The Language of Failure: Retrospect

This article originally appeared in the United States and is reprinted with the permission of Impact, the Journal of the New York State Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development .     

Implications of social capital for the inclusion of people with disabilities and families in community life

This paper seeks to ascertain the usefulness of the theory of social capital as a framework for developing and sustaining the inclusion of people with disabilities and families in community life. We discuss the theoretical elements of social capital and assess its relevance when understanding both the experiences of people with disabilities and their families and the possible implications for policy and programme efforts to promote inclusion. Preliminary findings from two studies of the experiences and social networks of people with disabilities and their families in communities in regional and rural Australia are presented. It is argued that to date, people with disabilities and their families have largely been excluded from the broader social capital debate and that social capital thinking has had minimal influence on efforts to achieve the inclusion of people with disabilities into community life. It is further argued that new paradigms of support are needed that build capacity and social capital through working alongside individuals and families to influence not only outcomes for them, but also for the communities on which they live. The local area coordination model as it has developed in Australia since 1989 provides some instructive signposts for integrating individual, family and community approaches. It is concluded that social capital theory can make a contribution to inclusion theory and practice but we should use it with circumspection.     

Primary Teacher Trainees: identity formation in an age of anxiety

This paper considers primary teacher trainees' understandings about touching the children in their care. A sample of 182 graduating trainees in Auckland, New Zealand, was surveyed. The majority considered touching children to be a source of regulation and anxiety for them. The paper suggests that the trainees' insistence on ‘being aware’, taken together with their failure to name ‘sexual abuse’ as an explicit concern, is unlikely to produce a capacity to engage critically with what is at stake for teachers in an era of heightened anxiety about child vulnerability.