Exclusion from school and recognition of difference

ABSTRACT

There has been an overall decrease in exclusion rates and numbers in recent years across the UK. This change has often been heralded as evidence that national inclusion policies are ‘working’ and that schools themselves are becoming increasingly inclusive. This article examines findings from a recent study on school exclusion in Wales, noting that exclusion is falling here in line with UK wide trends. However, exclusion rates of children with special needs and others who face multiple disadvantages remain stubbornly high. Given these findings, and the evidence that this is the case across the UK, an important question arises about the broader relationship between school exclusion and inequality. This article seeks to address this question, and asks whether and to what extent the politics of recognition of difference, in Nancy Fraser's terms, can help explain the continuing over-representation of some groups of marginalised and vulnerable children in exclusion figures, despite this overall downward trend.     

100 Ideas for supporting pupils with ADHD/Behavioural,emotional and social difficulties: a guide for the early years

It can be argued that our contemporary view of the world is not at all based on ‘objective’ observation of ‘what is out there’, but rather the result of the application of existing mental frameworks and ways of seeing to the world around us, including the world of human beings. Goethe's way of seeing recognizes the special relationship that exists between parts and wholes, so that, rather than being built up of parts, wholes are indeed non-unified wholes which are fully reflected in the parts. Each part is, as it were, one particular manifestation of the whole. My purpose in this paper is to begin to explore Goethe's way of seeing as a tool for new insights into education and to do so by looking at the area of inclusion. Inclusion is a good place to start exploring because it is so obviously based on a notion of parts and wholes. For example, it is based on particular notions of what classes and schools as wholes should look like in terms of their parts: student population, achievement, assessment, curriculum, etc. Thus, examining inclusion from a Goethean perspective may provide new opportunities for thinking about and dealing with exclusion.     

Policies on special needs education: competing strategies and discourses

This paper critically examines the array of policy approaches that have been adopted in the field of special needs education in Scotland over recent years. These are characterized in the following ways: (1) supporting or changing the child—an individualized approach; (2) making schools inclusive for all—a systems approach; (3) challenging the mainstream—an anti‐discrimination approach. Each approach creates different distributions of power, accountability and resource allocation. They formulate categories and eligibility requirements that can both include and exclude children (and their parents), and create rights and duties with varied potential and limitations. Thus, the policy approaches may aver their promotion of inclusion but, in fact, they create a new quilt of inclusive and exclusive policies and practice. This is further examined through the analysis of official statistics, which suggests that there has been little difference in the proportion of children who are excluded spatially from mainstream schools and classrooms. Recent legislation, the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, claims to underpin a radical new approach to promoting inclusion. However, many features of the Act suggest that it will reinforce the power of professional groups, rather than investing more power in children and their parents. There is a real danger that, whilst policy frameworks shift, practices remain the same as a result of inertia and resistance to change.     

消除职业流动中的社会排斥:社会建设的内在要求——以广西为例

社会建设旨在实现社会团结;对广西的实证研究证明,职业流动中的社会排斥造成被排斥者多层面的剥夺,导致收入两级分化,弱化社会信任甚至影响民族团结,消除职业流动中的社会排斥是社会建设的内在要求.以科学发展观为指导,促进经济快速、协调发展;消除壁垒,建立城乡一体的劳动力市场;消除社会偏见和歧视,确立社会公正原则;加强职业培训和社区建设,提高人力资本和社会资本,是消除职业流动中社会排斥的可选路径.     

康梁保皇派与美国华侨的认同问题

1882年美国通过华侨华人历史上第一个排华法案后,美国华侨陷入认同危机。康梁保皇派适时在美国华侨社会中宣传其救国思想,其活动客观上推动了华侨认同的改变和爱国主义思想的形成。     

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.     

The forgotten schools. Current status of special schools for pupils with social,emotional and behavioural difficulties in Germany: a complete national survey

The article reports on a survey of special schools for children with social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in Germany. The schools were asked by standardised mail questionnaire about their organisational structures. The rate of return was 77% and a total of 397 schools were included in the interpretation of data. The questionnaire asked for several items to analyse the structural elements and organisational compositions of the schools. Rather than measuring the effects of instruction and treatment in the separate school settings, the present study is basic research aiming at stocktaking of the current organisational status of these schools that have barely been the focus of research. The number of structural problems that SEBD schools in Germany have to face is enormous, according to the findings. It is arguable whether optimal service delivery and support to the pupils is possible under the general conditions revealed by the present study, e.g., inadequate number of teachers and other staff members (and thus insufficient staff for child guidance), only a few schools offering full‐time schooling services, and in only a few instances do we find inter‐agency collaboration.     

美国社会对华人的种族歧视原因及对策探析

在美国历史上,从早期的全面排华到现代华人被称为"模范少数民族",美国社会对华人的歧视状况虽有所改善,但是各种歧视的事件仍时有发生。简要论述了美国社会对华人歧视的现当代状况,探析了成因及华人如何改变自身处境,彻底消除歧视的对策。     

Exclusion of Travellers in state schools

Travellers in Scotland and the rest of the UK are often still mobile. In particular, the showground and circus communities remain highly mobile for much of the year. The overt stereotyping, discrimination and racial prejudice faced mostly by Gypsies and Travellers is said to keep them out of schools and certainly has contributed to low attendance levels and even non-attendance and dropout before the due leaving date. The research carried out in Scotland over a six-year period included both quantitative and qualitative methods, targeted schools, local authorities and a range of Travellers representing different groups, life-styles and generations. The reality of disrupted learning for schools and for Travellers is revealed. For thosewho do access schools and attend regularly there are still many covert barriers to successful learning. Such institutional discrimination has not previously been researched and is hardly acknowledged, yet makes a significant contribution to Travellers' success or failure in school. The mismatch between these pupils' particular learning needs and the provision made for a settled, local community offers a paradigm for many other interrupted learners: reduced selfesteem, demotivation, disaffection and eventual dropout for some.The essentially excluding school system and the self-excluding Traveller pupil (parental condoned absence) conspire to perpetuate cycles of underachievement and marginalization, confirming their social exclusion within society. Yet, at a grass roots level, innovative projects and approaches are being developed on an ad hoc basis. At the European level, particular emphasis is put on the need for open and Distance Learning to support Travellers. The lack of state funded-support for out of school learning does little to engage Travellers with learning. The findings are described and analysed within the broader framework of the literature and practices in this area in Europe and Australia.     

Recovering potential: factors associated with success in engaging challenging students with alternative pre-16 provision

This short report describes the extent to which sociometric test results are validated by observations of children's social behaviour during playtimes. The sociometric terms ‘star’ and ‘isolate’, in particular, are examined in the light of measurements of the social interactions of children thus labelled.