The social construction of learning disabilities

Underpinning the technical gaze that dominates learning disabilities theory and practice is the assumption that learning disabilities are a pathology that resides in the heads of individual students, with the corollary that remedial efforts also focus on what goes on in the heads of students classified as learning disabled. This article begins with a critique of the ideology of individualism that situates individual success and failure in the heads of individuals as a means of introducing an alternative perspective--social constructivism--that locates learning and learning problems in the context of human relations and activity. Extended examples are used to illustrate how the performative aspects of learning disabilities emerge in the context of human relationships. The primary argument developed here is that one cannot be learning disabled on one's own. It takes a complex system of interactions performed in just the right way, at the right time, on the stage we call school to make a learning disability. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the instructional implications of a social constructivist stance.     

Discovering Expert Perspectives on Dispositions and Remediation: A Qualitative Study

The authors used a qualitative approach to discover the perceptions of 19 experts on dispositions and remediation for counseling students. Analysis revealed 4 dispositional domains related to context, severity, amenability to change, and cultural sensitivity. Counselor educators should consider dispositions at admission and examine their program’s ability to remediate severe tenacious dispositions.     

People for Education: a critical policy history

In this paper, we demonstrate how history informs how policy meanings are constructed and the rhetorical strategies used to convince others to accept these meanings. We have two goals: (a) to show how a group of non-governmental actors, People for Education, became part of Ontario, Canada’s policy discursive network; and (b) to demonstrate the utility of constructing cultural and microhistories in critical policy analysis. This article is important because it describes resistance from a critical perspective and offers a methodology for producing histories of struggles over meaning-making in educational politics.     

Childhood sexual experiences with an older partner among men who have sex with men in Buenos Aires,Argentina

This study sought to describe childhood sexual experiences with older partners (CSEOP) among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. MSM were recruited through respondent driven sampling. They responded to a computer administered self-interview with questions on CSEOP, operationalized as manual, oral, genital, or anal contact prior to age 13 with a partner at least 4 years older. Of the 500 respondents, only 25% identified as gay. Eighteen percent of the respondents reported CSEOP, the majority of whom did not feel they were hurt by the experience and did not consider it to be childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Over two-thirds of MSM who reported CSEOP said that their older partner was a female. Only 4% of those with a female partner felt their experience was CSA compared to 44% of those who had a male partner. Among all men reporting CSEOP, those who felt sexually abused were more likely to have been physically forced or threatened, physically hurt, and emotionally hurt than those who did not feel sexually abused. Having CSEOP, being hurt by the experiences, and perceiving the experiences as sexual abuse were not associated with current HIV sexual risk or substance use behavior. In this sample of MSM in Argentina, a substantial minority reported CSEOP. Those who felt they had been sexually abused were much more likely to have had an older male partner than an older female partner, and were more likely to report having been physically forced and threatened by their older partner.     

The evolution of a hybrid classroom: Introducing online learning to educators in American samoa

TechTrends - This case study suggests that the process of designing and facilitating hybrid courses in the island community of American Samoa required continuous negotiation with respect to the...