Inclusion or Special Educational Needs? Uncertainty in the 21st Century

Abstract

This chapter explores the ongoing uncertainty that pervades how we think about special educational needs, and how different perspectives on inclusion interpenetrate with views on different models of pre and post service teacher education in relation to special educational needs. This is illustrated by a case study of working with a child with a diagnosis of Dyspraxia in the classroom. The chapter then goes on to review the recent history of teacher education in relation to special educational needs in the UK and USA. In this context, there follows a discussion on whether there is a special pedagogy for special educational needs, and what implications this has for the work of student teachers and teachers in general. A detailed critique of the work of Lewis and Norwich (2005), currently influential in pre service teacher education in the UK, concludes that the delineation between special knowledge and special pedagogy is a false and even dangerous dichotomy.