Special education and globalisation: Continuities and contrasts across the developed and developing world

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, inclusive education has become the dominant discourse in the field of special educational needs (SEN) across the developed and developing world, reflected in the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Educational Needs (UNESCO, 1994), the Dakar Framework for Action: Education for All (UNESCO, 2000) and the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention includes a commitment to promote inclusive practices for disabled adults and children across all fields of social policy, including education, training and employment. The focus on inclusion has tended to deflect attention away from changes within the special sector (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education [EADSNE], 2010; OECD, 2007) and the use of official and unofficial forms of school exclusion. The papers in this Special Issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education have been written by members of an international research network funded by the Leverhulme Foundation entitled Special Education and Policy Change: A Study of Six Jurisdictions (IN-089) which conducted a range of research and knowledge exchange activities from 2012 to 2014. Network partners analysed (i) the nature and extent of variation across developed countries in the use of special schools and classes; (ii) the permeability of the boundary between mainstream and special settings and (iii) the discourses underpinning the use of special and inclusive settings in different contexts. The network developed an analysis and critique of official statistics on the use of mainstream and special settings and their underpinning discourses reflected in policy and legislation. Of particular interest was the discursive use of official statistics within a globalised context. Special educational needs policy, with its emphasis on inclusive education, may be seen as a manifestation of travelling policy, with an overall homogenising tendency. At the same time, SEN policy is embedded within particular national and local contexts histories and cultures, thus adopting distinctive vernacular forms (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010).