An exploration of the governmental policy, prison works, and its attendant recidivism provides the general opening. The 1944 Education Act is then taken as furnishing the medical model of personal handicap and deficiency which informed special education at an early stage. The Warnock Report's attempt to shift considerations to educational grounds is examined with a particular focus upon the ensuing definition of special needs and its legacy in legislation following the 1981 Act to the present. Foucault's concept of normalisation is (...) the basis for analysis of the normative elements in the main features of the national curriculum and testing. This latter together with aspects of the 1988 Education Reform Act are examined with regard to their impact upon special educational needs. The conclusions are that 'education works' and the rediscovery of the medical model of personal deficiency. (shrink)

The concept of social reproduction of sets of advantages and disadvantages together with that of status group, is used to explore the evidence and thinking presented in the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb, etc. regarding the education of children with disabilities in 1889. Even though the evidence was ambiguous, models for the education of children with disabilities were laid down. Integration into mainstream elementary schools was recommended for the blind. Recommendations for deaf children were divided in (...) allegiance with belief in the principles of either oralism or signing. The largest group numerically received the least attention in the Commission. The idea of feeble-minded children as a product of social, economic and educational circumstances had its champion but was overwhelmed by the acceptance of the doctrine of the innate characteristics of the child's mind identifiable by medical science. (shrink)

The concept of social reproduction of sets of advantages and disadvantages together with that of status group, is used to explore the evidence and thinking presented in the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb, etc. regarding the education of children with disabilities in 1889. Even though the evidence was ambiguous, models for the education of children with disabilities were laid down. Integration into mainstream elementary schools was recommended for the blind. Recommendations for deaf children were divided in (...) allegiance with belief in the principles of either oralism or signing. The largest group numerically received the least attention in the Commission. The idea of feeble-minded children as a product of social, economic and educational circumstances had its champion but was overwhelmed by the acceptance of the doctrine of the innate characteristics of the child's mind identifiable by medical science. (shrink)