Disability Barriers in Accessing Mainstream Education - Essay Example

Running head: Barriers to disabled peoples access to mainstream education Disability Barriers in accessing Mainstream Education By ____________________ Segregation - Disabled People in Historical Context The time period ranging between 1875-1890 was the era, which gave birth to the roots of segregation as disability in this phase and even before this was considered a genetic disease, uncured. Disabled people were considered as a curse for the society, due to which they were entirely segregated and kept in special schools and day care centres, where they used to receive little formal education keeping in view that such students were discarded by the society, they were not even provided with jobs. So, they had to depend entirely upon the society and were deprived of independence in every matter of their lives. In 1870, after the Forster Elementary Education Act, situation got better when schools were funded and ran even in those areas where education was uncommon, with the aim of providing the basic education, even to physically impaired students along with normal students. This Act where on one hand was responsible to bring attention to all disabled students to consider them as part and parcel of the society, on the other it raised several difficulties for teachers and mentors to educate the disabled students on the same level as they teach other students. This was a new concept which provided a reason for teachers to adopt a new perception of 'segregation' among their students, as they felt the difficulties while educating disabled and non disabled under one roof were difficult to confront. So, 'disability' was the main obstruction for teachers in providing access to mainstream education to physically impaired people. The era of 1890s appeared as a hope in the history of British Education for disabled students as the then psychologists and scholars after going through various research work turned out to be successful in finding out that genes has nothing to do with disability. The research work was proved by several IQ theories (IQ Fatalism) presented in early nineteenth century by Simon and Binet. It was due to this IQ model that became the ground for the 1944 Educational Act (also known as Butler Act), which provided a cornerstone for the basic education of disabled students. The concept of ability, age and aptitude was developed after this Act and it was the beginning of a new concept that gave rise to several categories developed to identify disabled education. Eleven physical impairments were identified and fitted into all the categories. In 1985, Warnock distinguished between different forms of integration: locational, when children with special educational needs share a site with mainstream pupils; social, when they also share social out-of-class activities; and functional, when they join in at least some mainstream lessons. (Beveridge, 2004, p. 23) It was tried by the social welfare system and workers to keep this model aloof from other narrow integration involvements, so that pessimistic approach should be avoided and discouraged but the model could not be remained aloof as it converted into a step-by-step progression, where children who could demonstrate their suitability might gradually moved towards full involvement in mainstream provision. The emphasis instead of on quality education was placed on the fact where education took place. Further, there was little recognition that, if integration was to be successful, this had implications for mainstream approaches for all pupils: instead the responsibility was placed on individual children with special educational needs to 'fit in' to existing school structures that had not been designed with their needs in mind. (Beveridge, 2004, p. 25) SENDA Act 2001 is the recent development in impaired education according to which it is illegal and immoral to treat a disabled child differently from that of a non-disabled child. The student is taught by the regular classroom teacher, who is supported as needed; follows the regular curriculum, with modification and adaptation; makes friends; and contributes to the learning of the entire class (Uditsky, 1993:79). There are currently a number of significant changes taking place in the wider environment in the United Kingdom that should make it easier for students with disabilities to enter the inclusive classroom of higher education on a level playing field with their non-disabled peers, on terms approaching equality. (Powell, 2003, p.19) However SENDA does not outlaw segregation as majority of the students in SENDA are disabled and recognises the complexities, but still UK government is seeking ways to alleviate all those barriers, which promote segregation. Government is seeking policies and ways to combine the disabled with non-disabled in such a manner that alleviates all the barriers for disabled to access mainstream education. In this context, the behavioural and structural barriers must be addressed simultaneously in order to make sustained and timely progress, rather than assuming that either structural change or attitudinal change alone will end discrimination against disabled people. (Tregaskis, p. 7) Barriers - Disability in Societal Context If we analyse the main cause of disabled people's exclusion from mainstream education through societal context we would found that it is our norms that have always remained ahead in neglecting and rejecting the different perceptions regarding disability. The early conceptions of disability have been prejudiced by sociocultural and political belief systems, which were adopted in order to attain self-advantage benefits that implied negative views of the disabled. Today the scenario is somewhat different. We consider ourselves unconsciously superior due to which we don't like to watch our disabled children grow and flourish, rather it would be better to say that we don't want to watch them go ahead of us. Because proper mentoring could make a disabled child grow and think in positive ways, which we don't like. It has more to do with psychological aspects of our society as the hidden concept resides within us due to which we watch them not as future personalities but as a competitor to our own children. Again this is one main aspect of 'segregation', which makes us under estimate the disabled children. How unethical is the dilemma that children with developmental disabilities and mental retardation have been depicted throughout history with stereotypical images created by language misuse, such as "evil," "deviant," "deficient," and "sick" (Bryan, 1996). Today such stereotypical words have replaced the form of 'pity' attitude and outrageous remarks. Such language where on one hand negatively portrays our disabled children, on the other end such remarks portrays how unconscious malice the society possess towards disabled children, such attitude represents human psyche that society is not only willing to accept such children but also cannot persist to see such children moving towards a bright career. There is a need to educate us morally so that our change of attitude helps such children rise towards and with success. It was until 1960s that several activist groups have demanded that people with disabilities have access to the mainstream of society, not just in terms of social justice and equal rights, but also in terms of how they are defined as individuals. Activists reveal a macro perspective of disabilities by enhancing awareness about how the larger society creates and perpetuates disabilities as a result of architectural and attitudinal barriers. Children with disabilities have been pushed into rehabilitation with a "fix the individual" approach without addressing the environmental barriers that perpetuate their conditions and instead of improving their condition, make them more disabled. Thanks to the arrival of the twenty-first century that has made the society escorted towards progress, although little but as "slow and study wins the race" so does the slow progress counts towards the success gradually. Social Model of Disability Social model refers to address the implicit assumptions of disability, which accounts a permanent and unchanging binary opposition between the interests and experiences of disabled and non-disabled people. Since the initial development of social models of disability in the 1970s, social ideas have become a crucially important explanatory tool for those disabled people who have developed and been touched by the disabled people's movement. Social model explanations of disability represents a different way of explaining disabled people's oppression from previous medicalised accounts, because for the first time they have suggested that many of the problems disabled people face are caused not by their impairments, but rather because society is organised in a way that does not take their needs into account. On this interpretation, the social model approach is a profoundly optimistic one, because it recognises that to achieve change requires that we expect the best of people in acting in ways that challenge existing oppressive practice. (Tregaskis, 2004, p. 23) A distinction is drawn between the acknowledged inherent functional limitations caused to the individual by their impairment, and the additional socially created barriers caused by disability. This distinction is based on a pragmatic recognition that people may face limitations in what they can do as a result of their impairments, while at the same time challenging the imposition of additional social barriers created by a society which does not take the needs of people with impairments into account, thereby further limiting their opportunities for full participation within that society. (Tregaskis, 2003, p. 25) Social Model Vs. Medical Model Social model thinking thus requires that we analyse the problem of disabled people's social exclusion in new ways that avoid a blaming approach. Tregaskis has given a practical example, that before social model ideas were developed, if a wheelchair user could not get into a building, the building's owner could say 'What a shame you can't get into this building because you can't walk up the steps'. And most of the time disabled people would agree with this statement, because back then the main frame of reference available to explain their experience was the medical model, which focuses on the functional limitations caused by people's individual impairments as being the main reason for their social exclusion. So everyone both disabled and non-disabled people bought into the idea that disabled people couldn't go to places or participate in activities because of 'what was wrong with them'. The trouble with this explanation was that it was really pessimistic. It seemed to offer disabled people no hope of greater social inclusion unless they could change themselves by getting rid of their impairments. The big difference that social model ideas have made is that they restate the problem in a different way. So, instead of saying, 'What a shame you can't get into this building because you can't walk up the steps', a social model approach would say 'Actually, you can't get into this building because it has been poorly designed'. The social model view is that disability caused by human factors, like a building being poorly designed, or an organisational promotions policy that puts disabled employees at a disadvantage compared to their non-disabled colleagues. Thus disability is not a characteristic of individual people with impairments, but is a term used to describe all the extra difficulties that people with impairments face because society is not organised in ways that take their needs into account. As such, the social model definition of disability is potentially a more positive tool for change than the individual medical model approach, because it suggests that disability could be eradicated if society was organised in ways that took the needs of all its citizens into account. (Tregaskis, 2003, p. 25) Barriers to Disabled people in Society Today, disability in context of social development dilemma exists in our societal norms and values that instead of considering disabled children as a part of our social order, we are unable to accept the fact and treat them outrageously. Although most of us are unconscious about the pitiful attitude they possess towards disabled children, but the need remains there as to why such disabled children are discriminated from the normal children in terms of values and pessimistic ethics. Still the approach to treat handicapped children to many of us is of little or no concern in many ways. According to Moss & Petrie, "Our construction of childhood and our images of the child represent ethical and political choices, made within larger frameworks of ideas, values and rationalities". (Moss & Petrie, 2002, p. 55) There is a need to ponder as to why such children suffers discrimination throughout their lives, what can be done morally and socially to detect the negative influences, how the outrageous behaviour can be avoided and what measures can be taken in order to accept them as a part and parcel of our society. We shall explore how the image, which we have created within our minds of the disabled child, can be changed and prolific while utilising the best of public policies and provisions for disabled children. According to the carers and disabled Children Act 2000 & 2004 Policy (UK), the relationship between the disabled and non-disabled people can only bridged by moral or material support. Disabled children must be supported morally as well as on social basis by providing them with every possible counseling service, individually or group wise depending upon the extent of his/her disability to each and every handicapped or disabled child along with his/her family. Individual development needs of such children must be considered, identified and assessed. (Act 2004, p. 11) In other words, the social service is not limited to counseling, instead it provides the family and child other resources like listening and solving problems relating to child in context of home, school and family matters. Therefore, it is the utmost effort of every social service to see that the child gets the maximum possible benefits and opportunities according to legal concerns and policies from the welfare system. Although the role-played by school-home interaction and systems change role could be a part of the services provided, the law clearly views the social worker role as primarily caseworker for the child and family. The inclusion of social work as a required related service solidified social work's role in the interdisciplinary school team. Although social work as profession is not the dominant profession in school systems, and probably never should be, neither can it any longer be viewed as unimportant or marginal to the school's principal functions. The law enabled the employment of many more social workers in school districts and enhanced their image and role. (Petr, 2004, p. 75) No doubt child welfare system heavily relies upon the social workers performance and because of the reason that children and families in the child welfare system are often known to other systems such as mental health and education, social workers employed in these other settings are obliged to have a good working understanding of the issues, policies, and practices in disabled children welfare. School social workers and mental health professionals spend a good portion of every working week interacting with social workers and other professionals in the child welfare system making reports of suspected abuse and neglect, providing information about progress, coordinating care plans, attending case conferences and review hearings, even testifying in court. (Petr, 2004, p. 18) Disabled children views and concerns should be given equal weight age according to age and capabilities as those given who are not disabled. Rose (1998) is among those who have pointed out that this clause which could too easily be used to exclude children with some forms of special educational need from participation. He argues that there is a real risk that, where there are severe communication difficulties for example, children may be judged not capable of expressing their views. It is perhaps for this reason that more explicit attempts have been made to develop policy for the participation of children in special educational provision than has so far been the case elsewhere. (Beveridge, 2004, p. 23) Inclusive Education Policies implementation strictly requires Inclusive education to follow within the milieu of extending social values and political priorities. According to Warnock Report about inclusion 'integration' is the term that correctly refers to the involvement in mainstream school of those children with special educational needs who had traditionally been educated in segregated provisions. Advocates of a social model of disability argue that inclusive education encourages personal and social relationships and attitudes based on a view that disability is part of, not outside, the ordinary range of human diversity. Excluding people who have impairment to 'special' and segregated provision is seen as diminishing disabled and non-disabled people alike. Whilst the views of young people themselves about the inclusion of disabled peers in mainstream education is, as yet, under-researched, the involvement in research of young people and of those who receive services is also underdeveloped. The difficulties that older researchers may have in interviewing adolescents have previously been documented. In addition, traditional research methods have, typically, excluded the subjects of research both from its design, execution and dissemination (Maloney & Topping, 2005, p. 236). For a school to minimise feelings of disaffection and resulting challenging behaviour, form tutors have to embrace and not resist their pastoral role as mentors and supporters. In primary schools, there is more likely to be a tradition of caring and talking and of creating inclusive cultures in which all pupils and their families feel welcome. The challenge is clearly greater in large secondary schools, particularly those having catchment's areas with a history of resistance to schooling and less local faith in teachers. Cultures can, however, be changed: pastoral staff and subject specialists can alter practice until they are perceived by pupils more as pastors than agents of punishment. (Rose & Tilstone, 2003, p. 70) Some local authorities are, in effect, implementing only re-placement policies (where a child is moved from special school to the mainstream, perhaps with the support of a learning support assistant). Despite of all those efforts the worst examples have been seen in this case where children are moved from special schools to mainstream schools with inadequate preparation or resourcing. Many schools, in fact, have accepted disabled children only on the basis of 'assimilation' that is, children are welcome only if they can benefit from what is already on offer. Other local authorities have more sophisticated schemes in which 'outreach' support is provided by specialist teachers who visit mainstream schools. Sometimes, under the guidance of a forward-thinking head teacher, a special school has decamped from its special location and reformed on the premises of its local neighbourhood school. (Maloney & Topping, 2005, p. 24) In order to develop a healthy minded society it is necessary not to consider disabled people a separate species as the main barrier in accessing mainstream education is our attitude reflecting in schools and colleges of disabled students. It is our duty to make them realise that barriers are no more, if they are willing to strive for success in their education, not only through words alone but also through our action. References & Bibliography Act 2004, accessed from < http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/11/78/66/04117866.pdf> Berkson Gershon, (1993) Children with Handicaps: A Review of Behavioral Research: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ. Bernheimer P. Lucinda, Gallimore Ronald, MacMillan L. Donald, Speece L. Deborah & Vaughn Sharon. (1999) Developmental Perspectives on Children with High-Incidence Disabilities: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ. Beveridge Sally, (2004) Children, Families and Schools: Developing Partnerships for Inclusive Education: Routledge Falmer: New York. Daniels, H., Visser, J., Cole, T. and de Reybekill, N. (1998) Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties in the Mainstream (Research Report RR90). 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