Special Needs Education, eLearning and the Reflective ePortfolio: Implications for Developing and Assessing Competence in Pre-Service Education.

This paper reports on the use of an eportfolio for assessing aspects of a Post-Graduate pre-service teacher education programme specifically in the context of special needs education in Northern Ireland. Participants were challenged to develop their individual eportfolios by selecting and presenting evidence for assessment drawn from diverse sources. The rationale for using eportfolios for assessment purposes was to offer students the opportunity to demonstrate competencies by documenting and reflecting upon academic and pedagogical learning during a one year Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) programme.

Towards Educational Inclusion in a Transforming Society: Some Lessons from Community Relations and Special Needs Education in Northern Ireland

This paper takes an original approach to an important aspect of educational research and its role in transforming societies, namely that of educational inclusion. It brings together what some might consider two rather strange bedfellows i.e. community relations and special needs education. It also draws upon new tools for theorising educational inclusion, which give a central role to the discursive nature of human conduct and which take a view of human behaviour as socially embedded and meaningful.

Introduction to Special Section on Education in Archaeology

Malone, C.A.T. Introduction (with Stone and Baxter) to Special Section Education and Archaeology (19 papers).

Special Education Today in the United Kingdom

This chapter attempts to provide a critical analysis of special needs education within the United Kingdom today. Central to such an analysis is an understanding of the rapidly changing social and political milieu within which special needs education is embedded, including the rapidly changing demographics of schooling, and the devolution of political power into four separate but linked countries - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Following a discussion of such wider social, political and educational issues, the authors thoroughly explore the convergences and divergences in policy and practice across the four devolved administrations. They describe a plethora of contemporary texts within each of the four administrations that speak to the need for special needs education to change in response to 21st century concerns about the problems of access to, and equity in education for all children. Despite this, they explain why they remain circumspect about the potential of such developments to lead to successful inclusive practices and developments on the ground. Their analysis in the last section centres on the issue of teacher education for inclusion and some very innovative UK research and development projects that have been reported to successfully engage teachers with new paradigm thinking and practice in the field of inclusive special needs education.

Changing policy and legislation in special and inclusive education: a perspective from Northern Ireland

It is now 15 years since the signing of the 1998 Belfast (or ‘Good Friday’) Peace Agreement which committed all participants to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences, and towards a shared and inclusive society defined by the principles of respect for diversity, equality and the interdependence of people. In particular, it committed participants to the protection and vindication of the human rights of all. This is, therefore, a precipitous time to undertake a probing analysis of educational reforms in Northern Ireland associated with provision in the areas of inclusion and special needs education. Consequently, by drawing upon analytical tools and perspectives derived from critical policy analysis, this article, by Ron Smith from the School of Education, Queen’s University Belfast, discusses the policy cycle associated with the proposed legislation entitled Every School a Good School: the way forward for special educational needs and inclusion. It examines how this policy text structures key concepts such as ‘inclusion’, ‘additional educational needs’ and ‘barriers to learning’, and how the proposals attempt to resolve the dilemma of commonality and difference. Conceived under direct rule from Westminster (April 2006), issued for consultation when devolved powers to a Northern Ireland Assembly had been restored, and with the final proposals yet to be made public, this targeted educational strategy tells a fascinating story of the past, present and likely future of special needs education in Northern Ireland. Before offering an account of this work, it is placed within some broader ecological frameworks.

Handbook of International Special Education:Northern Ireland

The intent of the Handbook of International Special Education is to provide a concise overview of special education services in countries across the world using the Article on Education in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as the analytical frame. The Handbook will provide concise, data-driven contributions from across the globe using two primary frames: the relationship between special and general education in the country and the country’s system as aligned with the Article on Education in the UN Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities.

Education and the 'universalist' idiom of empire: Irish National School Books in Ireland and Ontario

This paper compares the founding of the elementary school systems of Ireland and Ontario in the nineteenth century. The systems shared a common set of textbooks that had originated in Ireland. Using examples from a number of these books, which were part of a series that had been specially prepared for the Irish national school system, founded in 1831, and information from archive sources on policy and administration in both countries, the paper argues that there was a common, ‘universalist’, imperialist ideology being promulgated in both systems. The article focuses on these ‘universalist’ principles rather than undertaking a detailed analysis of the textbooks.

Hidden Contradictions and Conditionality: Conceptualisations of Inclusive Education in International Law

The nature of education that children with disabilities should receive has been subject to much debate. This article critically assesses the ways in which the international human rights framework has conceptualised ‘inclusive education’. It argues that the right to education for children with disabilities in international law is constitutive of hidden contradictions and conditionality. This is most evident with respect to conceptualisations of ‘inclusion’ and ‘support’, and their respective emphases upon the extent of individual impairment or ‘deficit’ rather than upon the extent of institutional or structural deficit. It is vital that the new Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities pays close attention to the utilisation of these concepts lest the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities further legitimises the ‘special needs’ educational discourse to which children with disabilities have been subject.