Linda J Graham
Biographic Data
| ID | 763296 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Linda J Graham |
| GIVEN NAMES | Linda J |
| FAMILY NAME | Graham |
| SIGNATURE | GRAHAM L J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queensland University of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6827-808X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 280 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Improving the accessibility of subject English for students with language and/or attention difficulties
The study of English is compulsory throughout all 13 years of schooling in Australia and, while there are differentiated options in the senior years of school, these do not have the same parity of esteem nor transactional value. Previous research has identified patterns of enrolment in high versus low-status subjects, reflecting differential access to powerful knowledge and further educational opportunity. To date, research has focused on pattern…
Students’ accumulation of disciplinary school exclusion experiences over time
Suspensions in QLD state schools, 2016–2020
Overrepresentation in exclusionary school discipline is extensively documented for certain groups of students, particularly students of colour and those with disability, yet while these groups may overlap, policies that aim to address disproportionality tend to consider equity factors in isolation. The majority of research on overrepresentation, intersectionality and disproportionate risk has been conducted in the United States, yet there has bee…
Overrepresentation of Indigenous students in school suspension, exclusion, and enrolment cancellation in Queensland
Well-established evidence of the ill-effects of exclusionary school discipline, its disproportionate use on students of colour, and association with the “school-to-prison pipeline” has, in the last decade, led to systemic reforms in the United States, which are successfully reducing exclusion and improving outcomes. Few studies, however, have similarly investigated overrepresentation in Australia, with little attention to systemic reform as a res…
What Makes an Excellent Teacher? Insights From Junior High School Students With a History of Disruptive Behavior
Evidence of the powerful relationship between what teachers do and how effectively their students learn has led to reforms aimed at improving the quality of teaching. Most jurisdictions are now paying increased attention both to the initial and ongoing education of teachers, as well as methods to assess, reward and improve quality teaching. Predominant among these methods are frameworks that define observable elements of pedagogical practice for …
Do teachers know enough about the characteristics and educational impacts of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) to successfully include students with DLD
Beyond Salamanca
More than two decades ago, UNESCO’s (1994) Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education galvanised the inclusion movement by providing a framework for inclusive education. The Statement succeeded in raising awareness of the concept of inclusion internationally, yet genuine inclusion is still the exception and not the norm. This is despite inclusive education being a fundamental human right under the United Nations Conve…
Do teachers’ years of experience make a difference in the quality of teaching
Extensive reforms have been made to initial teacher education (ITE) to improve “teacher quality” without any evidence to support the claim that beginning teachers are less competent than experienced teachers. This study adds to the evidence base by investigating associations between teachers’ years of experience and teaching quality. Results show no evidence of lower teaching quality for beginning teachers (0–3 years’ experience), but some eviden…
At risk students and teacher-student relationships
Student characteristics, their attitude to school and classroom climate can influence teacher-student relationships and adjustment to school. Poor early school experiences are associated with school avoidance, disruptive behaviour, teacher conflict, and suspension and exclusion. The focus, however, remains on the behaviour of individual children, rather than seeing behaviour as the result of interactions between individuals and their pedagogical …
Questioning the impacts of legislative change on the use of exclusionary discipline in the context of broader system reforms
This study analyses exclusion, enrolment cancellation, and suspension rates in government schools in the Australian state of Queensland to investigate the impact of legislation to extend principals’ disciplinary powers. Results suggest that the provision of alternative disciplinary options, including Saturday detentions and community service, failed to curb increases in the use of enrolment cancellations and exclusions as originally intended. Mor…
Student compliance will not mean ‘all teachers can teach’
An increasing number of English schools are embracing an extreme approach to student behaviour dubbed ‘no excuses’ discipline, inspired by charter school chains in the United States. Proponents argue the approach is necessary to allow all teachers to teach and that it places responsibility where it should be: on the student. However, this rationale ignores the interactional nature of classroom disruption and discounts the role played by teachers …
Discourses, decisions, designs
This comparative analysis investigates the influence of neo-liberal and inclusive discourses in ‘special’ education policy-making in New South Wales, Scotland, Finland and Malaysia. The centrality of competition, selectivity and accountability in the discourses used in New South Wales and Malaysia suggests a system preference for neo-liberal solutions to education policy problems. The focus on excellence with equity, together with proactive appro…
Reconceptualising inclusion as participation
This paper investigates increases in the identification of special educational needs in the New South Wales (NSW) government school system over the last two decades, which are then discussed with senior public servants working within the NSW Department of Education and Communities (DEC). Participant narratives indicate deep structural barriers to inclusion that are perpetuated by the discourses and practices of regular and special education. Desp…
Special education and globalisation
Over the past 30 years, inclusive education has become the dominant discourse in the field of special educational needs (SEN) across the developed and developing world, reflected in the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Educational Needs (UNESCO, 1994), the Dakar Framework for Action: Education for All (UNESCO, 2000) and the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention includes a commitment t…
Sally Tomlinson, The politics of race, class and special education
Upon reading this esteemed collection of Sally Tomlinson’s works, published in Routledge’s prestigious World Library of Educationalists series, I was struck by three things. First, Sally is one of only three women among the 26 scholars whose collections have been published in this series to date, and the only scholar researching questions relating to disability and special education. Second, her early work on the sociology of special education To…
Equity and educators enacting The Australian Early Years Learning Framework
The mandated learning framework, Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is part of a suite of reforms currently being undertaken in early childhood education in Australia. All educators working in direct contact with young children from birth to the age of five are required to use the Framework or an approved alternative. The reforms are aimed at achieving higher quality and greater equity of early childhood…
Caught between a rock and a hard place
Students with disruptive behaviour in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) are increasingly being educated in separate ‘behaviour’ schools. There is however surprisingly little research on how students view these settings, or indeed the mainstream schools from which they were excluded. To better understand excluded students’ current and past educational experiences, we interviewed 33 boys, aged between 9 and 16 years of age, who were enr…
To educate you to be smart’
This paper contributes to conversations about school, post-compulsory and further education policy by reporting findings from a three-year study with disaffected students who have been referred to special ‘behaviour’ schools. Contrary to popular opinion, our research finds that these ‘ignorant yobs’ do value education and know what it is for. They also have aspirations for a secure, productive and fulfilled life, although it may not involve unive…
The Power In/Of Language
The Inclusion Lottery
The last few decades have witnessed a broad international movement towards the development of inclusive schools through targeted special education funding and resourcing policies. Student placement statistics are often used as a barometer of policy success but they may also be an indication of system change. In this paper, trends in student enrolments from the Australian state of New South Wales are considered in an effort to understand what effe…
Developing capabilities for social inclusion
The effort to make schools more inclusive, together with the pressure to retain students until the end of secondary school, has greatly increased both the number and educational requirements of students enrolling in their local school. Of critical concern, despite years of research and improvements in policy, pedagogy and educational knowledge, is the enduring categorisation and marginalisation of students with diverse abilities. Research has sho…
From vision to reality
This paper discusses the findings of a research study that used semi‐structured interviews to explore the views of primary school principals on inclusive education in New South Wales, Australia. Content analysis of the transcript data indicates that principals' attitudes towards inclusive education and their success in engineering inclusive practices within their school are significantly affected by their own conception of what ‘inclusion’ means,…
Wherefore art thou, inclusion? Analysing the development of inclusive education in New South Wales, Alberta and Finland
Over the last two decades, moves toward ‘inclusion’ have prompted change in the formation of education policies, schooling structures and pedagogical practice. Yet, exclusion through the categorisation and segregation of students with diverse abilities has grown, particularly for students with challenging behaviour. This paper considers what has happened to inclusive education by focusing on three educational jurisdictions known to be experiencin…
The Product of Text and ‘Other’ Statements
Much has been written on Michel Foucault's reluctance to clearly delineate a research method, particularly with respect to genealogy (Harwood, 2000; Meadmore, Hatcher & McWilliam, 2000; Tamboukou, 1999). Foucault (1994, p. 288) himself disliked prescription stating, ‘I take care not to dictate how things should be’ and wrote provocatively to disrupt equilibrium and certainty, so that ‘all those who speak for others or to others’ no longer know wh…
The Special Branch
"...one should try to locate power at the extreme points of its exercise, where it is always less legal in character." (Foucault, 1980, p.97) Studies of schooling practices as techniques deriving from a particular art of governing that Foucault (2003b) called ‘governmentality’ have shown how psychopathologising discourses work to construct particular student-subjects and legitimise various practices of exclusion (Gram, 2007b). Here I extend this …
An Illusory Interiority
It is generally accepted that the notion of inclusion derived or evolved from the practices of mainstreaming or integrating students with disabilities into regular schools. Halting the practice of segregating children with disabilities was a progressive social movement. The value of this achievement is not in dispute. However, our charter as scholars and cultural vigilantes () is to always look for how we can improve things; to avoid stasis and c…
The Product of Text and ‘Other’ Statements
Much has been written on Michel Foucault's reluctance to clearly delineate a research method, particularly with respect to genealogy (Harwood, 2000; Meadmore, Hatcher & McWilliam, 2000; Tamboukou, 1999). Foucault (1994, p. 288) himself disliked prescription stating, ‘I take care not to dictate how things should be’ and wrote provocatively to disrupt equilibrium and certainty, so that ‘all those who speak for others or to others’ no longer know wh…
Caught in the net
The Department of Education in the Australian state of Queensland promotes inclusiveness and states a commitment to all students achieving to their full potential (Inclusive Learning, 2004 2004. Inclusive education: inclusive learning; learning difficulties: appraisement Available online at: http://www.education.qld.gov.au [Google Scholar], p. 17). Paradoxically, comprehensive review of Queensland Government education department policy indicates …
From ABCs to ADHD
Discussion of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the media, and thus much popular discourse, typically revolves around the possible causes of disruptive behaviour and the ‘behaviourally disordered’ child. The usual suspects—too much television and video games, food additives, bad parenting, a lack of discipline, and single mothers—feature prominently as potential contributors to the spiralling rate of ADHD diagnosis in Western ind…
Do teachers’ years of experience make a difference in the quality of teaching
Extensive reforms have been made to initial teacher education (ITE) to improve “teacher quality” without any evidence to support the claim that beginning teachers are less competent than experienced teachers. This study adds to the evidence base by investigating associations between teachers’ years of experience and teaching quality. Results show no evidence of lower teaching quality for beginning teachers (0–3 years’ experience), but some eviden…
The Inclusion Lottery
The last few decades have witnessed a broad international movement towards the development of inclusive schools through targeted special education funding and resourcing policies. Student placement statistics are often used as a barometer of policy success but they may also be an indication of system change. In this paper, trends in student enrolments from the Australian state of New South Wales are considered in an effort to understand what effe…
Wherefore art thou, inclusion? Analysing the development of inclusive education in New South Wales, Alberta and Finland
Over the last two decades, moves toward ‘inclusion’ have prompted change in the formation of education policies, schooling structures and pedagogical practice. Yet, exclusion through the categorisation and segregation of students with diverse abilities has grown, particularly for students with challenging behaviour. This paper considers what has happened to inclusive education by focusing on three educational jurisdictions known to be experiencin…
Beyond Salamanca
More than two decades ago, UNESCO’s (1994) Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education galvanised the inclusion movement by providing a framework for inclusive education. The Statement succeeded in raising awareness of the concept of inclusion internationally, yet genuine inclusion is still the exception and not the norm. This is despite inclusive education being a fundamental human right under the United Nations Conve…
(Re)Visioning the Centre
Discourses of public education reform, like that exemplified within the Queensland Government's future vision document, Queensland State Education‐2010 (QSE‐2010), position schooling as a panacea to pervasive social instability and a means to achieve a new consensus. However, in unravelling the many conflicting statements that conjoin to form education policy and inform related literature ( ), it becomes clear that education reform discourse is p…
At risk students and teacher-student relationships
Student characteristics, their attitude to school and classroom climate can influence teacher-student relationships and adjustment to school. Poor early school experiences are associated with school avoidance, disruptive behaviour, teacher conflict, and suspension and exclusion. The focus, however, remains on the behaviour of individual children, rather than seeing behaviour as the result of interactions between individuals and their pedagogical …
Discourses, decisions, designs
This comparative analysis investigates the influence of neo-liberal and inclusive discourses in ‘special’ education policy-making in New South Wales, Scotland, Finland and Malaysia. The centrality of competition, selectivity and accountability in the discourses used in New South Wales and Malaysia suggests a system preference for neo-liberal solutions to education policy problems. The focus on excellence with equity, together with proactive appro…
Developing capabilities for social inclusion
The effort to make schools more inclusive, together with the pressure to retain students until the end of secondary school, has greatly increased both the number and educational requirements of students enrolling in their local school. Of critical concern, despite years of research and improvements in policy, pedagogy and educational knowledge, is the enduring categorisation and marginalisation of students with diverse abilities. Research has sho…
Do teachers know enough about the characteristics and educational impacts of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) to successfully include students with DLD
Questioning the impacts of legislative change on the use of exclusionary discipline in the context of broader system reforms
This study analyses exclusion, enrolment cancellation, and suspension rates in government schools in the Australian state of Queensland to investigate the impact of legislation to extend principals’ disciplinary powers. Results suggest that the provision of alternative disciplinary options, including Saturday detentions and community service, failed to curb increases in the use of enrolment cancellations and exclusions as originally intended. Mor…
Student compliance will not mean ‘all teachers can teach’
An increasing number of English schools are embracing an extreme approach to student behaviour dubbed ‘no excuses’ discipline, inspired by charter school chains in the United States. Proponents argue the approach is necessary to allow all teachers to teach and that it places responsibility where it should be: on the student. However, this rationale ignores the interactional nature of classroom disruption and discounts the role played by teachers …
ADHD and schooling
Drugs, labels and (p)ill-fitting boxes
In offering a critical review of the problem we call ‘ADHD’ (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), this paper progresses in three stages. The first two parts feature the dominant voices emanating from the literature in medicine and psychology which, when juxtaposed, highlight an interdependency between these otherwise competing interest groups. In Part 3, the nature of the relationship between these groups and the institution of the school i…
Out of sight, out of mind/out of mind, out of site
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a diagnostic term now indelibly scored on the public psyche. In some quarters, a diagnosis of ADHD is regarded with derision. In others it is welcomed with relief. Despite intense multidisciplinary research, the jury is still out with regard to the ‘truth’ of ADHD. Not surprisingly, the rapid increase in diagnosis over the past 15 years, coupled with an exponential rise in the prescription of res…
Reconceptualising inclusion as participation
This paper investigates increases in the identification of special educational needs in the New South Wales (NSW) government school system over the last two decades, which are then discussed with senior public servants working within the NSW Department of Education and Communities (DEC). Participant narratives indicate deep structural barriers to inclusion that are perpetuated by the discourses and practices of regular and special education. Desp…
Equity and educators enacting The Australian Early Years Learning Framework
The mandated learning framework, Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is part of a suite of reforms currently being undertaken in early childhood education in Australia. All educators working in direct contact with young children from birth to the age of five are required to use the Framework or an approved alternative. The reforms are aimed at achieving higher quality and greater equity of early childhood…
Caught between a rock and a hard place
Students with disruptive behaviour in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) are increasingly being educated in separate ‘behaviour’ schools. There is however surprisingly little research on how students view these settings, or indeed the mainstream schools from which they were excluded. To better understand excluded students’ current and past educational experiences, we interviewed 33 boys, aged between 9 and 16 years of age, who were enr…
From vision to reality
This paper discusses the findings of a research study that used semi‐structured interviews to explore the views of primary school principals on inclusive education in New South Wales, Australia. Content analysis of the transcript data indicates that principals' attitudes towards inclusive education and their success in engineering inclusive practices within their school are significantly affected by their own conception of what ‘inclusion’ means,…
Reading dis/ability
The dichotomisation of literacy instruction into phonics instruction versus a whole language approach fails to realise a fundamental tenet of providing equitable educational opportunities to diverse groups of children. Diversity becomes a problem to solve through ‘inoculation programmes’ or ‘special’ education expertise. Moreover, children’s individual strengths can fail to be realised because they do not fit well with the programme of the day. I…
Speaking of "Disorderly" Objects
To interrogate pedagogical discourses relating to child behaviour as “practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” this paper features the analysis of three texts through the development and deployment of what might be called a poetics of pedagogical discourse. The principal text is a statement describing “problematic” behaviour in school. Of concern is how this particular statement functions—what does it do and with what e…
Rank and File
In this paper, the author describes recent developments in the assessment of research activity and publication in Australia. Of particular interest to readers will be the move to rank academic journals. EPAT received the highest possible ranking, however the process is far from complete. Some implications for the field, for this journal and particularly, for the educational foundations are discussed
Caught in the net
The Department of Education in the Australian state of Queensland promotes inclusiveness and states a commitment to all students achieving to their full potential (Inclusive Learning, 2004 2004. Inclusive education: inclusive learning; learning difficulties: appraisement Available online at: http://www.education.qld.gov.au [Google Scholar], p. 17). Paradoxically, comprehensive review of Queensland Government education department policy indicates …
Towards Equity in the Futures Market
This article provides a consideration of the problem of equity in education. In the first part of the discussion, the author draws on philosophical and sociological literature to consider what equity means and its implications for education. Drawing on work by Burbules, Lord and Sherman, she looks to curriculum as a condition of access and the importance of learning support structures in bringing about equitable educational outcomes, conceived in…
Out of sight, out of mind/out of mind, out of site
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a diagnostic term now indelibly scored on the public psyche. In some quarters, a diagnosis of ADHD is regarded with derision. In others it is welcomed with relief. Despite intense multidisciplinary research, the jury is still out with regard to the ‘truth’ of ADHD. Not surprisingly, the rapid increase in diagnosis over the past 15 years, coupled with an exponential rise in the prescription of res…
An Illusory Interiority
It is generally accepted that the notion of inclusion derived or evolved from the practices of mainstreaming or integrating students with disabilities into regular schools. Halting the practice of segregating children with disabilities was a progressive social movement. The value of this achievement is not in dispute. However, our charter as scholars and cultural vigilantes () is to always look for how we can improve things; to avoid stasis and c…
(Re)Visioning the Centre
Discourses of public education reform, like that exemplified within the Queensland Government's future vision document, Queensland State Education‐2010 (QSE‐2010), position schooling as a panacea to pervasive social instability and a means to achieve a new consensus. However, in unravelling the many conflicting statements that conjoin to form education policy and inform related literature ( ), it becomes clear that education reform discourse is p…
Speaking of "Disorderly" Objects
To interrogate pedagogical discourses relating to child behaviour as “practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” this paper features the analysis of three texts through the development and deployment of what might be called a poetics of pedagogical discourse. The principal text is a statement describing “problematic” behaviour in school. Of concern is how this particular statement functions—what does it do and with what e…
From ABCs to ADHD
Discussion of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the media, and thus much popular discourse, typically revolves around the possible causes of disruptive behaviour and the ‘behaviourally disordered’ child. The usual suspects—too much television and video games, food additives, bad parenting, a lack of discipline, and single mothers—feature prominently as potential contributors to the spiralling rate of ADHD diagnosis in Western ind…
ADHD and schooling
Reading dis/ability
The dichotomisation of literacy instruction into phonics instruction versus a whole language approach fails to realise a fundamental tenet of providing equitable educational opportunities to diverse groups of children. Diversity becomes a problem to solve through ‘inoculation programmes’ or ‘special’ education expertise. Moreover, children’s individual strengths can fail to be realised because they do not fit well with the programme of the day. I…
Child‐Rearing Inc
In his 2007 PESA keynote address, Paul Smeyers discussed the increasing regulation of child‐rearing through government intervention and the generation of ‘experts’, citing particular examples from Europe where cases of childhood obesity and parental neglect have stirred public opinion and political debate. In his paper (‘Child‐Rearing: On government intervention and the discourse of experts’, this issue), Smeyers touches on a number of tensions b…
Rank and File
In this paper, the author describes recent developments in the assessment of research activity and publication in Australia. Of particular interest to readers will be the move to rank academic journals. EPAT received the highest possible ranking, however the process is far from complete. Some implications for the field, for this journal and particularly, for the educational foundations are discussed
Drugs, labels and (p)ill-fitting boxes
In offering a critical review of the problem we call ‘ADHD’ (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), this paper progresses in three stages. The first two parts feature the dominant voices emanating from the literature in medicine and psychology which, when juxtaposed, highlight an interdependency between these otherwise competing interest groups. In Part 3, the nature of the relationship between these groups and the institution of the school i…
The Special Branch
"...one should try to locate power at the extreme points of its exercise, where it is always less legal in character." (Foucault, 1980, p.97) Studies of schooling practices as techniques deriving from a particular art of governing that Foucault (2003b) called ‘governmentality’ have shown how psychopathologising discourses work to construct particular student-subjects and legitimise various practices of exclusion (Gram, 2007b). Here I extend this …
The Product of Text and ‘Other’ Statements
Much has been written on Michel Foucault's reluctance to clearly delineate a research method, particularly with respect to genealogy (Harwood, 2000; Meadmore, Hatcher & McWilliam, 2000; Tamboukou, 1999). Foucault (1994, p. 288) himself disliked prescription stating, ‘I take care not to dictate how things should be’ and wrote provocatively to disrupt equilibrium and certainty, so that ‘all those who speak for others or to others’ no longer know wh…
The Inclusion Lottery
The last few decades have witnessed a broad international movement towards the development of inclusive schools through targeted special education funding and resourcing policies. Student placement statistics are often used as a barometer of policy success but they may also be an indication of system change. In this paper, trends in student enrolments from the Australian state of New South Wales are considered in an effort to understand what effe…
Developing capabilities for social inclusion
The effort to make schools more inclusive, together with the pressure to retain students until the end of secondary school, has greatly increased both the number and educational requirements of students enrolling in their local school. Of critical concern, despite years of research and improvements in policy, pedagogy and educational knowledge, is the enduring categorisation and marginalisation of students with diverse abilities. Research has sho…
From vision to reality
This paper discusses the findings of a research study that used semi‐structured interviews to explore the views of primary school principals on inclusive education in New South Wales, Australia. Content analysis of the transcript data indicates that principals' attitudes towards inclusive education and their success in engineering inclusive practices within their school are significantly affected by their own conception of what ‘inclusion’ means,…
Wherefore art thou, inclusion? Analysing the development of inclusive education in New South Wales, Alberta and Finland
Over the last two decades, moves toward ‘inclusion’ have prompted change in the formation of education policies, schooling structures and pedagogical practice. Yet, exclusion through the categorisation and segregation of students with diverse abilities has grown, particularly for students with challenging behaviour. This paper considers what has happened to inclusive education by focusing on three educational jurisdictions known to be experiencin…
The Power In/Of Language
Sally Tomlinson, The politics of race, class and special education
Upon reading this esteemed collection of Sally Tomlinson’s works, published in Routledge’s prestigious World Library of Educationalists series, I was struck by three things. First, Sally is one of only three women among the 26 scholars whose collections have been published in this series to date, and the only scholar researching questions relating to disability and special education. Second, her early work on the sociology of special education To…
Equity and educators enacting The Australian Early Years Learning Framework
The mandated learning framework, Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is part of a suite of reforms currently being undertaken in early childhood education in Australia. All educators working in direct contact with young children from birth to the age of five are required to use the Framework or an approved alternative. The reforms are aimed at achieving higher quality and greater equity of early childhood…
Caught between a rock and a hard place
Students with disruptive behaviour in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) are increasingly being educated in separate ‘behaviour’ schools. There is however surprisingly little research on how students view these settings, or indeed the mainstream schools from which they were excluded. To better understand excluded students’ current and past educational experiences, we interviewed 33 boys, aged between 9 and 16 years of age, who were enr…
To educate you to be smart’
This paper contributes to conversations about school, post-compulsory and further education policy by reporting findings from a three-year study with disaffected students who have been referred to special ‘behaviour’ schools. Contrary to popular opinion, our research finds that these ‘ignorant yobs’ do value education and know what it is for. They also have aspirations for a secure, productive and fulfilled life, although it may not involve unive…
Discourses, decisions, designs
This comparative analysis investigates the influence of neo-liberal and inclusive discourses in ‘special’ education policy-making in New South Wales, Scotland, Finland and Malaysia. The centrality of competition, selectivity and accountability in the discourses used in New South Wales and Malaysia suggests a system preference for neo-liberal solutions to education policy problems. The focus on excellence with equity, together with proactive appro…
Reconceptualising inclusion as participation
This paper investigates increases in the identification of special educational needs in the New South Wales (NSW) government school system over the last two decades, which are then discussed with senior public servants working within the NSW Department of Education and Communities (DEC). Participant narratives indicate deep structural barriers to inclusion that are perpetuated by the discourses and practices of regular and special education. Desp…
Sociology (30 works) · Political science (24 works) · Pedagogy (21 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Law (16 works) · Law (12 works) · Social science (10 works) · Developmental psychology (9 works) · Education Discipline and Inequality (9 works) · Inclusion (mineral (9 works)