Special education transition issues over the past 60 years: social network analysis on Web of Science exploration

This research identified the potential special education transition development trajectories by tracing the priorities and hierarchical structure of published transition issues in special education. Social network analysis (SNA) of the 1900–2015 data from the Web of Science (WOS) database achieves a transition exploration flow by citation-based main path analysis (MPA). The first main finding was that 517 papers were published relating to special education transition over the past 60 years. Special education transition literature emerged in 1957, was systematically explored after 1987, and grew rapidly in the 1990s. The second main finding was that the trajectories contained various topics that can be broken down into two mainstream fields: curriculum and employment. The third main finding was that there are five sub-branches of the mainstream fields: legislation; team working; accountability; individualised transition programmes (ITP); and self-determination. This research is the first to use MPA techniques in SNA for special education transition. The findings indicate that more foci deserve to be explored to attain the transition working exhaustively and smooth transitions between each career stage for individuals with disabilities.     

The American College Counseling Association: A Historical View

The history of college counseling reflects its multifaceted, dynamic character. Numerous works track the historical development of counseling in higher education (Bragdon, 1929; Farnsworth, 1957; Fitzpatrick, 1968; Heppner& Neal, 1983; Siegel, 1968; Williamson, 1939). Contemporary authors also have analyzed current trends and issues facing the college counseling profession (Dean & Meadows, 1995; Steenbarger, 1990; Stone & Archer, 1990). The American College Counseling Association (ACCA) was created and has developed in the context of both history and recent issues in counseling within higher education settings. This article examines factors contributing to the birth and rapid growth of this successful and growing professional association.     

Planning Technical and Vocational Education and Training: the case of Namibia [1]

ABSTRACT

In 1991, shortly after independence, the government of Namibia established a Presidential Commission on Higher Education. The Commission's report contains almost 200 recommendations covering the whole field of post‐school education. The account presented here concentrates on technical and vocational education, access to higher education and inter‐relationships between the various levels of the educational system. Technical and vocational education at the time of independence was fragmented, inappropriate in a number of ways and not well supported. Fundamental change was necessary. Solutions need to be found around a set of baste principles, including: the need for a coherent system of linked qualifications, the importance of a national training policy enunciated by government, strategies which are responsive to employment requirements and which meet the needs of disadvantaged groups, special access routes for students who have missed out on educational opportunities, adequate provision for pre‐service and in‐service instructor training and teacher education.

     

Towards Inclusive Learning Environments (TILE): Developing the ‘Roadmap for the Inclusion of Students with Special Educational Needs in Vocational Education and Workplace Settings’

Twenty years after UNESCO's Salamanca Statement enshrined international action for provision for children, youth and adults with special educational needs within the regular educational system, this article presents the current underpinning international and national UK context for developing inclusion in vocational education and training and workplace settings. This context is explored through the justification for developing an EU‐funded project entitled ‘Towards Inclusive Learning Environments (TILE)’ and the creation of an associated audit tool, the ′Roadmap for Inclusion′, by a partnership group consisting of universities and VET settings from Finland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and England.     

Financial circumstances,financial difficulties and academic achievement among first-year undergraduates

Widening participation initiatives led by the government encourage non‐traditional students to enrol in higher education courses usually offered through a franchising arrangement between a Higher Education Institution (HEI) and a local Further Education Institution (FEI). The focus has been on the development of foundation degrees with most collaborative agreements concentrating predominantly on offering these qualifications on the proviso that students must attend the host HEI to complete the final full degree year. This review focuses on an FEI in South Wales which has successfully obtained a franchise to offer BSc provision at honours level in care studies and childhood studies. Delivery of honours provision is a new concept for the FEI in question; issues considered revolved initially around the establishment of an HE ethos and environment within the college together with the additional requirement for implementing guidelines for dissertation supervision and scholarly activity which are not normally a remit of FEIs. A model for the delivery of HE in an FEI had already been established previously but it soon became apparent that provision of honours level required some modification and expansion of this model looking at flexibility of delivery within the traditional inflexibility of an FE teaching contract. The issues surrounding this and their subsequent resolution are discussed in terms of both practice and policy development. The first year of honours provision was outstandingly successful and it is hoped to develop an established model of HE provision in an FEI that encompasses the total progression pathway from sub‐degree to full degree for students who are described as non‐traditional students within the widening participation culture. The outcomes of this review will become the baseline for the development of a comprehensive policy for delivering HE provision in a FEI.     

Attitudes and self‐efficacy of pre‐service teachers towards inclusion in Pakistan

This study sought to determine the attitudes and teaching self‐efficacy of pre‐service teachers towards the inclusion of students with disabilities into regular classrooms. A questionnaire was administered to 194 pre‐service Pakistani teachers (male 73, female 121) enrolled in a 1‐year teacher education programme at a government university in Pakistan. Overall, male pre‐service teachers expressed more positive attitudes than their female counterparts regarding the inclusion of students with disabilities in regular classrooms. Surprisingly, those pre‐service teachers majoring in special education did not express more positive attitudes towards inclusion than their counterparts who were preparing to teach in mainstream schools. However, participants with training in special education, knowledge of disability legislation, teaching experience and personal experience with a disability reported higher levels of self‐efficacy towards teaching within inclusive settings. The findings of the study are discussed with possible implications for policy‐makers and teacher educators in Pakistan and other countries in the South Asian region.     

Conditions for Choice? The context for implementation of curricular pathways in the curriculum, 14‐19, in England and Wales

The Dearing reviews of 1993 (the National Curriculum and its assessment) and 1996 (Qualifications for 16‐19 year olds) have created the context for a renewed discussion of educational ‘flexibility’ and ‘choice’. This article seeks particularly to analyse ‘choice’ within the educational and wider social contexts and to identify how far the conditions for choice exist. It suggests three main areas of difficulty: (1) contradictions in education policy, which is a site of contestation rather than coherence at a national level, and provides therefore an unstable context for choices; (2) ambivalence in the social context, in so far as ‘autonomy’ is now both the goal of education and also a prerequisite for access to education; (3) specific characteristics of educational provision which offer limited evidence of the capacity to adapt to the kinds of support and guidance for ‘choice’ which are the pre‐requisites of any meaningful implementation of the Dearing proposals.     

Changing policy,legislation and its effects on inclusive and special education: a perspective from Wales

This article, by Jean Ware of Bangor University School of Education, examines policy developments in education in Wales since devolution, and their implications for inclusive and special education. This is set in the context of the demographics of Wales, which, it is argued, have a significant influence on policy and on the nature of educational provision as a whole. The discussion initially focuses on issues related to the Welsh language. The article then discusses four policy initiatives (the Foundation Phase, the Literacy and Numeracy Framework, the Masters in Educational Practice and the proposed reform of initial teacher education and training), intended to respond to Wales's poor performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment, and their potential impact, as well as the White Paper on reforming the special educational needs system in Wales. It is too soon to discuss the impact of these special educational needs‐specific reforms, but the differences from the English special educational needs reforms highlight the inherent tensions in special educational needs systems. It is argued that the Tabberer Report's critique of the teacher education system in Wales, which emphasises the need for teacher education to be strongly connected to relevant research, provides an opportunity to improve the quality of education in Wales for all children; but that considerable investment, and a willingness to address the potential tensions between the different initiatives, is necessary to achieve such an outcome.     

Moving forward or standing still? A reflection of ‘special’ educational provision in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates influential discourses embedded within policy documents and policy-makers’ accounts to trace special education development in Malaysia. With a heavy reliance on the medical model, the distinction of the ‘educable’ and ‘ineducable’ based on self-care abilities is incongruent with inclusive ideals that support learner diversity. The diagnosed disability types of students bear a strong influence on their educational settings and learning pathways, leading to many students with physical impairments relegated to community care centres outside the schooling system. The proportion of pupils in special schools remains low, yet special classes are expanding exponentially resulting from growing diagnoses of various kinds of learning disabilities, particularly the category of ‘slow learner’. This calls into question whether the increasing use of special classes leads to an improvement of support provision or the growing failings of the Malaysian general education system.     

The fading of a teaching profession? reforms of early childhood teacher education in Sweden

In Sweden, working with young children in institutions outside the home dates back to the late nineteenth century when public child care provision developed in a context of industrialization, urbanization and democratization. Out of the charitable work of unmarried women in these early institutions, pre‐schools and teacher education programmes developed. Over the years, pre‐school teacher education has undergone major changes, the most recent reform being the move into a system within which the previous eight distinctive teacher education programmes, pre‐school teacher education being one of them, have been replaced by one integrated teaching degree. This article addresses some major features of the development of pre‐school teacher education and concludes with a discussion of the most recent reform and its consequences for the early childhood teaching profession.     

Inclusive Education in India: International concept,national interpretation

This article examines education of children belonging to marginalised groups, with particular reference to children with disabilities, within the Indian context. Based on an analysis of post‐independence Government documents, various educational provisions made available for children with disabilities are discussed. It explores the Indian Government’s focus on the development of special schools, its efforts towards integration, and the more recent emphasis on inclusive education. Furthermore, it attempts to elucidate “inclusive education” as understood in various official documents. The article concludes by arguing for a need to develop a contextual understanding of inclusive education that is reflective of current educational concerns in India.     

Reflections on policy and practice of inclusive education in pre‐primary schools in Cyprus

In July 1999 the House of Parliament in Cyprus passed the Education Act for Children with Special Needs, according to which all children have the right to be educated in their neighbouring regular school together with their age‐mates. An important component of this law is that it introduces, for the first time, inclusive education into pre‐primary education. A child can be considered as having special needs only when he/she has attained the age of 3 years or older. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the policy of inclusive education is implemented in pre‐primary schools in ­Cyprus, to investigate whether some children are still marginalized (after the implementation of the new law) and, if they are, to identify factors influencing marginalization or acting as a barrier to inclusion. We also briefly present the results from a study we conducted that supports the discussion of the issues raised in this paper.     

Education,health and social welfare in the late colonial context: the International Missionary Council and educational transition in the interwar years with specific reference to colonial Africa

Mission schools in Africa in the first half of the twentieth century were in many ways microcosms of the great educational debates of the times. The objectives of policies regarding access, governance and curriculum were part of a historical evolution of mission education but they were also increasingly a reflection of significant new trends that were to reshape the theory and practice of colonial education. New forms of educational research and professional expertise were to play an ever‐increasing role in shaping the forms and content of the education provided. The brief of the mission churches was to meet with the increasing demand for schooling. Church and state gradually expanded their cooperation in the field as the costs of education outstripped the resources of the missions and the demand for mass education came to be linked to nationalist demands for political and economic rights. This paper is concerned to map the background to those international influences that shaped the policy and practices of mission education and the increasing engagement of colonial governments with the field of education. It addresses the question of the worldwide Protestant mission church’s response to the changing political, social and economic environment of the first half of the twentieth century. In particular it seeks to explore how mission initiatives shaped thinking about education in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America by the 1930s. It also attempts to situate those issues within a wider educational framework by linking them to the emergent debate concerning pragmatism and utilitarianism in regard to progressive education in the USA and the quest for social democratic education in the United Kingdom and Europe as part of a response to socialism, nationalism and totalitarianism. In short, the paper explores the influence of the Christian mission churches with regard to social policy, in general, and the provision of education, in particular, during the interwar years, with special reference to areas influenced by the work of the International Missionary Council. At a time when there was a crisis of support for ‘foreign missions’ how did the debates between fundamentalist‐evangelicals and supporters of a ‘social gospel’ transform themselves into debates regarding the role of missions in non‐Western societies? And how did these essentially ecclesiastical/theological issues come to influence public policy, specifically educational policy, in the long term? The conclusions are that mission churches had a very significant influence on the shaping of educational thinking in the colonial and imperial context at a time when state influence in the sector was still often quite weak. The origins of the conference and research culture that has informed educational policy since the establishment of the United Nations Organization had its roots in the broad context of the Charter of the League of Nations, with a meeting of religious and secular goals, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Between 1910 and 1939 there was a significant history of educational reform and community development that has only been partially documented in relation to its global significance. This is an attempt to build a framework for understanding the nature of those changes and what was achieved. The investigation is conducted through an exploration of the three great World Mission Conferences of the International Missionary Council (IMC) held at Edinburgh (1910), Jerusalem (1928) and Tambaram, India (1938). The attempts of Christian churches to engage with dramatic social changes associated with industrialisation, urbanisation, poverty, cultural change and the rise of anti‐colonialism, with specific regard to the field of educational policy, are documented and analysed.     

The decentralisation of the school system in post‐communist Romania

Following the fall of the Iron Curtain in December 1989, the Romanian system of education has started a deep process of reconstruction that asked for a comprehensive package of reforms among which decentralisation. Broadly the paper aims to make a contribution to the emerging knowledge base about the realities of restructuring of post‐communist education systems and the impact that governance through markets is having on public services. The paper focuses on presenting and discussing the attempts to decentralise pre‐higher education in Romania in considering the role of the state and governance in the provision of public services and the introduction of market mechanisms in education. The decentralisation of education has been proposed by the then Minister of Education Andrei Marga. Although decentralisation in pre‐higher education has been piloted for three academic years and the policy documents that introduced it have been permanently amended and updated, more than a decade later, this reform has not reached its aims mainly due to the various changes on the political scene. However, provided that no major amendments will be made to the Laws of National Education (2009), decentralisation in pre‐higher education will be a reality from 2010–11.     

Public and Private Provision of Higher Education in Malaysia: A Comparative Analysis

A sample of public universities and private colleges are compared in terms of their enrolments, costs, facilities and quality of provision. The purpose is to illuminate an important policy issue for Malaysia and to contribute to the general debate on the role of the private sector in the provision of higher education. The general findings are that public universities appear to be more efficient in satisfying public demand in terms of quality of provision.     

Common European framework of reference for languages (CEFR): insights into global policy borrowing in Malaysian higher education

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has emerged as a global policy in language education which has been ‘borrowed’ by nations across the world. This paper presents a critical analysis of Malaysia’s borrowing of the CEFR as part of English language curriculum reform with particular reference to policy motivation and implementation processes as outlined in the English Language Education Roadmap for Malaysia (2015–2025). The analysis draws on Phillips and Ochs’s (2003, “Processes of Policy Borrowing in Education: Some Explanatory and Analytical Devices.” Comparative Education 39 (4): 451–461.) framework for examining educational policy borrowing to highlight challenges as well as prospects of the implementation of the global policy in higher education in Malaysia.     

Here and now: the attendance issue in Indigenous early childhood education

Concern about poor school attendance and participation, particularly of Indigenous children, is a key issue in Australian education; however, strategies to address this issue have been piecemeal and have met with limited success. While much has been written about the issue of school attendance, little attention has been given to absenteeism in early childhood education or its effects at this level. Drawing on data from a longitudinal ethnographic study of Indigenous children in early childhood education in an Australian city, this paper examines the impact of intermittent attendance on the academic, social and personal wellbeing of young Aboriginal children. Explanations for non‐attendance, particularly in the non‐compulsory pre‐school, are considered, and the efficacy of current policy trends to coerce parents to deliver children to school by withholding welfare income is challenged. It is argued that because absenteeism in the Indigenous context is part of the broader complex of social exclusion and disadvantage, policy‐makers and service providers, such as the school, are presented particular challenges involving the balancing of competing principles.     

‘Unconscious’ inclusion of students with learning disabilities in a Malaysian mainstream primary school: teachers' perspectives

The inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream regular schools has been seen as the best practice in special education provision, most markedly since the 90s. International research has provided amassing evidence towards the advantages of inclusive model over a segregation model of special education provision. However, nearly two decades after the signing of the international pledge, namely the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO) towards accepting inclusive education, Malaysia has not yet fully gained the momentum to implement inclusive education for children with special needs, especially for children identified within the category of learning disabilities. Because of the delay in policy implementation, inclusive education remains sparingly practiced in some schools without formal support. This study aims to investigate a scenario of this practice in a mainstream primary school via interviewing the regular teachers. The ultimate aim of this investigation is to identify ways to move forward from the current practice of ‘unconscious inclusion’.     

Contextual Influences on Integration in Australia: Overview of a Report to the Commonwealth Schools Commission. Part I.

Integration of students with special needs has emerged as a significant challenge to education practice in Australia, as elsewhere in the world community. To date, however, little information is available regarding the implementation of integration policy which, in many cases, is still evolving. This paper presents findings of a study sponsored by the Commonwealth Schools Commission at the request of the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development, Centre for Education Research and Innovation (OECD/CERI) and describes the current context within which integration in Australia occurs. Reference is made to the philosophical, legislative, and policy bases, administrative organization, and funding structures from which the implementation of policy is proceeding. Differences between States, as well as issues of common interest are identified.     

Early years education in Pakistan: trends,issues and strategies

This paper outlines the programme of provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) which is currently urgently needed to support the development of children from birth to eight years in Pakistan. It begins by emphasizing the global recognition of the importance of such provision, before describing the recent history of ECEC in Pakistan, and the current situation. A case study from the pre‐primary (katchi) class in a typical government school is used to illustrate the urgent need for initiatives and action to implement both Education for All (EFA) commitments and government policy for ECEC. Impediments to the implementation of the policy, including financial, structural, organizational and cultural barriers are identified, and recommendations are made for overcoming these obstacles. From a human capital perspective, it is argued that an ECEC programme will benefit the country and its economy, as well as the individual children who will be enabled to become active and effective contributors to society.