Julie Allan

The Repetition of Exclusion.

Special educational needs will be a thing of the past (Her Majestys Inspector of Education Mike Gibson, Addressing the National Association of Special Educational Needs Conference, 2004) The strain imposed by social inclusion in some of our schools is in danger of becoming a time bomb waiting to explode unless properly resourced ... we all want inclusion for all young people in Scotland, including asylum seeker children, so that they to can look forward positively to the future. However, that future inclusion which all politicians are happy to sign up to and pay lip service to comes at a price. And in too many schools at the present time that price is the health and well-being of Scottish teachers ... disruptive pupils may be a minority, but they are a growing minority. Now is the time to say enough is enough. This trend must be reversed. These pupils will not be included in mainstream provision unless their behaviour can be guaranteed. All schools must be given the ability to exclude the disruptive (Douglas Mackie, Educational Institute of Scotland Presidential Address, 2004).

The sociology of disability and the struggle for inclusive education

This article charts the emergence of the sociology of disability and examines the areas of contestation. These have involved a series of erasures and absences – the removal of the body from debates on the social model of disability; the disappearance of the Other from educational policies and practices; and the absence of academics from political discourses and action. The paper considers the contribution of the sociology of disability to inclusive education and examines some of the objections currently being voiced. It ends with some reflections on the possibilities for academics within the sociology of disability to pursue alternative forms of engagement and outlines a series of duties that they might undertake.

Deterritorializations: Putting Postmodernism to Work on Teacher Education and Inclusion.

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SOCIAL CAPITAL, SOCIAL INCLUSION AND CHANGING SCHOOL CONTEXTS: A SCOTTISH PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT: This paper synthesises a collaborative review of social capital theory, with particular regard for its relevance to the changing educational landscape within Scotland. The review considers the common and distinctive elements of social capital, developed by the founding fathers – Putnam, Bourdieu and Coleman – and explores how these might help to understand the changing contexts and pursue opportunities for growth.

The Theory Question in Research Capacity Building in Education: Towards an Agenda for Research and Practice

ABSTRACT The question of capacity building in education has predominantly been approached with regard to the methods and methodologies of educational research. Far less attention has been given to capacity building in relation to theory. In many ways the latter is as pressing an issue as the former, given that good research depends on a combination of high quality techniques and high quality theorising. The ability to capitalise on capacity building in relation to methods and methodologies may therefore well be restricted by a lack of attention to theory. In this paper we make a case for capacity building with regard to theory, explore the different roles of theory in educational research, and provide an outline of an agenda for capacity building with regard to theory.

Questions of inclusion in Scotland and Europe

This paper examines inclusion in Scotland and in Europe. It considers some of the uncertainties surrounding inclusion and the questions – many of which give cause for concern – that are currently being raised by researchers, teachers and their representative unions, parents and children. The shifting political and policy contexts and recent patterns and trends in Scotland and across Europe, which illustrate key points of exclusion, as well as some of the challenges to these, are reported. A ‘landmark’ challenge to discrimination of Roma children, achieved within the European Convention on Human Rights, is presented as an illustration of the scope for asserting the right to inclusion. The paper ends with a discussion of the prospects and possibilities for inclusion. The significance of the barriers to inclusion is acknowledged and it is argued that there is an urgent need to address the competing policy demands within education and the problems associated with fragmented provision. A call is also made for research involving children, young people and families in order to inform practice.

Daring to think otherwise? Educational policymaking in the Scottish Parliament

This paper examines the process of policy-making within the Scottish Parliament, focusing in particular on the activities of the All Party Committee of Sport, Education, and Culture. I report on the Inquiry process from an insider/outsider position as advisor to the Committee in its Inquiry into special educational needs provision in Scotland and explore the contrasts between the ‘Inquiry’ and more conventional forms of policymaking. It is argued that the Scottish politicians have attempted to understand problems in their complexity, displaced party politics, and avoided the closure of the simple ‘solution’ or ‘standard’ by articulating the challenge of inclusion as a series of aporias. Perhaps most importantly, it is suggested, the Inquiry format has provided a new space in which the politicians could hold their Scottish Executive officials to account, and they did so tenaciously, by requiring accountability in terms of action and responsibility rather than retrospective transparency. The paper concludes with a discussion of the possibilities opened up within the Parliamentary Inquiry space. It is argued that the Inquiry format has created a long awaited opportunity for resituating the debates on inclusion within an ethical framework. More generally, it is argued that academics need to find ways of bringing politics back to policymaking by exploiting the new spaces they find themselves in.

Educational renewal as democratic practice: 'new' community schooling in Scotland

This paper focuses on the New Community Schools (NCS) initiative as currently being developed in Scotland. This major 5-year programme is one of a raft of educational initiatives that the Scottish Executive is supporting across local authorities. Drawing on documentary evidence and interview data, we discuss the potential of this programme for professional renewal across a range of occupational groups involved in NCS: community, health and social workers as well as schoolteachers and pre-school practitioners. A key question for us is whether the initiative can support these professional groups in closer collaboration across institutional and professional divides, between schools and communities, and across the subject demarcations of the school curriculum. The permeability of institutional, professional and curricular boundaries is thus a key focus here. We discuss this theme with reference to the work of a particular local authority in central Scotland. Finally, we highlight a number of tensions within the national initiative; tensions which focus on issues of power and control between centre and locality and between different interest groups within localities. The fledgling democratic structures supported through NCS at the local level are, we conclude, highly vulnerable to these tensions and potential conflicts of interest. I wish, first, that we should recognize that education is ordinary. (Raymond Williams)

Special schools and inclusion

The debates about the inclusion of children with special needs have usually focused on mainstream schools. Special schools have often been ignored or denigrated, but there is little understanding of what they do in practice. This paper examines the culture and practices of special schools from the perspective of head teachers and pupils. The head teachers report on the recent reforms within their schools, partly in response to policy initiatives, such as the national curriculum and devolved school management, and partly in an effort to secure their own future. The pupils describe their experiences of curriculum and teaching approaches, progress and their ambitions for the future. The paper seeks neither to praise nor bury special schools, but to encourage greater understanding of their current role and to argue that the debates on inclusion must take account of the contributions special schools claim to be making.

Can the Mothers of Invention Make Virtue out of Necessity? An optimistic deconstruction of research compromises in contract research and evaluation

This article offers a retrospective deconstruction of research compromises undertaken during ‘quick and dirty’ contract evaluation. The deconstruction identifies constraining changes in the nature of research contexts, but develops a positive view of methodological developments which might be regarded as creating ‘transgressive validity’. Notions of ‘hybridity’ in research methodology, and of ‘negotiation’ in research procedures are considered.