From Inclusion to Engagement E-Book

Paul Cooper

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 480

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

From Inclusion to Engagement challenges the ideologically driven academic discourse that has come to dominate inclusive education by presenting research-based knowledge about what actually works. * Presents an innovative approach rooted in a biopsychosocial theoretical perspective - an approach that is still relatively misunderstood within the educational sphere * Offers insights based on an extensive review of contemporary international research in the field * Avoids the biases of ideology in favour of science-based social and educational outcomes * The first comprehensive account of evidence-based interventions for students with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

List of Figures and Tables

About the Authors

Preface

Politics, Ideology and Education: Valuing Human Lives

Acknowledgements

1: Introduction

There is Something Rotten in the State of Inclusive Education

Why is Inclusive Education Going Wrong?

The Limitations of the Social Model of SEN: The Case of ADHD

Dealing with Challenges to the Validity of ADHD Diagnosis

Educational Engagement

Moving the Debate Forward

This Book

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria for Studies

Outline of the Rest of the Book

2: SEBD

The Problem of SEBD

Understanding SEBD

The Challenge of SEBD

Influences in the Development of SEBD – A Brief Theoretical Review

The Development of SEBD – A Social Learning Model

The Importance of Education, Schooling and the Social Context in Relation to the Experience of SEBD

The Importance of Attachment to School

Early Twentieth Century Precursors – The Work of ‘The Pioneers’

Resilience in Education

The Evolution of Theory in Relation to SEBD

The Application of Psychological Principles to SEBD – Changing Values and Practices Over Time

Understanding the Development of SEBD: A Bio-Psycho-Social Approach

Summary

3: The Teacher–Student Interface

Teachers’ Characteristics and Skills

Peers as a Classroom Resource

Positive Peer Reporting and ‘Tootling’

Class-Wide Peer Tutoring (CWPT)

Peer Assisted Learning Strategies

Conclusion

Summary

4: Interventions for Enhancing Teachers’ Skills

Behavioural Interventions

Cognitive Behavioural Strategies

Instructional Strategies

Conclusion

Summary

5: Whole-school Approaches and Support Systems

National and Local Support Systems

Whole-school Academic Interventions

Whole-School Interventions for Social-Emotional Learning

Circle Time

Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL)

School-Wide Positive Behavioural Support (SWPBS)

Cognitive Behavioural Programmes

Conclusion

Summary

6: Small-Scale On- and Off-Site Provision

Small-Scale Provision

Conclusion

Summary

7: Working with Parents

Parent Management Training

Conclusion

Summary

8: Multi-Agency Intervention

Longitudinal Studies of Preventive Programmes

Gatehouse

Fast Track

Conclusion

Summary

9: A Summary of the Research Evidence

Main Findings of the Review

Conclusion: Hierarchical Summary of Main Interventions

10: Conclusions

The Importance of Education and Health Services Working Together: Towards Trans-Professionalism

A Bio-Psycho-Social Approach

The Importance of the Skills of Teachers and other School Personnel

Special Provision

The Importance of Whole SCHOOL support systems for students with SEBD

Work with Families

In Conclusion

Appendix I

Appendix II

References

Index

This edition first published 2011

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cooper, Paul, 1955- From inclusion to engagement : helping students engage with schooling through policy and practice / Paul Cooper and Barbara Jacobs. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-66484-1 (cloth) 𠀓 ISBN 978-0-470-01946-7 (pbk.) 1. Inclusive education. 2. Students with disabilities--Education. I. Jacobs, Barbara, 1945- II. Title. LC1200.C665 2011 371.9′046–dc22 2010035695

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

1.1 The interaction between biological inheritance and environmental factors in the development of behavioural difficulties (based on Frith, 1992).

2.1 Biology and environment: bio-psycho-social interactions.

AI.1 The evolution of interventions for SEBD in relation to major educational interventions.

Tables

4.1 Evidence-based strategies (‘kernels’).

8.1 Fast track evaluations.

9.1 Studies showing the effects of personal warmth as positive teacher quality.

9.2 Key studies showing the value of in-service training on SEBD.

9.3 Studies on the management of the physical environment of the classroom.

9.4 Strategies for utilizing student peer influence.

9.5 Behavioural strategies: The Good Behaviour Game.

9.6 Behavioural strategies (kernels).

9.7 Behavioural strategies: Functional Behavioural Analysis (FBA).

9.8 Cognitive behavioural strategies: Self -evaluation and self-regulation.

9.9 Cognitive behavioural strategies: Self-regulation for anxiety disorders.

9.10 Cognitive behavioural strategies: Social problem-solving.

9.11 Cognitive behavioural strategies: Anger management.

9.12 The Success for All (SFA) programme.

9.13 School-wide behavioural support.

9.14 Universal cognitive behavioural approach: FRIENDS.

9.15 Universal cognitive behavioural approach: Coping Power.

9.16 Career academies.

9.17 Nurture groups.

9.18 Parent training: Parent management training.

9.19 Parent training: Incredible Years programme.

9.20 Fast track evaluations.

9.21 Hierarchical summary of main interventions.

AII.1 The pattern of provision for students with SEN in Europe and beyond.

AII.2 Mainstream support for SEN in Europe and beyond.

About the Authors

Paul Cooper is Professor of Education at the University of Leicester. He has an international reputation for his work in the field of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties in schools. He has published widely in this area. He was editor of the international quarterly journal Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties for 14 years, until 2009. He is currently Co-Chair of the European Network for Social and Emotional Competence in Children, and Co-Editor of The International Journal of Emotional Education. In 2001 he was cowinner of the TES/NASEN Special Educational Needs Academic Book Award.

Barbara Jacobs is a professional writer, lecturer, broadcaster and researcher, who has recently completed a late-life PhD on autistic intelligence at the School of Education, University of Leicester.

Preface

Politics, Ideology and Education: Valuing Human Lives

There are arguments in favour of inclusive education which pitch themselves against ideas of labelling and special education (see Clarke et al., 1998). Human beings, it is claimed, are disrespected and humiliated when disability labels are applied to them. Furthermore, it is argued that such disability labels provide a rationale for the creation of educational facilities which are separate from and are inferior to ‘mainstream’ education. It has been argued that in order to combat these exclusionary effects, the construct of special education should be dismantled along with the categorical thinking that goes with it; to be replaced with a pedagogy for inclusion which emphasizes a functional approach to dealing with barriers to learning that can be applied to all students in mainstream schools (Florian, 2008). Fundamental to this book is the view that such arguments are untenable, misguided and potentially harmful.

The logical inadequacy of such arguments has been demonstrated by Cigman (2007). She describes this type of inclusion argument as ‘universalist’ on the basis that it assumes that all mainstream neighbourhood schools have the capacity to cater for all students regardless of their needs or characteristics. It should be stated at this point that were there evidence to support the practical feasibility of the universalist view then the authors of this book would subscribe to it, because we share a commitment to the social justice and equity ethics that underpin it. However, as Cigman shows, the universalist argument rests on the unsteady ground of flawed dichotomous thinking and a tendency to ignore or attempt to bypass the need for empirical evidence. It also has the effect of disrespecting views and identities of some of the very people it purports to support. In short the universalist position not only promotes but seeks to impose a view of reality which has little more to sustain it than its proponents’ commitment to it.

It is difficult to disagree with Cigman’s analysis, which reveals that the universalist arguments are underpinned by the following assumptions:

that ‘special schools, and other non mainstream educational facilities in the late-20th/early-21st century are in principle the same as post-1944 special schools’ (Cigman, 2007, p. 778);disability labels are ‘humiliating in the same sense that in which special schools are institutionally humiliating’ per se (Cigman, 2007, p. 779);disability labels are socially constructed and, therefore, objectively not ‘real’; andmainstream schools are capable of providing effective education to all students.

It is difficult in a short preface to do justice to the subtlety and rigour of Cigman’s argument, but put simply, she draws on recent evidence to suggest that:

on the basis of first-hand experience, many students and parents find special school and other special provision preferable to mainstream schools (see also Cooper, 1993; Cooper and Tiknaz, 2007);disability labels are by no means always experienced as stigmatizing by their bearers, some of whom embrace and celebrate such labels as important aspects of their identities, while others use them to as a route to advantages of one kind or another (see also Susman, 1994);the objective reality of disability labels is less important to the bearers of the labels than aspects of their lived experience that they believe to be reflected in the label (see also Cooper and Shea, 1998); andthere can never be a valid and reliable evidence base to the claim that all mainstream schools are capable of providing effective education to all students.

Evidence is the key, and an appraisal of evidence is at the heart of this book. We are particularly concerned with the needs of young people who are deemed to present with what we are calling ‘Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties’ (SEBD). This is a label. It is neither a precise nor even universally recognized label. However, we see it as having a significant explanatory power when understood in certain ways. A key point here is that whether or not SEBD are ‘real’ in an objective sense, SEBD are defined by the behavioural and other characteristics of individuals who often find themselves marginalized, stigmatized and rejected in relation to perceptions held about the acceptability of their demeanour. The theoretical understandings which underpin and justify this label, which are explored in this book, give way to a wide range of interventions which we examine and evaluate on the basis of published research evidence.

The issue of labelling is a matter of particular importance in relation to SEBD. People for whom the SEBD label is appropriate will not miraculously cease to be perceived as problematic if the SEBD label is abandoned. On the contrary, they will most often be subject to blame, rejection and, in many cases social exclusion, on the basis of one of two beliefs: (1) that such treatment will encourage the individual to ‘mend their ways’; or (2) the idea that bad behaviour equates with being a bad person and bad people should be shunned. Such primitive responses are still common in our schools and the society at large. A central message of this book is that an understanding of SEBD helps to demystify a major source of fear and disquiet, and points the way to effective intervention.

The authors of this book are committed to supporting the rights of all young people to an educational experience which makes available the best opportunities for enhancing their social, emotional and cognitive development. We acknowledge and regret that the presence of a more generously funded private education sector alongside the state funded one reflects inequalities which are endemic in many economically advanced societies. However, we also believe that the absence of economic capital should not restrict the educational choices available to parents and their children.

Ours is not a simply ideological position, it is pragmatic. It is a view based on available research evidence. As this book shows there are many different approaches to meeting the educational needs of students who may experience or be at risk of SEBD, many of these are within the realm of the mainstream school and mainstream teachers. Some of these approaches, however, involve specialist interventions of various kinds, some of which are located in mainstream school settings others of which are not. We take the perspective of the parent and/or student, whose main and immediate concern is to find an educational setting which offers the best opportunities for educational engagement.1

Our young people have a short period in which to benefit from the educational opportunities that are made available to them. Although lifelong learning opportunities are perhaps more readily available today than ever before, it is the educational experiences we have between the ages of 4 and 18 which are the most significant for most of us, in terms of their impact on our social and economic life chances. This makes it essential that educational policies and practices in general, and those directed at our most vulnerable students in particular, should be rooted as far as possible in rigorous empirical evidence.

Finally, we need to make reference to what some will see as an ideological element to this book. We subscribe to a bio-psycho-social approach, which we explain in Chapter 1. The bio-psycho-social approach, as we present it, is an attempt to make sense of the reality that we all inhabit today, based on the best available understandings of how human beings develop as social, psychological and biological beings. When there is evidence to support the universalist inclusion position, we will take it seriously. Until then we will continue to seek solutions to the problems faced by rejected and/or disaffected students which are based on a firm evidence base.

Paul Cooper and Barbara Jacobs The University of Leicester June 2010

1. We expand on what we mean by ‘educational engagement’ in Chapter 1.

Acknowledgements

A significant proportion of this book is based on a literature review conducted by the authors for the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) Ireland. The authors were supported in this work by research staff at the NCSE, in particular Dr Jennifer Doran, and Dr Clare Farrell. We also received useful feedback from Dr Mary Byrne, also of NCSE.

In relation to the literature review we received invaluable additional support and critical feedback from a wide range of colleagues. Dr Carmel Cefai (University of Malta) contributed material that formed the basis for the section of `resilience', as well as critical feedback on successive drafts. Mr Edwin Tanner, a doctoral student at the University of Leicester, provided material that was used as the basis for the section dealing with the management of the physical environment of the classroom. The following people provided critical feedback on successive drafts of the literature review and suggestions for items to be included: Professor Lyndal Bullock (University of North Texas, United States); Professor Helen Cowie (University of Surrey, United Kingdom); Mr Brian De Lord (Pupil and Parent Partnership, United Kingdom); Dr Lesley Hughes, (University of Hull, United Kingdom); Dr Ton Mooij, (Radboud University, The Netherlands); Professor Egide Royer (Laval University, Canada); Dr Ed Smeets (Radboud University, The Netherlands); Dr John Visser (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom); and Mr Martyn Weeds (Pupil and Parent Partnership, United Kingdom). Additional support was provided by Mr Wasyl Cajkler (University of Leicester, United Kingdom).

It should be stressed that these colleagues provided invaluable support for the literature review, but did not contribute to or comment on the arguments concerning the nature of inclusive education and the topic of `educational engagement'. These aspects, of the book, were not part of the NCSE literature review.

Professor Richard Rose (University of Northampton, United Kingdom) read an early draft of the book, and offered insightful commentary which the authors found extremely helpful.

We are extremely grateful to all of these colleagues for their support, without which the book would lack the benefit of such a wide-ranging literature review. However, they cannot be held in any way responsible for any opinions or inaccuracies that the text may contain. These are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Paul Cooper Barbara Jacobs University of Leicester Autumn, 2010

1

Introduction

From Inclusive Education to Educational Engagement – Putting Reality before Rhetoric and Finding the Elephant in the Living Room

Overview

This chapter examines the problematic construct of ‘inclusive education’ and draws attention to limitations in terms of its ability to offer practical and meaningful insights into how schools should operate in relation to our most vulnerable pupils, and particularly those who are seen to present with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD).

The authors go on to establish the concept of ‘educational engagement’, which is defined in social, emotional and cognitive terms.

It is argued that ‘attachment to schooling’ is an essential feature of educational engagement and that this can be achieved through the development of teachers’ skills and developments in school organization within the context of broader multi-disciplinary initiatives that are devoted to this end.

There is Something Rotten in the State of Inclusive Education

This book starts from the premise that there is something wrong with the current state of inclusive education many other countries of the world. This is noted by Shevlin et al. (2008, p. 143), who, with reference to UK OFSTED reports, find that ‘despite certain progress (towards inclusion) certain seemingly intractable difficulties remain as barriers to the realization of the inclusion strategy’.

They highlight the point that students with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (SEBD) are the most difficult to accommodate in mainstream schools because of the impact of such students on the wider community of students. More generally Barton (2005, p. 5) states, with reference to current United Kingdom context:

‘Advocates of inclusion are very aware of the contradictory and competing policy context in which inclusion is located. This has led to the lack of political will on the part of government to unreservedly support inclusion’.

Curcic (2009) provides evidence from a review of inclusive practice in 18 countries that adds to this bleak picture, prefacing the article with the following statement:

In spite of a number of legislative moves, inclusive education has been surrounded by debates for various reasons. First, what is declared in legislation is not necessarily adequately implemented in practice, … or evenly within the borders of one country…. Second, some debates centre on the very nature of inclusion…. Researchers do not uniformly agree on what, in fact, constitutes inclusive practices (Curcic, 2009, p. 517).

To a rational mind this state of affairs beggars belief. How can it be possible for government policies to be made in the name of a concept for which there is no agreed definition? In these circumstances what is the basis for believing that such policies will be successful? Of course, in its most stripped down form, the central principle of inclusive education is the importance of social justice in and equality of access to education. This is entirely in tune with the founding principles of all liberal democratic societies. Serious problems arise, however, when attempts are made to operationalize these principles in a practical educational philosophy and an education system. As we will show in this chapter, current attempts to do this have often been unsuccessful, sometimes to a disastrous degree. We argue that a certain ideological rigidity has made a significant contribution to this failure. Having said this, we also note that educational policy is not made by the proponents of this inclusive ideology. We will also argue, however, that government policies serve powerful interests within any society and that well intentioned but simplistic ideological arguments serve as distractions from the real life problems experienced by pupils, families and staff in schools, and, at their worst, reinforce rather than challenge the status quo.

One of the problems here is that the inadequacies of the policy of so called inclusive education are felt relatively briefly by the promoters and architects of the policy. If a government is perceived to have failed in its management of the economy, that government falls, because even the relatively prosperous see the value of their capital either in decline or under threat of decline. If a government fails in its management of the education system the effects are not immediately obvious to the powerful sections of society whose economic, cultural and political capital, to varying degrees, insulate them from this failure. In fact, it is clear that educational inequality serves the interests of the more prosperous (Sutton Trust, 2010). Furthermore, it is easy to divert attention away from policy issues by appealing to popular prejudices about the competence and motivation of some teachers and the inadequacy of parental contributions to the educational experience of their offspring. Spurious comparisons between high and low performing schools are sometimes used to support these arguments.

The genuinely tragic consequences are, of course, visited on the people who are in greatest need of what it is that inclusive education claims to deliver. These are the vulnerable children and adolescents who depend on the effectiveness of the policy of inclusive education for their educational development. They may experience physical, sensory, cognitive, social, emotional or behavioural difficulties, sometimes in complex combinations. This is, of course, a widely diverse group, expressing different educational needs. The single thing that individuals in this group have in common is that they are perceived to present significant challenges which go beyond those that ‘mainstream’ teachers and schools are usually equipped to meet. They require accommodations and specific additional resources in order to engage effectively with formal educational experiences. These accommodations and resources are central to policies of inclusive education. When they are applied effectively, they enable. When their application is ineffective, they disable. Educational failure follows, often coupled with negative emotional and, sometimes, social consequences. The legacy of educational failure in the school years can be devastating in terms of the wastage of human talent and a lifetime of unfulfilled potential.

This sense of deep concern is reflected in the perceptions of another very important group of people who are directly affected by the policy of inclusive education – teachers:

It is no surprise that teachers, whatever their beliefs about inclusive education, find coping with special needs in mainstream classrooms difficult without additional training and classroom support … Growing numbers of special needs are behaviour-related. At the same time, teachers feel under increasing pressure to achieve academic results at all costs in a curriculum which makes few concessions to what one current television programme calls ‘the unteachables’ (T.E.S., 2005).

The central point here is a challenge to the viability of inclusive education as it is currently practiced. The image created portrays the mainstream classroom teacher struggling to accommodate the needs of vulnerable students whose behaviour, as a consequence of their teachers’ ill-preparedness, deteriorates, adding to the teachers’ difficulties. In turn, the teachers are called to account not only for their failure to prevent misbehaviour from occurring, but for the concomitant impact that students with learning difficulties of various kinds (some of whom are disengaged from and antagonistic towards education) have on overall performance outcomes in national tests and public examinations. The tone of the quotation is one of righteous indignation at this situation, which is seen as being unjust for teachers, students with special needs and, ultimately, all students in such settings.

The theme of the injustices of inclusive education is taken up by another journalist in the same paper who declares ‘Children with special needs are 24 times more likely to be segregated at school if they live in parts of North East England than they are in London’s East End’ (Lepkowska, 2005).

The article is based on statistics collected by the Centre for Inclusive Education (CSIE) and bears a quotation from its director, who describes these inequalities in the system as ‘unfair and unjust’. This time the indignation is directed at continued use of segregated forms of provision (e.g., special schools and other non-mainstream placements) in certain parts of the country. The implication being that students who are placed in such settings are necessarily disadvantaged compared to their peers in mainstream schools. This assumption seems to be at odds with the findings from an empirical study carried out Macbeath et al. (2006), which is discussed in detail below.

Although these two positions are very different, they have two things in common. The first of which is a deep concern about the state of inclusive education in the United Kingdom. The second commonality is that they see students suffering as a result of a failure to implement inclusive practice effectively. Where they differ is in what they appear to mean by ‘effective implementation’. The viewpoint of the second article is the most straightforward, in that it suggests that the effectiveness of the inclusive education project can be measured by the location of the student with SEN. It is implied that those who are in mainstream schools are, by definition, included, while those in segregated provision are not included. The first writer, on the other hand, is much more preoccupied with the quality of what is going in the mainstream setting. The claim made by this writer is that there are serious problems being created in mainstream school classrooms as a result of inadequate training of teachers, under-resourcing and, perhaps most worrying of all, an inadequate conceptual basis for the notion of ‘inclusive education’ which contributes to incoherence in government education policy. This, in turn, forces some teachers into a situation of confusion borne out of the dissonance they experience on a daily basis between the blatant inequalities of market driven education systems and an espoused social justice agenda associated with inclusive education.

This situation is illustrated well by a study of 21 English schools (10 first, middle and primary; 9 secondary and 2 special) where staff were committed to an inclusive education agenda (MacBeath et al., 2006). They found a disastrous confection of ‘good intentions’ (p. 81), inadequate staff training and resources, competing agendas that, they argue, contribute to a rising tide of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties which, in turn, create additional demands that school teaching and support staff are ill-equipped to meet. The result is an unsatisfactory educational experience for staff and pupils in general. However, the remarkable claim that well intentioned efforts to promote inclusive education lead to an increase in social, emotional and behavioural difficulties has to be scrutinized. Because, if this is so, it suggests that the ill-defined notion of inclusive education may, in some respects, be responsible for more harm than good.

Why is Inclusive Education Going Wrong?

Before considering the findings of this study in more detail, it is important to stress that MacBeath et al. (2006) did not select their schools at random, rather they focused on schools which showed evidence of commitment to inclusive education practice:

we deliberately set out to select schools that had made a commitment to implementing a policy of inclusion rather than selecting some schools that were not so involved. Our aim was to review current practice in favourable circumstances and not attempt to portray what was happening across the entire range. Where our research identifies problems and difficulties for children with learning difficulties, these issues are likely to be exacerbated elsewhere within the education system in schools where inclusion is given a lower priority (MacBeath et al., 2006, p. 10).

These initial observations are borne out in the findings of the study which indicate that:

In general teachers are positive towards the principle of inclusion.

Teachers saw potential benefits in terms of widening all pupils’ understandings of diversity and developing improved tolerance levels. However, deep concerns were aired about the challenges posed by students with ‘complex emotional and behavioural needs’ (p. 60) and how such difficulties affected the ability of staff to provide ‘a suitable education’ (p. 60) for these pupils. Furthermore, concerns were expressed about the capacity of mainstream schools to meet the social, emotional and educational needs of ‘children with [other] complex needs’ (p. 60).

The researchers note the tendency of pupils with SEN to be located in schools with high levels of social disadvantage, particularly those located in urban (as opposed to rural) areas, where ‘parental choice’ is made a realistic option owing to the availability of more than one school within reasonable travelling distance. The general point being made here can be verified by the reader through a brief perusal of league table figures for GCSE results in England, which show that, year on year, schools in deprived urban areas tend to have much higher levels of SEN and poorer outcomes at GSCE than those at the top of the league tables.

The central problem identified by MacBeath et al. (2006) is a lack of training and expertise in mainstream schools. In this study mainstream teachers were often found, by their own accounts, to lack necessary specialist skills for dealing with complex needs. This has to be seen in the context of limited opportunities for training in these areas, both in Initial Teacher Training and in Continual Professional Development. This problem was seen as being so significant that respondents described parents as sometimes knowing more than teachers about certain learning needs and being called on to ‘train’ school staff. It is important, of course, to commend school staff for being open to parents and consultative in seeking insights into students’ learning needs. Teacher–parent collaboration is an important and neglected resource that is likely to benefit all students (Jones, 1995). However, the idea that parenthood is a sufficient qualification to be a teacher trainer is alarming for both teachers and parents. This begs the obvious question: can it be defensible for teachers and vulnerable students to be placed in circumstances where access to important pedagogical knowledge and skills is not routinely available from valid and reliable sources? Macbeath and colleagues’ (2006) answer to this question is a resounding no.

In their study the consequences for students who experience such poor provision is a tendency to be involved in multiple school moves, a situation that was found to be all the more likely when social, emotional and or behavioural problems were implicated. This point bears comparison with research which has shown a relationship between frequent school moves, SEBD and exclusion (Hayden, 1997). It draws attention to the fact that while SEBD may sometimes, or even often, have their origins in social and other problems that occur outside of classrooms and schools, they can be (and often are) exacerbated and magnified by what takes place within classrooms and schools. Exclusion from school, be it formal or informal, is always an admission of a school’s failure to meet the needs of the excluded. After all, the minimum purpose of schooling must be to promote positive social and educational engagement within a particular setting, meaning that the students have to be at the very least present in that setting. Clearly, such failure is not always the fault of the school, which, in the absence of appropriate expertise and/or resources, may opt for exclusion as a last resort in the interests of the wider school population. From the excludee’s point of view, however, he or she has been failed, socially and educationally. This experience repeated time and again can only engender or exacerbate existing feelings of alienation from schools and schooling.

It is important to stress at this point that schools cannot avoid the admission of failure simply by keeping students on their premises whose social and educational needs they lack the resources to meet. Ironically, the promotion of the delusion that being present in a school equates with being socially and educationally included, is one of the most dishonest and insidious form of exclusion. Schools should never pretend to be able to cater for a student’s needs, regardless of their falling rolls or other market force imperatives. Social justice and market forces are not compatible.

Ideals and ideology

There is a longstanding educational truism that ‘education cannot compensate for society’ (Bernstein, 1966). This observation has several penetrating and complex meanings, one of which is that, regardless of the rhetoric espoused by governments of whatever persuasion, education systems tend to reflect the inequalities and injustices that favour the most powerful and (by definition) privileged interest groups within the societies they serve. An education system is one of the tools employed by a society to sustain and reproduce itself. Commentators (and governments) claiming to be committed to social justice in education cannot be taken seriously if they fail to address the broader context of inequality in society. Yet, the political myopia of some proponents of inclusive education, who advocate the enrolment of students with special educational needs in local schools which may or may not be successful or effective, is staggering.

There are always competing value systems within cultures and societies. In contemporary Western cultures there is a continual struggle between a form of idealistic liberalism, which emphasizes the importance of collectivist values, equality among people and social justice, and an individualistic conservatism which portrays social inequality as a natural consequence of economic and social progress. The historically espoused role of the education systems in liberal democracies has been to serve the workforce needs of the society and to reinforce and cultivate what are perceived to be the best qualities within the prevailing culture. In the United Kingdom, for example, the expansion of educational provision has often been portrayed in terms of increasing equality of opportunity. Additionally, it has to be said, the accumulated evidence from 130 years of state funded education in the United Kingdom reveals the clear positive relationship between levels of educational achievement, good health, life expectancy and economic well-being.

However, recent evidence (Sutton Trust, 2008) points to a general slow-down in upward social mobility in both the United States and United Kingdom at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This has to be seen in the context of the strong association between social class and educational attainment as one of the few truly dependable findings to come out of social scientific research time and time again over the past 100 years or so. Children who come from socially deprived backgrounds are at much greater risk of educational failure than children who come from privileged backgrounds. In the United States, for example, one study found that in 1979 individuals from families in the top 25% of earners were four times more likely to successfully complete a four-year college degree programme than individuals from the bottom 25%. Disturbingly, they found that by 1994 the disparity had increased from 4 times, to 10 times (Educational Testing Service, 2005). In the United Kingdom similar concerns have been noted by the DfES (2004). There is a further association between educational failure and social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, as well as an association between social, emotional and behavioural problems and social disadvantage (Shneiders et al., 2003). Of particular concern in the United Kingdom is the widening social gap between those who gain access to the most prestigious and well remunerated professions and those who do not. Research carried out by the Centre for Market and Public Organisation (Macmillan, 2009) shows that net family income is a far stronger predictor of gaining entry into the top professions (such as medicine, the law, banking and journalism) for people who were born in 1970 than it was for those who were born in 1958. This finding is contrasted with a general decline in the difference between the assessed IQ levels of professionals and those of the general population between these two birth cohorts. These outcomes point to the inevitable conclusion that family background plays a far greater role in occupational success than merit alone. The point is strengthened further when the link between progression to the highest levels within the top professions and attendance at prestigious universities is related to the fact that approximately 50% of the undergraduate places at Oxford and Cambridge Universities are taken up by students from the 7% of the general population who have attended fee paying schools. Furthermore it is depressing to note that in the twenty-first century one in three members of the UK’s House of Commons benefited from a privately funded education (Macmillan, 2009).

In an unequal and competitive society it is not surprising that, in spite of some of the rhetoric surrounding inclusive education, there is an impulse among many members of our society to be less concerned with the extension of equality of opportunity than there is with the quest for personal advantage. This is reflected in the perennial concerns that have been expressed on BBC news reports in the United Kingdom about the fraudulent lengths that some parents will go to in order to gain a place for their child at their preferred school. This point has been underlined by a MORI poll (Cassidy, 2008) which identified the increasing popularity of independent schools among parents. In 2008 54% of adults thought independent schools offered higher educational standards than state schools; 57% stated that they would select independent education if they could afford it, and of those who would select an independent school 66% said it was because they believed them to offer better educational standards and 30% thought they demonstrated better behavioural standards.

This situation is problematic in itself, not least because it appears to intensify the plight of the most vulnerable families and students, who are at ever increasing risk of being left behind as the culture becomes ever more competitive and individualistic. This is already happening to those students who attend neighbourhood schools which are deemed to be ‘failing’, where parents with the most cultural and economic capital migrate, by one means or another, to schools occupying places higher up the league tables (Sutton Trust, 2010). Meanwhile, for reasons already discussed, the most vulnerable are left in large concentrations in schools lacking the expertise and resources to meet their needs.

An even more distressing feature here is the lack of connection between the recognition of this picture of growing social inequality, and measures which are being taken to cater for the most extremely disadvantaged students in our schools. This is not simply an issue affecting inclusion in the United Kingdom. A recent international literature review (Curcic, 2009) referred to above, found a pattern of muddled thinking, ill-informed practice and some situations in which the most vulnerable students were clearly disadvantaged by the failings of ill-judged and poorly implemented policies.

A central problem appears to the role of ideology in the inclusive education agenda. Although there are sometimes wide variations in the ways in which inclusion is operationally defined – from the insistence that all students should be educated in mainstream classes to the idea that specialist provision can form part of an inclusive continuum – there is a common attachment to the broad principle that inclusive education is concerned with the identification and removal of barriers to participation in mainstream educational settings. For many commentators this endeavour is a matter of human and civil rights; a challenge to ‘discrimination and exclusion’ (Barton, 2005, p. 6) that equates with some of the great emancipatory movements of history, such as those concerned with the abolition of slavery and the women’s suffrage movement (Thomas and Vaughan, 2006).

There is clearly an historical basis for this position reflected in the discriminatory practices directed at individuals who were deemed ‘handicapped’. The worst of these practices saw the forcible sterilization of the so called ‘mentally subnormal’ in some US states in the early twentieth century. The eugenics movement, which sought to justify such practices, promoted spurious theories claiming genetically based differences in cognitive abilities that rendered certain racial groups cognitively superior to others (Karier, 1976). Such arguments were used to justify social and economic inequalities between racial groups (Jensen, 1969). Sadly, such primitive thinking is not entirely a thing of the distant past. These views were reiterated in the 1990s in a widely read book by American academics Herrnstein and Murray (1994). It should be stressed that this book was widely dismissed on scientific grounds by informed readers. However, the case serves to illustrate the continued presence of discriminatory attitudes in Western cultures, vividly illustrated in the United Kingdom by the election to the European parliament of a candidate standing for the British National Party, an organization which openly promotes racial discrimination and eugenicist theories of racial purity.

These are important cultural trends which we ignore at our peril and which education systems in liberal democracies must challenge. It has been noted for example, that the United Kingdom 1945 health and handicapped pupils’ regulations (Ministry of Health, 1945) effectively created a system for educating the minority of pupils who were deemed ‘handicapped’ which was separate from the system which was intended for the majority of ‘non-handicapped’ pupils. This special system was established under the auspices of the Ministry of Health as opposed to Ministry of Education which took care of the education of the latter group. It is also important to note that while the right to free education for ‘all children’ up to the age of 14 (later 15) was established in the 1944 Education Act, children who were classified as ‘uneducable’, under the 1945 regulations, were excluded from this entitlement. It was not until the Education Act of 1971 that this group (comprising of some 30 000 children) was finally permitted this entitlement, under the designation of ‘Severe Learning Difficulties’.

Portrayed in this way, this is a shameful history that amounts to systematic discrimination against ‘handicapped’ pupils, whereby they were, to differing degrees, excluded from educational provision that was deemed to be the birthright of the non-handicapped. It would be a mistake, however, to read into this history a malignant political ideology, such as that which sustained the eugenics movement and continues to give rise to racist and other discriminatory impulses in human societies. As Tomlinson (1982) has argued, the historical origins of special education in Britain cannot be divorced from a ‘powerful ideology of benevolent humanitarianism’ (p. 26) which is reflected in the motivations of Victorian philanthropists, such as Dr Barnardo. This is not to say that special education can be understood entirely through this lens. As we have noted already, education cannot compensate for society; it can only serve it. Tomlinson (1982) seems to concur with this view when she observes that:

education systems and their parts do not develop spontaneously … and they do not develop out of purely humanitarian motives. They develop because it is in the interests of particular groups in society that they should develop, and that they should develop in certain ways (p. 27).

She persuasively argues that chief among the social motivators behind the development of special education were economic interests, illustrated by the fact that the earliest schools for children with physical and sensory disabilities were focused on the development of trade skills (Tomlinson, 1982). Social control is another political motivator, most evident in the origins of schools for the socially ‘maladjusted’ (a precursor of what we now often referred to a Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties) which have been linked with widespread concerns about the disruptive behaviour of inner city children who, during World War II, had been evacuated to quiet, rural communities (Bridgeland, 1971).

This argument suggests that the ‘ideology of benevolent humanitarianism’, referred to by Tomlinson, was exploited in the interests of political expediency. There is clearly some merit to this point of view. However, this ignores the unanticipated consequences of creating an often state funded alternative education system which, in some cases, attracted educators who were dissatisfied with the constraints of the main state funded system and exploited their marginal status as an opportunity to pioneer radical and progressive educational approaches. Some of the most striking examples of this are provided by twentieth century educators who ran residential schools and communities for ‘maladjusted, pupils’ the most unwelcome and maligned group of students (Bridgeland, 1971). We will return to the work of these ‘pioneers’ in the next chapter. For the purposes of the current discussion it is only necessary to state that from early in the twentieth century some of these schools were experimenting with what we would now call student centred approaches, including democratic organizational structures (e.g., Shaw, 1965; Wills, 1960). The distinctive features of these approaches was a respect for students as persons and a commitment to developing social and emotional competencies through the provision of caring and supportive relationships and the teaching of academic and life skills (Bridgeland, 1971; Cooper, 1993). Such approaches were seen as being in stark contrast to the rigid authoritarianism which typified standard educational provision (Bridgeland, 1971), where discipline was enforced with legally sanctioned corporal punishment until the 1970s, and where negative, punitive approaches to SEBD were still widely used.

This is not an argument in favour of segregation. The point being made here is that in an unequal society, where the possessors of the greatest share of economic and cultural capital are disproportionately rewarded by the education system at the expense of the most vulnerable, there are ways of exploiting and subverting this grim status quo to the benefit of the marginalized. The wholesale dismissal of non-mainstream educational provision is an act of extreme ignorance, as is the failure to acknowledge some of the achievements of this sector. Worse, this ignorance feeds the very processes of discrimination and marginalization that such views are claimed to challenge. This last point can be illustrated with reference to some of the debate surrounding the phenomenon of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which is one of the most commonly diagnosed of the behavioural disorders.

The Limitations of the Social Model of SEN: The Case of ADHD

ADHD has been dismissed by some commentators as a medical construct that individualizes educational failure and disruptive behaviour (e.g., Lloyd and Norris, 1999; Skidmore, 2004; Slee, 1995; Travell and Visser, 2006). The effect of such individualization, it is argued, is to distract attention from the roles that schools and teachers may play (wittingly or unwittingly) in the construction of learning and behavioural problems, and allow educators to absolve themselves of their responsibility to provide appropriate educational opportunities to certain groups. This is, in essence, the core of the social model of disability, initially proposed by writers such as Barton (2005) which emphasizes the role of social construction in SEN.

This negative reaction is based on a number of erroneous assumptions. The first is that we have to choose between bio-medical and environmental explanations for learning difficulties because they are incompatible. This is expressed in an extreme form by Slee (1995) who complains that ‘The monism of locating the nature of [classroom] disruption in the neurological infrastructure of the child is myopic and convenient’ (p. 74).

Visser (1997) expressed a similar view ‘Rejection of the ADHD label by educationalists is precisely because it offers a view of behaviour which is “nature” without “nurture” ’ (p. 15).

More recently, Skidmore (2004, pp. 3–4), although attempting to offer a faintly conciliatory nod towards what he terms the ‘psycho-medical paradigm’, recycles the same false oppositions:

Given its long historical roots, and the undoubted existence of such psychological and medical conditions [as Down’s syndrome and autism], it is likely that research into learning difficulties in the psycho-medical paradigm will continue to be conducted, that it will continue to exert an influence on the wider field, and that some of its findings will be found to be of use in the education of pupils who are affected by conditions which are generally recognised to have an organic basis. The difficulty arises when illicit attempts are made to apply this framework to an infinitely-extensible set of putative syndromes or disorders for which reliable evidence of a neurological or organic base is lacking, and where ‘diagnosis’ rests on value laden, culturally-specific judgements about behavioural or cognitive norms. In the case of ADD [sic] it is arguable that the scientistic discourse of positivism and the rhetorical stance of authoritative objectivity which it engenders have been deployed to disseminate a biological determinist hypothesis for which empirical evidence is wanting, and to legitimise the practice of drugging defiant children into docility, using stimulants whose long-term side effects are unknown, in the service of a tacit project of social control.

These views reflect longstanding suspicion among some British educationists and educational psychologists of explanations of emotional and behavioural difficulties that cite biological factors as possible causes (e.g., Boreham et al., 1995). The distaste for biological determinism is understandable when we consider the horrors of the eugenics movement which marred the early twentieth century in Europe and America (see above). To extend this distaste to ADHD, however, on the grounds that it represents a modern manifestation of an outdated, politically driven and discredited pseudo-science is simply wrong-headed. This view, at best, reflects a profound ignorance of modern understandings of (a) the relationship between biological and environmental factors in human development, and (b) of the scientific and educational literature on ADHD. At its worst, this portrayal of ADHD reflects a wilful misrepresentation of the topic that is likely to hinder the development and dissemination of well informed and effective educational interventions that will benefit many school students directly, and influence the development of educational knowledge practice in ways that will benefit all students.

It is now necessary to highlight and address the flaws in the arguments presented by Skidmore and others.

Dealing with Challenges to the Validity of ADHD Diagnosis

First, it is claimed that the ADHD diagnosis is somehow bogus or ‘illicit’ because there is an absence of neuro-scientific evidence. This is patently untrue. As noted above, there is wealth of evidence from many studies over many years which points to:

consistency in patterns of symptoms associated with specific clinical impairments of inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness;genetic pathways being implicated in the distribution of the condition; andneuro-imaging studies which reveal specific differences between individuals diagnosed with ADHD and those who are not (Sharkey and Fitzgerald, 2007; Tannock, 1998).

The earliest clinical accounts of what we now refer to as ADHD are to be found at the end of the eighteenth century in the writing of a physician named Alexander Crichton (Palmer and Finger, 2001) and a paper by George Still, which appeared in the Lancet in the early 1900s is often cited as an early source (e.g., Barkley, 1997). It was during World War I, as a result of opportunities to study extensive numbers of live individuals with serious head injuries, that consistent links were first observed between some of the symptoms of what is now termed ADHD and damage to the frontal cortex of the brain (Barkley, 1997). It was not, however, until the late twentieth century and the advent of advanced brain imaging technology that it became possible to study the functioning of the living human brain in greater detail. This ongoing research continues to produce findings that enrich our understanding of the relationship between cognitive and neurological functioning (e.g., Kelly et al., 2007). In addition to these sources, both twin studies and advanced molecular genetic studies have produced a wealth of data pointing to specific genetic correlates of ADHD (Fitzgerald et al., 2007; Levy and Hay, 2001).

Second, it is claimed that ADHD is an example of biological determinism. The fear of biological determinism is well founded, partly because it denies the importance of human agency (Rose, 2004) and leads, in some cases to an ill-founded sense of fatalism in relation to the developmental opportunities available to some individuals. Having said this, there is, at the time of writing, no definitive account of the biological underpinnings of ADHD. This is hardly surprising; not least because of the complexity of the biological and psychological systems that are implicated. The same would have to be said of other complex conditions, such as Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Another, possibly more significant reason for the lack of a definitive biological cause, is that there may not be one. Not only are there numerous biological pathways implicated in the development of ADHD (Barkley, 1997), but it is also almost certainly the case that ADHD is not biologically determined in the simplistic sense suggested by Skidmore and others. On the contrary, as we have indicated, ADHD is widely argued to be the product of a complex interaction between biological and social-environmental factors.

This argument is consistent with current and recent models of gene-environment interaction, such as that presented by Plomin (1990) and, in relation to developmental disorders, (Frith, 1992). An adaptation of Frith’s model of this interaction is represented in Figure 1.1. The model shows that biologically inherited factors (i.e., Genetic endowments) are, from their inception, in constant dynamic interaction with environmental factors. Gene-environment interaction leads to the development of certain patterns in brain architecture (e.g., lobe development) and functioning (e.g., the neurotransmitter systems), which in turn lead to the development of certain cognitive characteristics (e.g., the efficiency of the executive functions, such as those concerned with self talk and working memory). However, the extent to which and the ways in which these cognitive characteristics contribute to presenting behaviours that are functional or dysfunctional is heavily influenced by the environment and experience. For example, an individual who is prone to memory problems can learn mnemonic strategies which help to compensate for the difficulties. Furthermore, positive, affirming relationships with others may encourage the individual to develop a high level of motivation, which they can deploy in attempting to overcome aspects of their functioning which are potentially problematic in social situations. On the other hand, social and cultural differences will influence the judgements that observers make about the behaviours.

Figure 1.1 The interaction between biological inheritance and environmental factors in the development of behavioural difficulties (based on Frith, 1992).

The essence of this bio-psycho-social approach, therefore, is that while a behavioural disorder such as ADHD is associated with certain neurological and genetic patterns, these patterns do not determine the existence of the disorder. It is likely that there are people who possess the frontal lobe dysfunctions and genes associated with ADHD who do not develop the disorder. The disorder is only triggered when these biological characteristics interact with environmental factors which render the cognitive patterns that flow from the biological make up dysfunctional. Environmental settings which place a high premium on self regulation, sedentary behaviour, passive as opposed to active approaches to learning, and social conformity over individualism, will render the cognitive characteristics associated with ADHD problematic. This helps to explain why ADHD is most strongly associated with the school years, where successful studenthood often equates with obedience and conformity. In the adult world, however, where there is a wider range of opportunities for more individualistic forms of expression, the very characteristics which are rendered dysfunctional in many (if not most) schools and lead to a diagnosis of ADHD, can be reframed in positive terms. The disobedient, erratic and uncontrollable school student becomes (for example) the spontaneous, irreverent, iconoclastic adult, who is praised for his or her individualistic take on life. Prominent contemporary examples might be the actor Jim Carey and the comedian Billy Connolly (Stevenson, 2001). Less exotic examples are to be found in all walks of life: such as those writers, journalists, teachers, barstaff, taxi drivers and party goers who were branded as school failures but who, in adulthood, achieve acceptance and even admiration for the very characteristics that were problematic in their school years.

The key implication of this bio-psycho-social perspective for education is that the more we understand about the biological and psychological correlates of ADHD (and similar conditions), the better placed we will be to provide educational environments that avoid exacerbating difficulties that children may experience and that promote their optimum educational engagement (see below).

It has been argued here that while biological inheritance plays an important role in the development of the characteristics that are associated with ADHD, whether or not these characteristics lead to problems in the school setting that affect the educational and social engagement of the student is largely determined by characteristics of the school environment. Arguments, such as that posed by Skidmore (see above), that portray ADHD as an example of biological determinism simply divert attention from the important process of converting a bio-psycho-social account of ADHD into pedagogical and other interventions. Yet it is pedagogical skills which, according to research by MacBeath et al. (2006) and Blatchford et al. (2009) referred to above, that are most desperately needed by teachers and teaching assistants.

Third, the ADHD ‘diagnosis’ rests on value laden, culturally-specific judgements about behavioural or cognitive norms. This criticism combines paradoxical characteristics of self-evident truth and absurdity. It is self evidently true that all judgements about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of behaviour or cognitive expression are socially and culturally based. Culture reflects the values, attitudes and beliefs of a social group, and as such, it helps to hold the group together. On the other hand it is absurd to imply that it is possible for human beings to adopt a culture free stance. Having said this, there are situations where cultural values and assumptions serve to disadvantage members of the social group and require adjustment. The ADHD diagnostic criteria, when considered through a bio-psycho-socially informed educational perspective, offers a case in point.

An important point to observe about the ADHD diagnostic criteria is that it harbours taken for granted assumptions about the kinds of pupil behaviours that are to be expected in properly functioning classrooms