Product Description

This book takes a heavily theoretical approach to the subject, exploring and analysing the ideas which lie behind inclusive education. The authors take these ideas from various disciplines and critique them, before offering their own take on the situation. It is suitable for advanced study in education but also for professionals, advisors, administrators and carers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30858 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Support for Learning · Volume 23 · Number 2 · 2008
"Having read this book with much pleasure when it first came out in 2001, I am delighted to see its authors rewarded with the accolade of a second edition. Indeed it has been an equally agreeable experience to revisit it, and interesting too, since there have been some significant shifts in thinking in the intervening years. As Thomas and Loxley rightly infer, a second edition supports their contention that there is indeed 'an appetite among professionals in education for ideas, argument and scholarship'. This book provides plenty of all three."

From the Back Cover
Reviews of the first edition

… a sophisticated, multidisciplinary critique of special education that leaves virtually no intellectual stone unturned. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the role and significance of inclusive pedagogy in the new struggle for an inclusive society. Professor Tom Skrtic University of Kansas

… full of sparkling analysis … an absorbing account of how and why the practice of special education has failed to live up to expectations … a tour de force … A challenging, badly needed book likely to be read for many years to come. Dr Caroline Roaf British Journal of Educational Studies

Despite their devastating analysis of the failure of earlier theories to improve practice, the book provides a constructive and well informed critique of current policies … [T]heir intention is to … work for an agenda of ownership among practitioners and stakeholders. Professor Peter Mittler European Journal of Special Needs Education

… a striking and well-written account, which, in the standard eulogising of the favourable review, ‘deserves to be widely read’. But more than that, this is a thought-provoking yet lyrical account which is both uncompromising in its stance and refreshing in its intellectually sophisticated critique. Professor Phil Garner British Journal of Special Education

While this is a weighty book, there is real clarity about the key ideas and no doubting their importance … its challenges to our thinking make it essential reading. Dr Melanie Nind Times Educational Supplement.

In the highly acclaimed first edition of Deconstructing Special Education Thomas and Loxley critically examined the intellectual foundations of special education, only to find a jumble of bits and pieces from Piagetian, psychoanalytic, psychometric and behavioural theoretical models. In this expanded second edition, they examine the consequences of these models’ influence for professional and popular thinking about learning difficulty, exploring and critiquing the consequences of these theories’ influence for our views about children who are different. In the light of this critique, they suggest that much of the ‘knowledge’ of special education is misconceived, and they proceed to advance a powerful rationale for inclusion out of ideas about stakeholding, social justice and human rights. The second edition contains a completely new chapter on inclusion for the 21st century, in which Thomas and Loxley look at the importance of ideas about community, social capital, equality and respect for how we understand learning and failure to learn.

About the Author
Gary Thomas is Professor of Inclusion and Diversity at the School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK.

Andrew Loxley is Director of Research in the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Customer Reviews

An Intelligent and Daring Analysis
Deconstructing Special Education and Constructing Inclusion is at once an intelligent and accessible work. Thomas and Loxley are unafraid to take on conventional theories on improving practice, both past and contemporary. The book is rooted in a deep understanding of the subject matter. It provides an illuminating critique full of penetrating judgements. It is altogether a well written and insightful book, highly recommended to anyone interested in the discipline.

A much needed antidote to educational segregation by labels.
Most books on inclusion centre on the mechanics of bringing 'children with disabilities' into the mainstream. This one is different. Thomas and Loxley deliver a stinging attack on current approaches through showing how the main barrier to inclusion is not 'disability' itself, but the way that disability has been construed in society.

Few in the history of special education escape their wrath. They argue that reliance on theories, especially those coming from psychology and medical models, has led to a limited and distorted view of education with mechanistic consequences. They further deride the 'special education industry' which fosters discrimination, not on the basis of thought but for self-seeking motives.

The most swingeing criticism is in the chapter on 'EBD' (Emotional and behavioural difficulties). They call the term itself 'indolent'- having no substance or compelling discriminatory value. They argue that the approach to children's behaviour in school is arbitary and unjust in a way that is not allowed when societies approach the bad behaviour of adults. They argue that EBD can and is used by institutions to avoid their own responsibilities to make improvements in provision by locating the causes of poor behaviour within the child.

There is a short review of the research from the 1990s which questions the need for separate provision for different categories of reading difficulty.

In the final chapter they argue not for inclusion of the disabled, but for inclusive schooling. In this view, special education disappears as inclusive schools treat the needs of all their pupils as prompts for change and improvement. They argue that this can only come about when change in schools is based on a respectful dialogue with the pupils- treating them as customers of pedagogy rather than budles of problems.

The book is written clearly, but the ideas can be very dense at times. The power of the arguments are very impressive. It is hard to see how anyone reading this book could ever be happy with the notion of special education again. Unfortunately, as Thomas and Loxley note, the idea of special education is very resilient in the face of contrary evidence and it may be a very long time before it comes near abolition. But it won't be for lack of trying by these authors!

Critically examining dated ideologies in special education
Thomas and Loxley critically examines the academic foundations of special education, and question whether influencial models of behaviourism, psychometric, Piagetian and psychoanalytic theories which have had such a hold over provision for people with learning difficulties should be deconstructed. In great detail, they critique these theories and suggestthat in order to move positively into an era of 'inclusion', then we must begin to deconstruct dated ideologies, and construct inclusion out of the tenets of social justice, human and civil rights, stakeholding and equal opportunities.

This book is a must for any disserning professional. Essential reading which is written in a style which makes it accessable for academics, researchers, students of education or teaching practitioners, educational psychologists or anyone who wishes to know more about the issues surrounding disability.