Critical Social PolicyGovernmentality versus choice in contemporary special education

By Dr. Angela Morgan

Cynthia J. Spence“Going in Circles”

California State University, San BernardinoEDUC 714

Dr John Winslade

The Author• Morgan is a full-time Senior Researcher at

the University of Wolverhampton. Her research focuses on the perceived injustices against vulnerable children and young people within the area of education.

• Morgan also recently secured funding to examine links between domestic violence and education, notably how survivors of domestic violence may effect positive life changes while rebuilding their lives by reentering the world of education.

Key publications and materials developed Morgan, A (2007), “You’re nothing without me!” The positive role of education in regaining self-worth and ‘moving on’ for survivors of domestic abuse, Journal of Research in Post-compulsory Education, 12 (2), 241-258.

Morgan, A and Hogan, K (2005), School placement and conductive education: the experiences of education administrators, British Journal of Special Education, 32(3), 141-148.

Morgan, A (2005), Governmentality versus choice in contemporary special education, Critical Social Policy. 25(3), pp 325-348. Morgan A, Holt J and Williams J (2007), Gathering and analysis of social work workforce intelligence, Journal of Care Services Management, 1 (2), 180-195.

Method of Research

• Interviews with “Special Education Needs” administrators, observation notes, and document analysis.– Nine semi-structured interviews.– The observation was made with a single

observation of one Local Education Authority (LEA).

– The document analyzed: Special Educational Needs: Code of Practice.

Foucault

• Control over people (power) can be achieved merely by observing them.

• Control over people can be achieved by examining them - revealing what they know, or the state of their health, so they can be directed towards a course of action.

• Examinations turn individuals into “cases” or objects of care; caring is always also an opportunity for control.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/

Foucault

• Bentham's Panopticon is, for Foucault, an ideal architectural model of modern disciplinary power. It is a design for a prison, built so that each inmate is separated from and invisible to all the others (in separate “cells”) and each inmate is always visible to a monitor situated in a central tower.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/

Panopticon

The principle of the Panopticon can be applied not only to prisons but to any system of disciplinary power such as factories, hospitals, and schools.

Panopticon

“So children and/or their parents are positioned within the periphery of the panopticon, with education administrators situated within the central watchtower” (287).

The Spence Family

Dyslexia

dyslexia a clip about the learning

Ryann

Morgan’s Article

• Schools have the power to include or exclude children.

• Special education functions to objectify its subject (the child) through the processes of classification and division.

• Examinations differentiate and judge children and their (dis)abilities.

Morgan’s Article

• Disabled children are viewed as dependent upon society to meet their needs.

• They must be scrutinized; they must justify themselves and their choices.

• Parental “choice” can become a highly contentious issue.

Morgan’s Article

• Parents are the objects of data collection but not active subjects of decision-making.

• By putting up with it parents exercise their own subjection.

• Within this system, education administrators take on the role of expert and manoeuvre parents.

Morgan’s Article

• This analysis has therefore provided evidence that education administrators and parents alike may resist the disciplinary power of the SEN panopticon, either overtly or covertly.

Discourse

• Normal/Not-Normal• Disabled• Let’s get the kids

sorted• Resistance• Pushier Parents• Special Needs• Placement• Objectify

• Include/Exclude• Choice• Consent• Balance of Power• Communication• Exclusion• Surveillance• Power Shift