Mara Sapon-Shevin

A Commentary on Inclusion and the Development of a Positive Self-Identity by People with Disabilities

A growing number of concerned individuals throughout the world, including people with disabilities, their parents, and educators, are advocating that students with disabilities be educated in the mainstream of neighborhood classrooms and schools. However, some disability-rights advocates believe that if people with disabilities are to have a well-developed sense of identity as adults, they need to have had opportunities in their school years to associate with other people (both children and adults) having similar characteristics and interests. In this article, we examine this issue and provide one perspective on how it might be addressed.

Student Cohorts Communities of Critique or Dysfunctional Families

The study was designed to trouble the commonsense notion in the field that cohorts, groups of students who move through an educational program together, provide the optimal structure for preparing future teachers. Using collaborative inductive methods, this study by two university researchers of their teaching within a preservice education program explored the following questions: What is the relationship between the positive aspects of being a community and students’ ability and willingness to become critical practitioners? What happens to relationships between students and between students and faculty when there are ruptures or critical incidents within the community? How is the role of faculty members teaching cohorts different from the role of faculty members teaching classes organized in more traditional ways? The study raises questions about various factors that affect community within the cohort and about differences between students’ and faculty’s perceptions of critical ruptures within the classroom.

Beyond Gifted Education: Building a Shared Agenda for School Reform.

This article explores the ways in which gifted education programs as they are currently defined, designed, and implemented lead schools away from rather than toward broader school reform. The author argues that gifted education programs function as a form of educational triage, providing an excellent education for those students for whom educational failure would not be tolerated while leaving the general educational system untouched and immune from analysis and critique. Educational, political, and economic justifications for gifted education are explored with particular reference to alternative ways to conceptualize the debate and the response so that the needs of all students are addressed. Consequences for teachers, students, and society of implementing gifted programs are discussed. Some of the key issues critical to the reexamination of the gifted construct are then explored, including: silence, the pain of gifted students, characteristics of appropriate differentiation, the fear of abandonment of gifted students, the excellence/equity debate, and the possibilities of wide-scale reform. The article concludes with an elaboration of research and policy agendas that could move the educational system forward and avoid positioning school reform advocates, gifted education proponents, and full inclusion supporters in opposition to one another.

The National Education Reports and Special Education: Implications for Students

This article examines the omission of special education from the national reports in terms of negative implications for low-achieving students and those currently receiving special services. Current economic and political variables have minimized both the interface between regular and special education and societys willingness to attend to the educational needs of all children. An analysis of a recent report of the Heritage Foundation underscores the growing jeopardy of special education programs. As proposed, many of the recommendations of the national reports including the “push for excellence” (as interpreted by the schools) will have devasting results for many students, particularly those with special educational needs. National educational reforms must include special education if they are to be successful for all children.

New Agendas for Special Education Policy: What the National Reports Haven't Said

The calls for educational reform that have dominated the professional and lay literature for the past few years have been decidedly silent in discussing the role of special education either as a contributor or a solution to the problems being raised. As an introduction to this “Special Focus” on the relationship between general educational reform and special education, this article summarizes some of the more prominent reports with regard to their treatment (and nontreatment) of special education. The impact of proposed reforms for the conceptualization and operation of special education is the subject of the five articles that follow.

Full Inclusion as Disclosing Tablet: Revealing the Flaws in Our Present System.

(1996). Full inclusion as disclosing tablet: Revealing the flaws in our present system. Theory Into Practice: Vol. 35, Inclusive Schools: The Continuing Debate, pp. 35-41.

Cooperative learning and middle schools: What would it take to really do it right?

Cooperative learning has been shown to help students to learn course material faster and retain it longer and to develop critical reasoning power more rapidly than working alone. Cooperative learning also requires students to get to know and work with classmates of different ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds, setting the stage for requirements of adult work life and for citizenship in a multicultural society. Students in cooperative settings tend to accept disabled classmates more readily than they do in other settings. (p. 50)

Working towards Merger Together: Seeing beyond Distrust and Fear.

Proposals for the merger of regular and special education have been the subject of considerable debate among special educators. This article briefly explores some of the major arguments of the debate and some of the barriers that make rational discussion of this issue difficult, including disagreements about the current situation, the tendency to become defensive of existing systems, and lack of a clear vision of what a merged system would look like. The article concludes with a strong plea for overcoming distrust and fear and using the insights of the mainstreaming movement in schools to inform and guide changes in teacher education that would promote merger.

On Being Suspicious of Technical Solutions to Political Questions: A Rejoinder to Nash.

dressing similar concerns already exists in that field. The phenomenology of retardation; the politics of labeling, the psychology of deviance-all these areas have been thoroughly researched and debated. My paper called for serious consideration of the ethical and political issues which should confront us as we examine current practice and analyze and suggest future policies related to the education of gifted and nongifted children. My work and the work of others (Apple, 1979; Apple, 1982; Bowles and Gintis, 1976; Blatt, 1981) have led me to believe that a political analysis of educational policy is critical and must be, if not antecedent to, at least concurrent with the design of educational strategies. Nash calls for extensive research into educational effectiveness and

In the pool, on the stage, and at the concert: Access to academics beyond classroom walls

Contents: Preface. P. Kluth, D.P. Biklen, D.M. Straut, Access to Academics for All Students. P. Kluth, D.M. Straut, Toward Standards for Diverse Learners: Examining Assumptions. T. Knight, Academic Access and the Family. K. Chandler-Olcott, Seeing All Students as Literate. S.M. Davidenko, P.P. Tinto, Equity for All Learners of Mathematics: Is Access Enough? D.M. Straut, K. Colleary, Accessing Power Through Intentional Social Studies Instruction: Every Day for Every Student. J.W. Tillotson, P. Kluth, Auto Mechanics in the Physics Lab: Science Education for All. K. Madsen, Providing Access to Arts Education: An Illustration Through Music. M. Sapon-Shevin, P. Kluth, In the Pool, On the Stage, and at the Concert: Access to Academics Beyond Classroom Walls. D.P. Biklen, D.M. Straut, P. Kluth, Academics, Access, and Action.