thesociologyofdisabilityandthestruggleforinclusion（30页）.docVIP

The Sociology of Disability and the Struggle for Inclusive Education Introduction The development of the field of sociology of disability can be attributed to a small number of key scholars (Len Barton, Sally Tomlinson and Mike Oliver) and is characterised by a significant shift in the analysis of the nature and causes of disability from individualistic to social and material frames of reference. This field, however, has been a somewhat troubled and contested one, with intensive battles over identity and presence and a series of active erasures and absences – the removal of the body from the social model of disability; the disappearance of the Other from educational policies and practices; disability academics’ own absence from political discourse and action. These battles, and the ensuing erasures, have done little to advance the struggle for inclusive education and more voices than ever before can be heard to challenge the very idea. This article charts the emergence of the sociology of disability and examines the areas of contestation. It considers the contribution of the sociology of disability to inclusive education and examines some of the objections to it currently being voiced. The paper ends with some reflections on the possibilities for alternative forms of engagement by academics within the sociology of disability and outlines a series of duties that may make inclusive education more feasible and more capable of making a material difference to the lives of disabled children. The sociology of disability The sociology of disability emerged in the 1980s as a direct challenge to the weighty paradigm of special education, with its fixation on individual deficits and remedies. Len Barton’s (1988) The politics of special educational needs; Sally Tomlinson’s (1981) Educational subnormality: A study in decision-making and (1982) A sociology of special education; Len Barton and Sally Tomlinson’s jointly authored Special education and social interests (1984);