Social justice and post-school education and training for people with learning difficulties

Abstract

This chapter discusses salient ideas of social justice and their implications for the inclusion of people with learning difficulties. It considers the development of post-war education and training policy for young people in the transition from school to work, both in relation to the mainstream population and in relation to people with learning difficulties. The chapter explores some implication of the experiences of case-study individuals with learning difficulties who have been the active recipients of such policies in their post-school years. It argues that training may be seen as a crucible of social values, since its distribution transmits powerful messages about who is likely to become economically active and who is to be consigned to some special status of otherness. The chapter considers which conceptualisations of social justice might hold out most hope for people with learning difficulties in terms of challenging their social marginalization.