British Journal of Sociology of Education, Volume 31 Issue 5 2010

British Journal of Sociology of Education, Volume 31 Issue 5 2010
The Sociology of Disability and Education


Editorial

The sociology of disability and education
Madeleine Arnot; Philip Brown; Amanda Coffey; Miriam David; Lynn Davies; David James; Rajani Naidoo; Diane Reay; Ivan Reid; Carol Vincent
Pages 529 – 535


Articles

A tribute to Len Barton
Sally Tomlinson
Pages 537 – 546
This article constitutes a short personal tribute to Len Barton in honour of his work and our collegial relationship going back over 30 years. It covers how Len saw his intellectual project of providing critical sociological and political perspectives on special education, disability and inclusion, and his own radical political perspectives. Len's challenges to prevailing notions of individual deficiencies of intellect, and disability as a personal misfortune, are noted, as is his profound influence on practitioners, activists, students and academics worldwide. It concludes that his goal of challenging and unsettling conventional 'ways of knowing' has had wide and lasting influence and that it is imperative to understand what moral, economic and political judgements lie behind decisions to separate, segregate and exclude young people from mainstream education and their fellow citizens.

Disability studies, disabled people and the struggle for inclusion
Mike Oliver; Colin Barnes
Pages 547 – 560
This paper traces the relationship between the emergence of disability studies and the struggle for meaningful inclusion for disabled people with particular reference to the work of a pivotal figure in these developments: Len Barton. It is argued that the links between disability activism and the academy were responsible for the emergence of disability studies and that this has had an important influence on mainstream sociology and social and educational policy nationally and internationally. It is evident, however, that the impact of these developments has been only marginal and that in light of recent concerns about the global economy, environmental change and unprecedented population growth, the need for meaningful inclusion is more urgent than ever and cannot be dependent on the work of a few key individuals for its success.

Revisiting the politics of special educational needs and disability studies in education with Len Barton
Roger Slee
Pages 561 – 573
This brief essay celebrates the work of Len Barton. Drawing from a range of his texts, interviews and presentations, the essay attempts to demonstrate the importance of Barton's work in establishing foundations for the related fields of disability studies in education and inclusive education by revealing the politics of special educational needs and the requirement for a sociological analysis of traditional special education as a force for the disablement of vulnerable students. The essay will illustrate the centrality and the particularity of the complex relationships between research, teaching, learning and activism in the thinking and work of Professor Barton.

Lessons for higher education: the university as a site of activism
Kathleen Lynch
Pages 575 – 590
Len Barton is acutely aware of the power of the academy to either enhance critical thinking or to depress it. He is a true academic, never accepting the received wisdom or perspective of any given sociological standpoint, no matter how powerful or fashionable it was at the time. He has encouraged and promoted a unique blend of professional and public sociology of education that has left a profound legacy not only in the United Kingdom but beyond. While the neo-liberal ideology had hegemonic status for most of his professional life, Len chose to engage in a counter-ideological struggle; he created new intellectual spaces in the academy where people could safely dissent from the reigning intellectual orthodoxies. He operated according to the principles of Gramscian thinking by mounting a war of position, in journals, books, teaching, conferences and research, for critical intellectuals. And he encouraged other people to do likewise. This article explores the ways in which Len's work inspired the establishment of the Equality Studies Centre and the School of Social Justice in University College Dublin. It outlines the lessons learned from Len Barton about higher education and its potential as a site for critical analysis and action.

The heterodoxy of student voice: challenges to identity in the sociology of disability and education
Susan J. Peters
Pages 591 – 602
This article explores the contributions of students' voices in order to highlight some issues that have been central to disability studies - issues of identities, and their correlations to power, temporality, inclusivity, and place among the most salient to contemporary theories in the sociology of disability and education. Building on previous work that recognizes students' insights through the metaphors of street-wise philosophers, image-makers, and jazz improvisationists, I then chart a course for assessing theoretical frameworks in sociology and their applications to education, as well as to disability studies. Essentially, student voices offer opportunities for critical self-reflection as a disability studies scholar, as well as for reflection on the contributions of disability studies and sociology as a whole, leading to a transformative vision of the central tenets and tasks before us. The approach taken throughout this analysis is informed by Len Barton's call for a politics of hope.

The sociology of disability and the struggle for inclusive education
Julie Allan
Pages 603 – 619
This article charts the emergence of the sociology of disability and examines the areas of contestation. These have involved a series of erasures and absences - the removal of the body from debates on the social model of disability; the disappearance of the Other from educational policies and practices; and the absence of academics from political discourses and action. The paper considers the contribution of the sociology of disability to inclusive education and examines some of the objections currently being voiced. It ends with some reflections on the possibilities for academics within the sociology of disability to pursue alternative forms of engagement and outlines a series of duties that they might undertake.

A time for the universal right to education: back to basics
Marcia H. Rioux; Paula C. Pinto
Pages 621 – 642
The participation of children with disabilities in regular schools is too often the prerogative of education boards, who decide whether a child can learn within existing educational environments, rather than pressuring for systemic change and organization in school curricula that would grant the right of education to all children. This article looks at education as a right, as found in international agreements including the UN Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and education as a development tool, and discusses the limits and potential in each of these frameworks. An alternative model is proposed as an approach to universal pedagogy, which incorporates the idea of a flexible curriculum and the development of literacy skills, accessible and applicable to students with different backgrounds, learning styles, and abilities. Qualitative data from a large study in a number of nations monitoring the rights of people with disabilities are presented to illustrate the arguments and provide the perspective of people with disabilities themselves about their experiences in schools.