648490

Yoga and mindfulness activities, with roots in Asian traditions such as Hinduism or Buddhism, have been brought into growing numbers of public schools since the 1970s. While they are commonly assumed to be secular educational tools, Candy Gunther Brown asks whether religion is truly left out of the equation in the context of public-school curricula. An expert witness in four legal challenges, Brown scrutinized unpublished trial records, informant interviews, and legal precedents, as well as insider documents, some revealing promoters of "Vedic victory" or "stealth Buddhism" for public-school children. The legal challenges are fruitful cases for Brown's analysis of the concepts of religious and secular. While notions of what makes something religious or secular are crucial to those who study religion, they have special significance in the realm of public and legal norms. They affect how people experience their lives, raise their children, and navigate educational systems. The question of religion in public education, Brown shows, is no longer a matter of jurisprudence focused largely on the establishment of a Protestant Bible or nonsectarian prayer. Instead, it now reflects an increasingly diverse American religious landscape. Reconceptualizing secularization as transparency and religious voluntarism, Brown argues for an opt-in model for public-school programs.

Special Educational Needs and Inclusive Practices

Special Educational Needs and Inclusive Practices
Author: Fabio Dovigo
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2017-01-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9463008578

"Today, school is becoming a rapidly changing learning environment. Thinking about students as a homogeneous population is no longer allowed, as diversity – in terms of culture, language, gender, family organisation, learning styles and so on – has emerged as a key challenge for education today.The debate on Special Educational Needs largely reflects this challenge, as working in school implies careful reconsideration of what we mean by “normal” and “special”. Current educational intervention is generally based on a deficit and “within-child” model of facing SEN, whereas very little attention is given to the role of learning environments. The focus is on the child more than on the whole class, and on cognition and technical provisions more than on affective, sociocultural and community dimensions of learning. Conversely, regarding students and their needs as “hidden voices” allows us to adopt a transformative approach which sees diversity as a stimulus for the development of educational practices that might benefit all children and help school to become an inclusive and “moving” organisation.The aim of the book is twofold: on the one hand, it offers a systematic overview of the inclusive education state-of-the-art in six countries (Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, UK, and USA) based on the contributions by well-known scholars such as Christy Ashby, Barbara Brokamp, Fabio Dovigo, Kari Nes, Mara Westling Allodi, Tony Booth, and Beth Ferri; on the other hand, the book analyses five cases of good practices of inclusion related to different subjects and school levels."

The Dyslexia Debate

The Dyslexia Debate
Author: Julian G. Elliott
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2014-03-24
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0521119863

An examination of how we use the term 'dyslexia' and how this may undermine aid for struggling readers.