Within this article, the often-used phrase of Special Educational Needs (SENs) is examined by pivoting upon three points of analysis. These being: its history, its definition, and its possible futures. This analysis reveals the hidden deceit contained within the lexicon, history, and the present performative acts of SEN. It is argued that SEN is haunted by the ghost of extant discourse and practices, namely, those of special needs. To move forward and to actually support children labelled with SEN, it is argued that extant discourses and practices must be allowed to pass into history, that a rights discourse should displace the ableist discourse of needs and that governments, all over the world, should listen to, hear, and act upon the voices of those labelled as SEN.
This article reflects upon initial teacher education programme's employment of reflection. The article argues that the orginary ground of educational reflection, dominated by theorists such as Dewey and Schon, has been colonised by a form of 'Total Reflection' that is conceptualised and manufactured within the Teacher Standards and its associated discourse. Through employment of the concept of Abbau, the work of Borges and mirror theory, the article reveals how student teachers are not enabled to be reflective but instead are created as the celebrated automata whose professional image is shrouded, codified and solidified by a Master Weaving machine. The article suggests that if educational reflection is to become useful in teacher development, then it must return to its past incarnations.
This article applies Schopenhauer's stratagems to an examination of the professional, within a performative courtroom trial of critical analysis. The Defense submission seeks to sanctify the modern professional as a solidifying force in society. The prosecution employs Schopenhauer's The Art of Being Right to bring a different definition and history to the concept of the professional. Through this application, the author hopes that you, the reader, might act as jury and so weigh the evidence to find your own guilt/innocence or truth/deceit in the operationalizations of professionalism within society.
In 2014, the United Kingdom Coalition Government, after the now infamous Trojan Horse incident, insisted that all children learn Fundamental British Values. Cameron, as Prime Minister, argued that such values, coupled with "muscular liberalism" would "challenge extremist ideology, exposing it for the lie that it is." This article exists at the place of the apostrophe—as the scare mark (' ') becomes an enclosure, enclosing a manufactured possession. "Is Britishness just a made up concept? Who determines what is or is not fundamental? I want to problematize what they include and exclude in their concept of "British Values." What is this "British" they talk about and why do they feel a need for this "Britain" to exist? Within the enclosures provided by 'ten scare marks', I present research into historical and contemporary formulations of Britishness taken from academic texts, school textbooks, and websites. In addition, by invoking the work of Serres, Bhabba, and Billig, I seek to confront Cameron's challenging discourse. Within this article, I do not though attempt to detail an authentic Britishness but rather from the outset argue that there is, and This analysis is disturbing. It disturbs my thoughts but also my personal history- it is troubling. never was any authenticity in this concept. What I seek to argue here is that their "British-ness" is nothing more than a portable, lean-to concept of violence. A "manufactured concept" (Nationalism and the origins of prejudice, International Journal of Historical Teaching, Learning and Research) which locates an inclusion but by default formulates an exclusion whose antecedents lie more in the government counter terrorists' strategies than any substantial historical fact If it is manufactured where does this leave my schooling – which told me Britain was great? (Britishness from a linguistic perspective in school textbooks). The paper concludes by suggesting that their "Britain" is a rhetorical trope. It is itself a Trojan horse—which through flagging and banal nationalism (Banal nationalism) indoctrinates and radicalizes our children into an invented—pererted nationalism that the political elite employs to deal with a perceived/conceived/contrived threat of an internal other to our geographical, historical, and ideological borders.
This article critically analyses the concept of space in generality and specifically the employment of safe space as an educational concept. In addition, by employing Derrida's notion of the arrivant, the article provides an account of the author's frustrations during his analysis of space and of his attempts to reorientate his quantitative writings to ones that are more autobiographical in nature. The argument emplaced in the article is that safe spaces are not safe but in reality are 'warped spaces' where landscapes reveal topographies of despair which mimic modern technological and capitalist development.
This brief article acts as an introduction to this special edition on Fundamental British Values (FBV). From the outset, it is important to state that we as a group of contributors believe it is fundamental to value Britain and all of its peoples in different and differing ways to those espoused in the Government Prevent Agenda, FBV, and the "media's moral panics" about the terrorist within.
This paper offers a critique of transnational aspects of 'inclusion,' one of those global education buzzwords that as Slee (2009) puts it, say everything but say nothing. It starts off by trying to compare Indian and English usages and attitudes at the level of teacher discourse, and notes the impossibility of any 'authentic' translation, given the very different cultural contexts and histories. In response to these divergences, the authors undertake a much more genealogical and 'forensic' examination of values associated with 'inclusion,' focussing especially on a key notion of 'pity.' The Eurocentric tradition is traced from its Platonic origins through what is claimed to be the 'industrialization of pity' and its rejection as a virtue in favour of more apparently egalitarian measures of fairness. The Indian tradition relates rather to religious traditions across a number of different belief systems, most of which centre on some version of a karmic notion of pity. The authors both criticise and reject 'inclusion' as a colonisation of the global and call for a new understanding of notions like 'pity' as affective commitment rather than 'fair' dispensation of equality.
International Issues in SEND and Inclusion brings together a collection of cutting-edge researches on approaches to special education needs and disability education, across 6 continents and within 12 countries. Written by authors who are experts in their own countries in relation to special educational needs and disability, the book provides a unique knowledge and understanding of different international perspectives in special educational needs, disability and inclusion. The chapters present extended case studies and reflect on current policy, practice and theory within that context, challenging assumptions which can dominate the policy and practice of inclusive education. Each of the six continents has a separate section and introduction within the book to offer a relevant approach and context for analysis. The book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of inclusion, special educational needs and disability, teacher education and comparative education.
