diversity in special education

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01466-3. Suddenly the term person has come to play a key role in demolishing the idea that human beings, qua human beings, have some kind of rights before other human beings. According to Biesta, this is the case because the acquisition of new habits and knowledge in Deweys theory of education is acquired by placing the human organism in new environments as it is through interaction with such environments that human organisms acquire new habits and knowledge and hence learn (p.7). It is for these reasons I argue that an emphasis on existential educational and seeing the person as someone are critical as will be outlined below. Disability: A justice-based account. Equity includes meeting learner needs by delivering social justice, differentiating instruction, and providing equal access. Engaged scholarship that draws from lived experience, praxis, and/or diversity science is encouraged. Food Security Status of U.S. How well prepared are general educators in the classroom to teach students with different needs in the classroom and diverse learning needs?How does the diversity of our teacher population reflect the diversity of the students in the classroom? You can also search for this author in London: Allen Lane. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. 2020. One of those regulations are actually just being implemented for the first time more aggressively now. 2013. She criticises the use of the term diversity in education as an all-compassing term. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603110600601034. "AACTE believes that, in educator preparation, diversity involves having understanding, awareness, acceptance, acknowledgement, and representation of differences. Jill Anderson: I am Jill Anderson. Putting persons back into education. Considering Diversity in (Special) Education: Disability, Being Someone and Existential Education. New research by Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier and Maczuga once again finds that when you take other student characteristicsnotably family income and achievementinto account, racial and ethnic. To actualize these questions Ikheimo invites us to contemplate a thought-experiment regarding how many persons there are in a room and in so doing, he attempts to illustrate the attribution humans undertake in relation to person-making significances. He writes: Case 1: You are in a room with an average, more or less healthy friend of yours. So when we see differences that pop up in certain categories that are determined more by the educators within the school district instead of medical professionals, when we see patterns that indicate that these students also have segregated placements, these are indications that at a systems level we really need to ask ourselves what are practices on referral? Some numbers are worth noting: We need to work towards better identification practices in special education. : From Capabilities to Function, to Capabilities to Control, Begon (2017) criticizes Nussbaumss list of capabilities. Functionings can involve quite basic characteristicssuch as being well-nourished, being in good health, and receiving an education as well as involving complex activities and states of beingsuch as having self-respect. Dhuey, E. & Lipscomb, S. 2013. Instead, they interpreted disability as a cultural and social phenomenon caused by social, structural and cultural mechanisms rather than the mere personal effects of impairments (Thomas 2004, 2007). In the U.S. overall, 14.5 percent of all students were special education students (ages 3-21) in 2020-21. It can be described as a powerful intervention designed to help children with disabilities overcome the obstacles that they might face when it comes to learning. I, therefore, believe that the adjustments made by Begon are very important. And I think some of those patterns really raised the concern about whether those placements are actually good for the vast majority of students that get them. Buchanan, Allen. Reindal, Solveig M. 2010. Often, there is one way for all students to learn the material, such as a lecture or a slide presentation. Cultural background influences one's understanding of intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. Cultural diversity and special education teacher preparation: Critical issues confronting the field. London: Routledge. The overall argument in the article is built on an acknowledgement of Prings argument, that there is a depersonalization process in education. Tuchman, S. 2017. 2017. Discussions on diversity are often addressed in relation to disability and inclusive education, but seldom are the discussions framed within a broader context, reflecting on interpretations of overarching educational ends. Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. Funding Special Education by Capitation: Evidence from State Finance Reforms. Teaching Strategies for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students The first step in addressing cultural and linguistic diversity is to be aware. I think the significance of foregrounding the I is vital regarding the issue of diversity as it relates to disability in relation to a host of fundamental issues as questions, such as various ability expectations dominant in the social and cultural setting, the instrumentalization of education, the emphasis on target-setting cultures and other accountability practices. But one of the things that we can do from assistance perspective is say, okay, well what can our teacher preparation programs do better? An emphasis on being in control opens to select the preferred sensory experience. Benjamin, Shereen. Since Kant, the term person has, according to Spaemann, served as a nomen dignitatis, an evaluative concept which has acted as a foundation for human rights (p. 2). To celebrate this diversity, and cultivate harmony and respect for all peoples, educators must nurture equality and inclusion within the classroom. Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Special Education, 2016. Where that becomes concerning is what we really need to think about is whether the outcomes of the students in those classes are good. Within the field of Disability Studies, the impairment/disability distinction has also been interpreted as a hindrance to valuing diversity. The paradigm imparts an understanding, able to tell the story of who we are primarily in light of different subject fields in sciences, as a coordinate between the system axis and the individual, interacting between culture and environment. A report on the Banality of Evil. For example, the preamble to the disproportionality regulations notes that unequal autism identification rates across groups may reflect disparities in access to medical care, suggesting that the district offer early developmental screenings. On the Parks-Eichmann paradox, spooky action at a distance and a missing dimension in the theory of education, Biesta (2020) addresses the difference between what he calls a paradigm of education as cultivation, versus an existential educational paradigm. The need for special education teachers from culturally and/or linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds has become a national concern. Justice and equality in education a capability perspective on disability and special educational needs. The case of asexuality, for example, reflects a problem that is different from people choosing celibacy as a life form, as no laws or social stigma prevent people from performing this functioning. Barnum, M. Many worry that students of color are too often identified as disabled. - 178.254.57.38. Not an I, but simply the self-same human being who says I (his italics p. 245). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Special education, on the other hand, is based on the recognition that some students have unique needs that require specialized support and services to succeed. An example could be the controversy relating to what kind of achieved functionings deaf children or those with a hearing impairment and their parents, are encouraged to strive for (cochlea implants, sign language, oral therapyFootnote 1) in order to develop the capabilities of their child and to partake in situations concerning their childs future life. 258, 288). These various differences constitute a personal profile for every person in relation to the opportunity to develop functionings and capabilities. The reason for this critique is that learning, specifically, can take place without an end, thus it is difficult to take responsibility for the direction of learning. If teachers don't feel prepared to meet the needs of kids with disabilities within their classroom or kids who behave differently within their classroom, then there will be a kind of trigger to find a solution for that through the path of special education. 2009. This is addressed by arguing that an understanding of diversity ought to be understood primarily in relation to being a personto be someone, and not a something like a bio-neuro-socio-cultural being, a concept coined by Biesta (2020), in which the human being is interpreted as a coordinate between a system axis and an individual. God, philosophy, universities: A selective history of the Catholic philosophical tradition. Instead, we should focus on building a better safety net and reducing child poverty. Count how many persons there are in the room. Households with Children in 2016. Cambridge, MA: Belknap press of Harvard University Press. This might encourage discussions relating to cures and enhancement opportunities that are implicitly driven by the expectations to be able to perform valuable functionings. Spaemann argues, that the thinking that persons are something that becomes someone by recognition, because of the ownership of rational nature, goes back to Locke and is currently argued by Singer and others (p. 252). 2007. Jill Anderson: Is there a specific policy recommendation that you would make? Are Minority Children Disproportionately Represented in Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education? Spaemann states: But what does he or she mean by I? This move is problematic, as an emphasis on achieved functionings in an educational setting might be informed by dominant norms and values, hence supporting ability expectations in that culture or society (Wolbring 2012). Kristjana Kristiansen, Tom Shakespeare, and Simo Vehmas, 7792. Emphasizing the paradigm of existence foregrounding the I, is a step in the right direction in my view. Rather than acknowledging this order Parks insisted on preserving her own self-respect, and she opposed the social structure. We just have a really effective program and this number is identifying kids appropriately. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Part of Springer Nature. Riddle, Christopher A. These educational disparities This helps to promote inclusion, diversity, and equality at both an individual and classroom levels. It also encourages the appreciation of a diverse school population, and brings a sense of connection between disparate cultural heritages within a single school's culture. 2011b. The principal might have things on their mind in terms of what supports they could actually provide the student and whether they have the ability to get the student what they need within their school district if they do find the child eligible. The language of learning does not capture the whole picture. Leeds: Disability Press. Data on identification by race and ethnicity are essential for revealing patterns and outliers. And for some students at the individual level, maybe they are, but I think where we see concerns is when we look at the patterns across school districts and across states is students in those placements are much more likely to be disciplined than students without those placements. 2010. While encouraging school districts to avoid disproportionality surely comes from an idealistic place, schools cannot do it alone. Theory and Research in Education 3: 197223. Begon, Jessica. Morgan, Paul L., George Farkas, Marianne M. Hillemeier, and Steve Maczuga. In the chapter Personhood and the social inclusion of people with disabilities Ikheimo (2009) encourages us to deliberate on what it is to be a person and more specifically what it is to be a disabled person. Barnes, Elizabeth. study), the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002,11and the ECLS-Birth Cohort.12 These national patterns do not preclude local heterogeneity. Deaf Identities in disability studies: With us or without us? Discussions on diversity and disability in dialogue with special educationalists and philosophers of education are not often found in the research literature. Nussbaum identifies a list of central human capabilities, arguing that all of them are implicit in the idea of a life worthy of human dignity. The distinction was especially important in developing the social model, by breaking the theoretical causal link between impairment and disability, which was said to underpin the medical interpretations of disability (Oliver 1996, p. 41), and educational practices within special education (Gallagher Heshusius, Iano and Skrtic 2004). 2002. Sign up for our newsletters to get the latest from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. From: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I believe that much of the critique regarding the enterprise of special education can be related to the task of education primarily being viewed as cultivation, where particular abilities and the achievement of specific functionings have been focused, often in combination with individual and medical interpretations of disability. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act aims to address equity by race and ethnicity; 2016 regulations further define the framework.1718 States must collect and review district-level data on how rates of identificationoverall, by educational setting and disability categoryvary across racial and ethnic groups with no adjustments for variables that correlate with need for services. Special education expert Laura Schifter discusses how students of color and low-income students are disproportionately assigned to special education, and what can be done. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative, Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, Not logged in Holding on to the central idea in the social model, that disability is more than a persons impairment (Oliver 1996), disability is viewed as additional to the personal and social effect of an impairment (Reindal 2009; Thomas 2007). And that's actually leading to more disruptive behavior from our students. The percentage varied by state from 11.3 percent in Hawaii and Texas to 20.5 percent in. Firstly, we never consciously make persons. 2009. New York: Nextbook Schocken. New York: Routledge. The fact that there are different attitudes to people and that people are treated differently from an economical, legal and ethical perspective is well documented in research, but that should not imply that personal status is associated with acceptance. Fricker, Miranda. 2016. And what that means is that in school, not all kids with disabilities are eligible for special education. 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Spaemann, Robert. 2009. She identifies a problem in the capabilities approach when capabilities are defined as capabilities to function. If you view participation in special education as providing critical services to appropriately identified students, the fact that a given black student is less likely to be placed in special education than an otherwise identical white student is deeply troubling. There are several books on the Eichmann trial. She documents that the happening on the bus was not the result of a single act, but in line with a life engagement for the rights of black people. Jill Anderson: This seems like something that's very difficult to do. Addressing ableism in schooling and society? He invites us to consider the question of whether impairments can compromise someones personhood, or whether we are persons completely independent of our abilities, of what we can perform and do? The aforementioned cases illustrate a problem that Spaemann (2006, 2010, 2015) has dealt with in light of his distinction between being someone versus being something. One or two? I share Felders view. So I did want to talk a little bit about what that process of evaluating a student for special education might look like. Hacking refers to the looping effect when he describes how scientific classification makes up people in the process of classifications where he has identified several central steps. When the focus is on opportunities to exercise control in certain domains (Begon 2017pp. But researchers hadn't really dug into that yet. The idea of justice. Highlighting these three distinctions, I hope to show that the discussions relating to diversity in education ought to be outlined in a language framework other than the effective school and science of deliverology that Pring (2012) has so aptly called the trend in educational thought, emphasizing a target-setting culture that leads to a depersonalization of education. But it also factors in information from the teacher reviewing the student within the context of their classroom. And whether the disproportionality that we see of low income students in special education is only the result of a higher rate of low income students among students of color. A critique of medical and individual models has especially and rightly been addressed by disability scholars. So it's really tricky because one of the things that's in special education law is a requirement that students be placed in the least restrictive environment. In these texts people with impairments put words to feelings of not being reckoned among equals because they lack abilities expected to be performed by persons and therefore have a sense of not having the same personal status as other persons who do not lack certain abilities (see OBrian with Kendall 2003, p. 4). Inequality reexamined. Dhuey, E. & Lipscomb, S. 2011. It has been pointed out that the capabilities approach, with its emphasis on capabilities as opportunities to function, repositions the role of education in the pursuit of human flourishing (Hinchcliffe and Terzi 2009, p. 388). The politics of heredity essays on eugenics, biomedicine, and the nature-nurture debate. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2004). Scully, Jackie L. 2012. & Farkas, G. Is Special Education Racist?, Morgan, P.L. Risks and Consequences of Oversimplifying Educational Inequities. In the complex world of education, we keep the focus simple: what makes a difference for learners, educators, parents, and our communities. Fourteen percent of public school students receive special education services that includes an individualized education plan (IEP) designed to help each student succeed in school.In the 2015-2016 school year, 48 states and Washington, DC reported shortages in special education (Learning Policy Institute). Laura Schifter: First, we looked at the identification for low income students in special education and what we did in our study is we had administrative data, which means the data, all the students in the state across three different states, two moderately sized states and one large state. As the notion valuing diversity evolved, it was criticized for its lack of discernment characteristics. National Research Council, 2002. However, the demand regarding ability expectations is not independent of how we interpretate what a human being is, and the meaning of personal development. Analyzing attacks of disdain and distortion from leaders in the field. It doesn't mean that 100% of the time all students with disabilities are educated alongside of non-disabled peers and the preference is towards inclusive classrooms. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Capability means opportunity to select, hence capabilities have values in and of themselves, as spheres of freedom and choice, whereas functionings are the outgrowths or realizations of capabilities (Nussbaum 2011, p. 25). Cohodes, S.R., Grossman, D.S., Kleiner, S.A., & Lovenheim, M.F. Hanford, E. Hard to Read: How American schools fail kids with dyslexia.. Eds & trans. So is that something most educators seem to know? The Department of Special Education offers a doctoral (Ph.D.) degree with a concentration in Equity and Diversity in Special Education (EDSE). And if it's not, then what they need to do is they're required to spend 15% of their funds under IDEA on something called coordinated early intervening services. Cognitive enhancement and education. Two cases before the Supreme Court have the potential to restrict long-standing recruitment and admissions practices at colleges and universities. Against impairment: Replies to Aas, howard, and Francis. Teacher Education and Special Education, 21(1), 6370. In the article Capabilities for All? Justifying and Explaining Disproportionality, 1968-2008: A Critique of Underlying Views of Culture. Celebrating diversity in education and the special case of disability. 2002. In a more recent book, The Eichmann Trial by historian Deborah E. Lipstadt, Arendts view is criticized with regard to the background of Eichmanns memoir that was released in relation to a trial between Lipstadt and David Irving (a Holocaust denier). From: Currie, J., Greenstone, M., & Moretti, E. 2011. Her list remains perfectionist as long as central capabilities are regarded as representing opportunities to perform those functionings essential for a good life, claims Begon (p. 160). I argue that an understanding of diversity and the case of disability within the framework of (special) education should preferably be: (1) interpreted within a social relational model of disability, drawing on an adjusted capabilities approach, (2) an existential educational paradigm and (3) seeing the person as someone, and not as something Are all Human Beings Person? pp. It's certainly a difficult work to do and I think people have good intentions going into this work and it's important to recognize that as well. Give back to HGSE and support the next generation of passionate educators and innovative leaders. PubMedGoogle Scholar. Discussing inclusive education: An inquiry into different interpretations and a search for ethical aspects of inclusion using the capabilities approach. What that might be in a school district is something like multi-tiered systems of support where you're providing different interventions for kids over time and seeing how they respond to those interventions before referring a kid for special education to try and see if there's a way that we can provide more structure within general education to provide various services for kids before referring for special education. Lafortune, J., Rothstein, J., & Schanzenbach, D.W., forthcoming. By highlighting a potential concept that can provide us with an understanding of disability as a multidimensional, dynamic and context-bound phenomenon, able to address ethical issues, Felder (2019) points to an understanding of disability within the capabilities approach (p. 13). That said, Ikheimo stresses the importance of highlighting this fact by helping them lead their lives as fully as they can as persons among other persons (p. 88). The disproportionality literature consistently notes that childrens outcomes are causally affected by out-of-school factors such as poor nutrition, stress, and exposure to environmental toxins, and that exposure to these influences unduly affects poor children and children of color. We do not want to live in a society where parents describe access to dyslexia (or other) services as a rich mans game.16 Its less troubling for those who view special education as stigmatizing and punitive, even for students who are appropriately identified and indeed, we have little understanding of how well or poorly special education serves its students. New York: Continuum. Disability & Society 31: 116. Nick Watson, Alan Roulstone, and Carol Thomas, 109122. Previously, she worked as a policy and research consultant focusing on . One of the things that we need to think about is whether identification for special education is appropriate. Special educators must be culturally responsive to all students, especially those students with disabilities whose culture may influence their educational decisions and outcomes. Whether these differences turn out to be disabling for that particular person, depends on cultural, material, valuerelated and structural factorsthe life experience of that person. Spaemann does not agree that it is possible to make such a distinction. It's not. 2008. And what we did when we looked at that is we looked at, okay, well what are the rates of identification for low income students in special education as compared to non low income students. In my view, Pring highlights a crucial problem relating to the way in which theorizing and educational practices have developed over the last few decades. And importantly the other factor is that the child needs special education to access the curriculum. We need to think about those factors kind of going into the process of identification as well as after the student is identified, what happens to that student in the school. 1994. Laura Schifter: Yeah. Persons: The difference between someone and something. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oxford Review of Education 38: 747760. 12 percent of white and Asian children lived in poor families, compared with 36 percent of black children, 30 percent of Hispanic children, 33 percent of American Indian children, and 19 percent of others.

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