Education and the Struggle for Empowerment of Young People with Special Educational Needs

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the way in which the concept of empowerment through education has been understood in the post‐war period, as faith in the potential of education to improve the position of socially marginalised groups gave way to a more pessimistic view, accompanied by individualist notions of empowerment through consumer choice. Within the mainstream literature there has been much discussion of the tension between the social control and emancipatory functions of education, but this debate has rarely been extended to children with special educational needs. More critical accounts have sometimes adopted an over‐deterministic perspective. Case studies of three young people are used to explore the meaning of empowerment through education. It is evident that this varies greatly according to the severity of their disability. No matter how empowerment is construed, however, the extent to which their educational experiences provide them with some degree of choice and autonomy depends on a wide range...