Abstract
AbstractHow do we make sense of considerable cultural differences and change in disability classification? How are disability’s categorical boundaries being redrawn in special education to realign with shifting paradigms of normality? Based in particular on the case of provided services to students “with special educational needs,” this analysis examines classification systems of student disability and their categorical boundaries in the United States and Germany. Sketching the origins and evolution of special education categories from 1920 to 2005, the comparison shows how categorical boundaries have been redrawn, giving rise to new groups of students.
Highlights
IntroductionDespite the codification of inclusive education as fundamental to secure the long-term societal participation of people with disabilities (UN 2006), this goal remains challenging, in the United States (US) and Germany
Around the world, many countries have achieved the provision of education for all
E special education classification systems examined below reflect new scientific knowledge and categories that gatekeepers used to respond to increasingly heterogeneous groups of students even as they themselves were a crucial source of differentiation. e profession of education asserted itself, but medicine and psychology adapted, playing crucial roles in the new structures as they had in the old, especially through physicians’ clinical diagnoses and psychologists’ IQ tests
Summary
Despite the codification of inclusive education as fundamental to secure the long-term societal participation of people with disabilities (UN 2006), this goal remains challenging, in the United States (US) and Germany. In part, this is due to elaborated classification systems of “student disability” or “special educational needs” (SEN) that structure and reinforce differences between students. E redrawn categorical boundaries in the classification systems of SEN in the United States and Germany reflect paradigm shifts in normality as they provide insights into institutional and organizational change in special education systems. We proceed to discuss classification and categorical boundaries before comparing developments of German and American classification systems applied in special education from 1920 to 2005
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