docInternational Journal
of
Special Education
VOLUME 17 2002 NUMBER 1
Inclusive Education In A Rural Context In South Africa: Emerging Policy And Practices.....…. ……1
Nithi MuthukrishnaSilent Victims: Emotional Abuse And Neglect Of Children With Disabilities..........…………..........11
Sally M. RogowDisability And The Ideology Of Professionalism ………..……………...…………..………….….…15
Marie Schoeman and Marinus SchoemanInclusive Education, Policy And Hope:
Mapping Democratic Policy Changes On Inclusion In South Africa…………………....…..….…...21
Yusef Waghid and Petra EngelbrechtThe Effects Of Contingency Contracting For A Middle School Student
With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
During Corrective Reading Lessons: A Case Report……………………………..………………….27
Alison M. Gurrad, Kimberly P. Weber and T. F. McLaughlinPortfolio Use In Undergraduate Special Education Introductory Offerings……………………..…....33
M. A. WinzerPreschoolers Who Exhibit ADHD Related Behaviors:
How To Assist Parents And Teachers ……………………………………………………………...…42
Brandy Hundhammer and T.F. McLaughlin Siblings Of Children With Disabilities: A Review And Analysis………………….…………………49 Marsha Moore, Vicki Howard & T.F.McLaughlinThe Effects Of Code- And Meaning-Emphasis Approaches
In Beginning Reading For Students With Mild Disabilities………………………………...………65
Mary L. Kaatz-Sulgrove, Stephanie M. Peck and T. F. McLaughlinA Civil Society Partnership In Special Education
In A Changing South Africa………………………………………………………………………….85
Lesley Le Grange and Rona NewmarkSocial Acceptance At Senior High School………………………………………………..…………..91
Elizabeth Sparling
International Journal of Special Education2002, Vol 17, No.1.
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN A RURAL CONTEXT IN SOUTH AFRICA
: EMERGING POLICY AND PRACTICES
Nithi Muthukrishna
University of Natal
Policy and legislation pertaining to special needs education in South Africa has been undergoing transformation since the democratic government came into power in 1994. The various policy documents that have emerged have stressed the principles of human rights, social justice, quality education for all, the right to a basic education; equality of opportunity, and redress of past educational inequalities. The most important development has been the emerging paradigm shift from the notion of learners with special needs to the concept of barriers to learning and participation, and the recommendation for a community based inclusive education agenda. This paper will firstly, examine this paradigm shift in special needs education in South Africa, and secondly, it will provide insight into a collaborative action research project in the province of KwaZulu-Natal that draws on emerging policy and aims at developing inclusive education practices within a cluster of schools in a rural district.
When the democratic government assumed power in 1994, its aim was to establish a society based on the values of fundamental human rights, social justice, freedom, and equality. These values are entrenched in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996. One of the key provisions in the Constitution is the one dealing with equality of rights. Section 9(3) reads: The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. Key education policy documents such as the White Paper on Education and Training (Department of Education, March 1995); White Paper 2: The Organisation, Governance and Funding of Schools (Department of Education, November 1996); White Paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy (Ministry in the Office of the Deputy President, 1996); and the South African Schools Act of November 1996 stress the principle of education as a basic human right. The principle implies that all learners have the right to equal access to the widest possible educational opportunities. The principle of quality education for all learners is stressed in certain documents. The provision in the South African Schools Act of November 1996 regarding this principle is as follows: Subject to this Act, the governing body of a public school must promote the best interests of the school and strive to ensure its development through the provision of quality education for all learners at the school. (section 20:1 (a), p. 14). These clauses encapsulate a vision of an education system that gives recognition to the wide diversity of needs in the student population, and which ensures a more flexible range of responses. The emphasis on quality education for all learners suggests that schools have strive to meet the diverse needs of all learners.
In all the above legislation and education policy documents that emerged between 1994 and November 1997, there is the implication that there are two distinct categories of learners: those who are the majority with ordinary needs and a smaller minority with special needs who require support and specialised programmes to engage in some form of learning. Furthermore, the idea of special needs education as a second system of education, and ordinary education as a first system is entrenched. In these documents, the term learners with special needs is used specifically to refer to learners with disabilities and those experiencing learning difficulties.
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The Report of the National Commission on Special Needs in Education and Training (NCSNET) and the National Committee on Education Support Services (NCESS) (Department of Education, 1997) is the first document to challenge the conceptualisation of special needs as it currently exists in South Africa, and to highlight the limitations of this conceptualisation for a developing context. The Report
argues that historically in South Africa, the notion of special educational needs has been used to categorize all learners who for various reasons did not fit into the mainstream system, and to identify deficits within these learners. Little attempt is made to explore the causes of learning breakdown that may be embedded in the system.
The Report of NCSNET and NCESS argues that the priority of an education system should be to address those factors that lead to the inability of the system to accommodate diversity, or which lead to learning breakdown, or which prevent learners from accessing educational provision. The NCSNET and NCESS conceptualised these factors as barriers to learning and development. In their investigations, the NCSNET and NCESS identified key barriers to participation in the South African context that render a large number of children and adults vulnerable to learning breakdown and sustained exclusion: problems in the provision and organisation of education; socio-economic barriers; factors that place learners at risk, such as high levels of violence and crime; HIV/Aids epidemic and substance abuse; attitudes; an inflexible curriculum; problems with language and communication; inaccessible and unsafe built environment; inappropriate and inadequate provision of support services to schools, parents, care-givers, families and communities; disability; lack of enabling and protective legislation; lack of human resource development; and lack of parental recognition and involvement (Department of Education, 1997:11-19). The Report explains that it is only by focusing on the nature of these barriers that problems of learning breakdown and exclusion can be addressed.
In South Africa, it is clear that applying the concept special needs education to categorise a small group of learners according to their defects or disabilities is problemmatic. The reason is that various social, political and economic factors prevent access to basic education for large numbers of learners. There are many children whom the system is failing, and to whose needs the system remains unresponsive. In adopting this conceptualisation of barriers to learning and development, the NCSNET and the NCESS engaged with the realities of life within local contexts and communities. The Report is now in the final stages of the policy process. It is currently being translated into a White paper. A draft White Paper: Special Education – Building an Inclusive Education and Training System was released in March 2000.
A Research and Development Project in the province of KwaZulu-Natal
One of the few initiatives to emerge that is based on the recommendations of the Report of the NCSNET and NCESS is a collaborative inclusive education project in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. As stated, the project aims at developing sustainable inclusive education policy and practice in one district in the province. KwaZulu-Natal is one of the poorest provinces in the country. Transformation in this province has been very slow since 1994 owing largely to political and economics factors, and the problem of a lack of capacity within the education sector. The province has a population of 8 412 021. The local language is Zulu. The unemployment rate in this province, according to the 1996 census, amongst those aged 15-65 was 39.1%. The number of economically active people (employed and unemployed) in the province in the age group 15- 65 years is 2 579 517 (out of 8 412 021) – 30.6% (Statistics South Africa, 1996).
The province of KwaZulu-Natal has 8 regions. The target region, Ladysmith largely a rural context, was selected for the development project. The Ladysmith Region Department of Education has 5 districts. The target schools are within the Estcourt district. The project involves a cluster of centres of learning in a rural part of the district: 5 primary schools, one special school, one Early Child Development (ECD) centre; and one high school. The home language in the area is Zulu. English is a second or third language to the majority of learners in the target schools. Although the medium of instruction is
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officially English, in practice both languages are used in the classroom. Poverty and unemployment are major social problems in the communities around the schools. Most families are single parent, female headed households. In many homes, children are cared for by grandmothers as parents are employed in Johannesburg and other towns around. A critical concern is the high incidence of HIV/Aids in the province. It is estimated that two million people in the province are HIV positive. By 2012, it is estimated that there will be 75 000 orphans – children under 15 - in the province (Munusamy, 2000).
Reflections on Development Work in the Project Area
Conceptualising Inclusive Education The definition of inclusion that the project adopts is embedded in the Draft White Paper 5: Special Needs Education – Building an Inclusive Education and Training System, March 2000. Inclusion: Is a never ending process rather than a simple change of state. It is viewed as processes of increasing the participation of students in, and reducing their exclusion from cultures, curricula, and communities of local centres of learning Is about acknowledging that all children and youth can learn and that all children and youth need support Is about enabling education structures, systems and learning methodologies to meet the needs of all children Acknowledges and respects difference in children, whether due to age, gender, ethnicity, language, class, disability, HIV status, etc. Is broader than formal schooling, and acknowledges that learning occurs in the home, the community, and within formal and informal contexts.In the project, the approach to inclusive education is to create an ordinary education system that is responsive to learner diversity and to ensure that all learners have the best possible opportunities to learn. The understanding that has developed in the project is that inclusion is concerned with all children and young people who are vulnerable to exclusionary pressures in schools and communities. This, in turn, means the creation of cultures and an ethos in schools that value all learners irrespective of their diverse needs. It acknowledges and respects difference in children, whether due to age, gender, ethnicity, language, class, disability, HIV status.
The belief is that although inclusion focuses on marginalised groups, it increases the effectiveness of the system in responding to all learners. Therefore, i</span>nclusion is dependent on continuous pedagogical and organisational developments within the mainstream. Inclusion would, therefore, involve an understanding of systemic change, and an ecological conceptualisation of learning and of the school as an organisation. This would mean a need to engage with social, economic, political, environmental, and other factors that impact on centres of learning. The project is developing what may be described as an emergent approach to inclusion involves risk taking.
An important aspect of the project is capacity building. There is a recognition that everyone has the ability to contribute to change. This would mean that leadership needs to emerge from within the whole system, and is the responsibility of all participants.
Booth (2000) describes this approach as a transformative inclusive education agenda. The first step in the project was to engage participants in examining this transformative inclusive education approach, and the philosophy underlying it. This was done through workshops, meetings, and discussions with the regional and district education departments, NGOs, teachers, school management and other stakeholders. At a collaborative workshop held in the district, teachers and school principals from each of the target schools debated the notion of inclusive education, and engaged in an analysis of their local school contexts to determine barriers to learning and participation.
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Situational Analysis
The next stage in development work was a situational analysis conducted by the various participants, for example, researchers from the university, and teachers, and learners, members of the school governing body were involved. Two critical questions were engaged with:
What are the barriers to access and participation in school policies, school cultures, local communities, classroom practices, and curricula?
What resources can be mobilised to support the inclusion and participation of all learners?
The situational analysis resulted in information that was critical to the development work to be undertaken. Teenage pregnancy is a concern for the staff at the P. Primary School According to the principal,
girls who fall pregnant whilst at school, go home and never return. Local women of about 18 years, often have more than one child. He attributed this practice to cultural influence by parents who encouraged their children to marry working men at an early age to help support their families. Many of the husbands were migrant workers.
A principal at another primary school explained that there are many learners with disabilities at the school, and that teachers need assistance on how to respond to the needs of these learners. The learners do benefit socially from mixing with their peers, but there is a need for curriculum adjustments to be made.
Ms L.H. a community worker based at the Kwazamokhule Special School, one of the project schools, drew attention to the seriousness of the Aids epidemic in the District. She pointed out that currently 90% of the patients at the Estcourt Hospital were Aids patients. She stressed the urgent need for HIV/Aids awareness programmes and sexuality education programmes to begin in all schools in the district.
Setting Priorities for Development
On the basis of information obtained by means of the needs analysis, the schools decided on priorities for development. Some insight will be provided into this process.
All schools in the project felt the urgent need to undertake an audit of out-of-school learners, including learners with disabilities who have no access schooling.
The issue of over-age learners was identified as a priority at one of the project schools in KwaZulu-Natal. However, it became clear that this is an issue that needs to be addressed at all project schools. In June 1999, the researchers and teachers at the school undertook an assessment of these learners in order to ascertain curriculum needs. It emerged that there are two distinct groups of over-age learners:
A group of older learners, age range 15-17 who are in grade 3, grade 4, or grade 5. The average age in these grades is 8 -10 years old. This group requires a programme that focuses on life skills and functional literacy and numeracy. A younger group, age ranges between 10-13 years who are in grade 2 or grade 3. The average age in these grades should be 7- 8years. It was felt that for this group, there is a need for a fast tracking programme.The project is now exploring other initiatives that have developed programmes for over-age learners in other provinces in the country. It will also link with the sector in the Education Department responsible for materials development, and the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) sector in the Regional Department of Education.
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In one of the schools, the high incidence of child abuse is a major concern. The senior Head of Department explained that it was difficult to follow through cases where child abuse is suspected. Schools have limited access to support with respect to social problems impacting learning and teaching. A teacher explained:
Some (learners) are raped by their stepfathers, stepbrothers, uncles, etc. I did report a few cases to the school nurse. She helped me with a child who came to school and couldn’t walk properly. The school nurse took her to her home and told her parents. She also took her to the clinic. The case was reported to the police. But many cases are not reported.
The staff at the school explained the critical need to build capacity within schools that the school would be able to respond to the various social factors that place learners at risk. Schools cannot depend on the limited number of available professionals for support..
B</span><span class="Body-0020Text-00203--Char" style=" font-weight: bold; ">u<span class="Body-0020Text-00203--Char" style=" font-style: italic; ">ilding an Inclusive Ethos
An important goal of the project is to develop an ethos that all learners are valued, and that the school is responsive to diversity. At the B. Primary School, caregivers and parents, many of whom are unemployed, cannot meet the school fee of R40 per year. The principal does not exclude children for non-payment of fees. He stated:
when I came to the school, I was told that the procedure was that all the children had to re-register at the beginning of the year. They could only do this if they paid the R40. I realized that this was wrong, and contrary to the South African Schools Act. I announced at assembly that all children must come to school irrespective of whether they had the money to cover the fees or not. We do not have a problem with payment of fees. Parents pay as and when they can. About 80% of children have paid this year.
Inclusion at the Core of Whole School DevelopmentThe project sees addressing barriers to learning and participation at the heart of school based change and school improvement. However, in defining an effective school and how to improve it, the project fully acknowledges cultural, historical, political, and moral contexts. Focusing solely on academic and social outcomes is problemmatic.
In developing inclusive policies, the project aims at identifying key aspects of whole school development that can be engaged with: school management that would have the responsibility of establishing a clear vision and an ethos for the school; ongoing analyses of barriers to learning and participation; capacity building within the schools to support learners, teachers, and parents, and community; the development of inclusive curricula, setting priorities and linking these to the overall vision for the school; engaging in ongoing staff development; fostering collaborative ways of working within schools, and between schools and the community; accessing community resources; collecting and using information to inform decision making; developing partnerships with the community. The project has made encouraging progress in many of these areas. However, there are challenges that are also being faced in the process of change.
A Pedagogy for Diversity
In the project, inclusion is centrally a curriculum issue since curricula create the most significant barrier to learning and exclusion for many learners, whether they are in special schools and settings, or ordinary schools and settings. These barriers to learning arise from various interlocking parts of the curriculum such as the content of learning programmes, the language and medium of teaching and learning, the management and organization of classrooms; learning style and pace; time frames for completion of curricula; the materials and equipment which have been available; and assessment methods and techniques.
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Viewing learner diversity as part of the reality of each classroom and being able to accommodate each learner as a fully participating member of the learning community are seen as prerequisites for quality education. It would involve a change in attitudes so that all educators, department personnel, parents and other professionals move away from the thinking that problems in classrooms and schools arise from difficulties in individual learners.
In the Estcourt project, owing to a lack of capacity, inadequate attention has been given to curriculum issues. A priority in the next phase of the development work to give attention to actual teaching and learning in the classes – and develop the capacity of schools to engage in their own school based teacher development. Areas of need identified by participants are: the teaching of early reading, writing, mathematics at primary level; the teaching and learning of English as a second language; responding to learners with diverse needs, for example, children with disabilities; and facilitating active learning in large classes. There is also a need for funding for specific interventions such as materials development for over-age learners, disability awareness, HIV/AIDS awareness, sexuality programmes.
A Problem-Solving School Focused Approach to Inclusion
The project aims at developing within schools a problem solving, solution finding approach to responding to diversity in the learner population. There are already examples of such practices emerging in the project schools. The high school principal explained:
Many of our children come from poor home backgrounds, unstable homes - where there is poverty, alcoholism and substance abuse. The home environment is not conducive to learning and not supportive to the learners.
In response to this the school has initiated study groups for learners in the matric class. Each morning between 7h00-8h00 and every afternoon between 15h00 and 17h00 students use the school premises to study either individually or in groups. Teachers supervise these groups on a rotation basis. Study groups are also scheduled for Saturday mornings.
Another example of a problem solving approach to responding to learner needs is the experience at the M. School in KwaZulu-Natal. According to the principal, an ongoing problem at the school was the fact that children had no birth certificates. This made the admission process very difficult because the Department of Education has ruled that no child without a birth certificate should be enrolled at the school. Parents would not register their children and obtain birth certificates for various reasons: financial, apathy, time constraints – many parents work away from home; grandmothers are illiterate and not empowered to go through the process. The school had discussions with the mayor of Estcourt about the matter. A meeting was arranged with the senior clerk at Home Affairs in the district. A decision was agreed on that staff at the school assist with the registration of children by conducting the process at the school. This initiative has proved very successful, and other project schools are encouraged to do the same.
Mobilising Community Support
The aim in the project is to mobilise resources in communities to support inclusive education initiatives. At the start of the project, a critical priority for the S. School was to re-build the physical structure of the school, which is in an extremely poor state. The principal had written numerous letters to various companies and donor organizations to obtain funding for a new school without success. However, in March 2000, the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, an NGO, was approached through the project. The Foundation is targeting the area for development work in view of the fact that this was a violence-torn area a few years back as a result of political friction between the African National Congress(ANC) and the Inkatha Freedom Party. The community has succeeded in addressing its political differences, and there has been peace for the past four years. The Foundation is, therefore, keen to support
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development in the area, and restore a stable community life. In November 2000, the Board of the Foundation approved a proposal to build 8 classrooms, an administrative block and toilets. In addition, through the Ladysmith Department of Education further donor funding was obtained to build two additional classrooms.
Building School-Community Links
One of the nine priorities articulated by the Minister (Department of Education, July 2000) is that schools must become centres of community life. To develop the concept of the community school, the project aims to facilitate school-community links. Such a process could also contribute to community upliftment. Some development work has begun in this area.
The M. School is developing into a community school – attempting to serve community needs. The Disabled People’s Organization of South Africa (DPSA) uses one the classes on a regular basis for meetings. In addition, Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) classes are held at the school. There are approximately 60 students as at March 2000. Reading and writing is taught by teachers from the school and teachers from a neighbouring school. This is an initiative of the Department of Education, and the school is a participating school in the project
The Development of Capacity for Support within Schools and Communities
An important aspect of the project is to build support structures within schools and communities rather than rely on the limited number of available professionals in the district. This has taken various forms.
At each of the schools, school based support teams have been established. The role of the team is seen as including the following:
facilitate the development of an ethos in the school that values all learners facilitate the ongoing analysis and identification of barriers to learning and participation facilitate processes to address and minimise barriers to participation develop links with and access community resources , for example, from other departments such as health, welfare, correctional services; non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in the region; and other community organisations such as disabled people’s organisations, facilitate whole school development and school based teacher development programmes facilitate parental involvement build school community partnerships, twin with other schools in the project to form school clusters to share expertise, and material and human resources and plan joint programmesThe role of the school based support team is to monitor and facilitate development work, and to link with other schools in the project to form a school cluster. Cluster meetings, held once in three months are attended by representatives of the School Based Support Teams from each of the target schools.
The effectiveness of the school based support teams varies amongst the target schools. This depends largely on the understandings of inclusive education amongst school management and the staff at each of the schools, and the degree of support for the team. There is a need for further orientation and training in the certain project schools.
Early in the project, the schools saw the need for an additional structure to be set up, a Steering Committee of School Clusters. The role of this is to facilitate and monitor the project, and ensure networking and collaboration amongst the target schools. Currently, the Steering Committee is facilitating the development of a Resource File for the School Cluster. The File has information on Community Based resources and organisations that schools can access.
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An important support structure, the intersectoral Project Support Team has been set up. The aim is to ensure collaboration in the project between Health, Welfare, Correctional Services, Labour, NGOs in the area; Disability Organisations, teacher unions, community leaders, and other community organisations. Representations from these stakeholders were nominated onto the team. The target schools will also develop awareness of what support structures there are available in the community.
In the KwaZulu-Natal project, the co-ordinator of the Victim Support structure based in District Department of Correctional Services, who is a member of the Project Support Team, has supporting the project schools.. She has addressed teachers and learners at the M. School on children’s rights, dealing with child abuse, and on issues of prevention. She also made the school aware that counselling is available for children who are victims of child abuse, including pre-counselling before court cases.
One of the key recommendations in the Draft Education White Paper 5: Special Education: Building an inclusive education and training system (January 2000) is for the qualitative improvement of special schools and their conversion into resource centres that are integrated into district support teams. The special school has attempted to extend its services as a resource centre in the area, particularly with respect to the project schools.
A disability awareness programme is underway. A play has been produced involving students from local high schools and from the special school. The play explores issues around attitudes, social justice, charity/welfare approach versus a rights approach to disability; and the issue of inclusion in the community. A hundred T-shirts have been printed with the caption disability not inability in three languages on the T-shirts. These have been sold in the community. The students have performed in churches in the community, and there have been numerous invitations from other churches. Feedback has been very positive.
The school has been engaged in undertaking an Audit of Out-of-School Learners with Disabilities in the community. Through the efforts of the community worker at the school and the therapists, 53 children with disabilities and severe learning problems have been identified within the community of the project schools. The children are between the ages 6-18 years. A meeting was held with the Regional and District Education Departments, Ladysmith regarding access to education for these children. Certain options are currently being explored by the District Department.
Outreach to Project Schools has become a role for the special school. Visits have been made to project schools by therapists from the special school. The focus has been on health promotion, disability awareness, and providing support for children with disabilities in the project schools.
Concluding Thoughts
The analysis of developments in the project indicates some encouraging progress towards inclusive schools and communities. However, the project does face various challenges. These are likely to impact the sustainability of the project. The barriers identified relate to both macro factors within the education system as a whole, and micro factors that relate to the individual project areas.
Firstly, since 1994 the national government has formulated enlightened policy frameworks that in many ways are deemed idealistic, which provincial governments have not been able to implement successfully. Implementation has been seriously constrained by fiscal restraints and demands for curbs on social spending. The result has been that these new policies have not been able to promote equity, redress and social development. The greatest deprivation continues to be in rural schools. In the project schools and communities, circumstances in schools and their communities impact on the morale of teachers: poverty and unemployment, large classes, often more than 50; poor infrastructure in schools; social problems that place learners at risk; lack of basic services; problems with teacher commitment, lack of parent involvement, large numbers of over-age learners. There also have been many innovations introduced in
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education in the last few years, which has led to many concurrent processes running at schools – few of which are linked. It is said that teachers are suffering policy overload. From experience in the project, it has become clear that addressing inclusion and exclusion in education is in reality merely part of the process of reducing exclusion in society. In order to achieve sustainable inclusive education, programmes have to be linked with programmes for social and economic growth, and employment. There is a need for programmes that uplift and sustain communities.
Secondly, in South Africa, over the past few years there has developed a strong private and semi-private school sector. Parents augment state subsidies by the payment additional fees, and are able to ensure better resources, and small class sizes for their children. This is reflected in the last few years by the exodus of children from townships to better-resourced private and semi-private schools – leaving the public school sector impoverished. There continues to exist gross inequalities in education provision between the middle class and the poor and voiceless. Education in township schools has come to be considered inferior, thereby entrenching exclusion. This is a major exclusionary factor that the Education Department is failing to address. Within the framework of an inclusive philosophy, there has to be an inclusive culture in the education system that values all learners, and the school community equally, and commits to encouraging the achievement of all learners.
Thirdly, the new national curriculum, Curriculum 2005 was considered the most significant curriculum reform in South African education of the last century. It stressed problem-solving, experiential learning, skills development, authentic assessment. It was to mark a departure from the content driven, examinations orientated, and ideologically biased curriculum of the apartheid era. The outcomes based education (OBE) approach was seen as a core educational practice within inclusive education in terms of its responsiveness to learner diversity. However, there were serious problems in its implementation owing to a lack of capacity to train teachers, lack of funds at provincial level, the complex nature of the curriculum, inadequate textbooks and learning materials available to schools. In January 2000, the Minister set up a task team to engage in substantive review of the new curriculum and its implementation in Foundation Phase and Grade 7. Findings were that implementation has been confounded by various problems such as a skewed, complicated structure and design; lack of alignment between curriculum and assessment policy; inadequate orientation, training and development of teachers; learning support materials that are variable in quality, often unavailable and not sufficiently used in classrooms; policy overload and limited transfer of learning into classrooms; shortages of personnel and resources to implement and support C2005, and a lack of recognition of curriculum as the core business of education departments (Department of Education, May 2000). In response to this, the Minister has set a Task Team to develop a simplified Curriculum 21 within the next 12 months. Although the outcomes based approach will be retained, these developments have negatively impacted on teachers’ morale, commitment and trust in the Department of Education. The concern is that Education White Paper 5: Special Education: Building an inclusive education and training system is soon to be released, and it is feared that educators will be reluctant to engage with yet another innovation in education.
Finally, the researchers and staff in the target schools in the Estcourt district are concerned about the sustainability of the project. There has been minimal involvement on the part of the District Education Department as a result of a lack of capacity at district level. The project has to be seen as an integral part of the work of the Regional and District Education Department, and district personnel need to be more fully involved in the development work. It is also critical that all sectors such as those involved in school management development, curriculum planning, teacher education, early childhood development, adult basic education, link with development work in the project schools.
Experience in the project seems to reinforce the fact that social and educational change cannot not occur as a result of enlightened policies and visions alone, but as Christie (1999) stresses it needs complex and concerted engagement with social, political, and economic forces that impact the education system.
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References
Booth (2000). Conceptions of inclusion and exclusion from North to South. Unpublished manuscript. Christchurch College, University of Canterbury, Kent, U.K.
Christie, P. (1999). Inclusive education in South Africa: Achieving equity and majority rights. In H. Daniels and P. Garner (eds.), Inclusive education: World yearbook of education 1999 (pp. 160-168). London: Kogan Page.
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996Department of Education (1997). Report of the National Commission on Special Needs in Education and Training (NCSNET) and the National Commission on Education Support Services (NCESS). Pretoria: Department of Education.
Department of Education (March, 1995). White Paper on Education and Training. Pretoria: Department of Education.
Department of Education (November, 1995). White Paper 2: The Organisation, Governance, and Funding of Schools. Pretoria: Department of Education.
Department of Education (March, 2000). Draft: Education White paper 5: Special Education: Building an inclusive education and training system. Pretoria: Department of Education.
Department of Education (May, 2000). A curriculum for the 21 st Century: The Report Review Committee on the Curriculum 2005. Pretoria: Department of Education.
Ministry in the Office of the Deputy President (November 1997). The White Paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy. Pretoria: Office of the Deputy President.
South African Schools Act of November 1996
Munusamy, R. (January, 2000). KZN launches new battle on AIDS. Sunday Times KZN,
p. 3.
Statistics South Africa (1998). The people of South Africa Population Census, 1996. Census in brief. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa.
International Journal of Special Education2002, Vol 17, No.1.
SILENT VICTIMS: EMOTIONAL ABUSE AND NEGLECT OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
Sally M. RogowAbuse is a violation of fundamental human rights and affects all aspects of children’s development. Physical assault and sexual abuse are commonly identified, but the nature of the emotional abuse to which children with disabilities are vulnerable has not been widely recognized. Abuse results from denial of emotional nurturance, education and treatment as well as rough handling, use of restraints and isolation. A holistic and integrated approach is needed to bring children within the boundaries of ordinary protective services and provide effective protective and prevention services.
Children with disabilities are often the silent victims of all forms of abuse in both private and public care facilities. Unfortunately, they have little or no access to general child protection services. In a study of 40, 211 children in the middle 1990’s, children with disabilities were found to experience many more episodes of multiple forms of abuse than their non-disabled peers (Sullivan and Knutson, 2000). They were 3.76 times more likely to be neglected, 3.79 times more likely to be physically abused and 3.14 times more likely to be emotionally abused. Children with speech and language difficulties were seven times more likely to be emotionally abused. Maltreatment took place in the lives of 31 percent of the children in this study and often at an early age (Sullivan and Knutson, (2000). Although findings of the rates of abuse vary, Baladerian (1994), Cavanaugh (1991) Fryer, (1993) and Sobsey (1994) also report increased rates of emotional, physical and sexual abuse among children with disabilities.
Emotional abuse is an explicit refusal to meet children’s needs for nurturance, social relationships and stimulation (Iwaniec, 1995). Isolation and segregation in care facilities often results in the denial and neglect of children’s emotional. Emotional abuse takes the form of rejection, ignoring, and/or verbal assaults (Iwaniec, 1995). Rejecting and ignoring take place when adults are psychologically distant and unavailable. Underfunding, lack of appropriate training and meeting only the physical needs of children in care creates unresponsive environments where abuse too easily takes place. In a climate of fear, forced compliance, and neglect of emotional needs, children have little hope of reaching their potential (O’Hagan, 1993).
Denial of appropriate treatment and education rob children of the tools they need to live a productive life. Overmedication with psychotropic drugs, use of physical restraints, and isolation aim only to achieve control and deprive children of essential social experiences. Emotional abuse is a dominant feature of all forms of abuse and is as damaging as physical and sexual abuse. All forms of maltreatment need to be seen as a concerted attack on the child’s development of self and social competence. Some writers distinguish between emotional abuse and neglect, but these are not truly separate categories; they are interrelated and need to be considered within the broader concept of psychological maltreatment (Garbarino, Guttman and Seeley, 1986).
Severe depression, withdrawal and unresponsiveness are the products of living without continuity of relationships and validation of feelings and experiences. Hostile or indifferent treatment stands in the way
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of healthy social and emotional development (Garbarino, Guttman and Seeley, 1986;Germaine and Brassard,1987).
Abuse in human services is a quiet epidemic, the public is largely unaware of the cases of maltreatment. Parental dependence on professionals and narrowly defined medical and treatment models obscure identification. Stereotypic and negative attitudes are also barriers to effective identification and intervention services (Baladerian, 1994). Care providers need to understand how disabilities interfere with children’s ability to utilize conventional forms of communication such as eye gaze, facial expressions, and body postures. Children who cannot utilize these expressions are assumed to be incapable because of their inability to engage in conventional communicative interactions (Rogow & McNamara, 2001).
Additional factors include parental dependence on the good will of care facilities and treatment centers, lack of availability of active and well informed home support programs that prevent children from having to be taken away from their families, scarcity of placement options, and lack of accountability on the part of treatment facilities make it difficult to identify and treat children who are victims of abuse (Sobsey, 1994).
Specialized child care facilities are managed by both private and government agencies and include both day and residential programs. Tragically, communication, consultation and coordination are lacking. Moving children from one home to another prevents caregivers from establishing close relationships with the children in their care and the child who is moved frequently has little chance of bonding with caregivers. The rigid categories that determine service eligibility, referral of children from one service agency to another and untrained, uninformed child care workers create crises in care.
Child maltreatment cases are currently being heard by the courts in both Canada and the United States. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in the US has called for renewed emphasis on comprehensive approaches (Fryer, 1993). Investigations in Canada have produced similar results. There have also been allegations against residential schools in Canada that are currently in the courts, but children who are victims of abuse still have limited access to appropriate treatment.
Effects of abuse and maltreatmentNo one could understand Jason. He was born blind and was also diagnosed as autistic and developmentally delayed. He had lived in a variety of foster homes and never had the opportunity to establish a close relationship with anyone. He is now six years old, he is withdrawn, does not speak, and is self abusive. No one has ever considered his lack of social relationships to explain his behavior, which is seen only as a symptom of his disabilities.
No diagnostic label can adequately explain behavior unless it also takes account of the environment in which the child is living. In order for children like Jason to have access to intervention and treatment, an inclusive system needs to be developed in which generic child protective services are linked with specialized agencies.
Attachment disorders, lack of connection with activities in the immediate environment, apprehension, passivity and distress are markers of abuse, they are not characteristics of disability (Powell, Low and Speers, 1987). Words like withdrawal, resistance, and acting out are used as if they had little bearing on the intense inner turmoil and anxiety that are the consequences of emotional abuse and neglect.
Developing a sense of personal identity does not happen when there is no continuity of personal relationships with adults. Attachment and bonding are basic to the achievement of a sense of personal identity (Brazelton and Greenspan, 2000). In the absence of a personalized and nurturing environment, children become detached and appear to be withdrawn and self absorbed.
Children who experience emotional abuse and neglect are deprived of the opportunity to attain emotional competence, the ability to love other people, to feel good about oneself and to be free of self destructive or anti-social emotional expression (J.&A. Garbarino, 1987)
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Treatment of Children who are victims of abuse.
Children with a history of abuse need help to establish a sense of identity and self worth, self respect and a capacity for relationships. Children’s behavior is a language of its own, children re-enact what they have experienced. It is important that caregivers to be aware that negative or acting-out behaviors are expressions of fear, anxiety and inner turmoil. Aggressive and other acting out behaviors need to be dealt with…not punished. Like other child victims of abuse, they need help to alleviate guilt, depression, fear and attainment of emotional independence. Social attachment is the first priority in treatment.
Treatment
Children who are victims of abuse need responsive and appropriate treatment; they need to feel safe and secure. This treatment needs to be ongoing and carefully assessed. As many child abuse victims are bounced back and forth between the mental health and disability service agencies, communication, consultation and coordination between child protection and specialized agencies, schools and treatment are of primary importance if treatment is to be successful.
The fact that mistreatment of children with disabilities is rooted in different environments requires programs tailored for specific social contexts in which maltreatment occurs. These need to be developed together with coordinated service arrangements, a range of supports, and a focus on competence rather than disability (Rothery and Cameron, 1990). Treatment needs to be based on establishing socially responsive environments that foster the building of relationships and teaches communication skills. Both individual and group approaches can be effective (Baladarian, 1995). There is only one valid criterion for judging the appropriateness of treatment and that is the progress the child is making. .
Social attachment and CommunicationThe desire to communicate is a life-affirming act and making oneself understood is an issue of existence. Experiences can only be shared with others who understand and accurately interpret intended messages. For children who experience a world that cannot be clearly seen, touched, handled or explored, language becomes a major means of learning about the world, making it essential to provide alternate means of communication. such as sign language, writing, and communication devices for children who cannot speak. Children who live in socially isolated environments do not hear much language directed to them and are thus being deprived of the major means of acquiring and practicing language.
Human resources that include properly trained personnel who have the time and concentration necessary to address children’s problems effectively and appropriate settings in which intensive, sustained and personal services can be provided are badly needed. Foster parents and other child care workers need to know how to develop relationships and truly support the full development of the children in their care.
When abuse occurs, it needs to be identified and reported. To prevent children with disabilities from falling outside the scope of generic services, schools, residential and treatment centers need to take responsibility for recognizing and reporting abuse. All staff in care facilities, foster and group homes, should have opportunities for in-service training which includes abuse prevention as well as methods and strategies to help children develop positive relationships with adults and peers. Children with disabilities do not differ from other children in the kinds of experiences they need in order to grow and develop.
Building An Integrated System of Child ProtectionCooperation and collaboration between service organizations and child protective agencies are necessary to provide adequate protection. A consistent infrastructure capable of providing both support and intervention is badly needed. Consistent and comprehensive home support needs to be readily available to natural as well as foster families. Good home support services focus on the whole family in an inclusive way.
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Creative solutions to support services require only a willingness to undertake the effort to link services. Children who have a history of abuse need to be treated and mental health services and abuse counselors need access to training and consultation with specialists in the disability field. The actual integration takes place on the agency level as well as the more informal individual casework level. Social workers need to be prepared to deal with the cases they find. Children in care need advocates to represent them. Advocates need to be given complete access to all records and be able to express concerns without fear of reprisal. The medical community is also critical and plays an important role in assessing, diagnosing and reporting child abuse and neglect. Children with disabilities are children first and need to be seen as individuals with rights to protection.
There has been progress in community awareness of child abuse and neglect, but what is needed is the inclusion of children with disabilities. Community partnerships formed on behalf all child clients strengthens both the interventions provided and the agencies involved. Creative solutions to support services require only a willingness to undertake the effort to link services on the agency level as well as the more informal individual casework level. Generic child protection agencies who have easy access to consultations and technical assistance will be able to meet the special needs of children with disabilities. Managers and supervisors as well as direct line workers need to have a holistic perspective of the children in their care. .
The key components of preventive services are family support programs, professional and caregiver training, and cooperation among and between service agencies.
Professional training courses for front-line child care people will enable pediatricians, social workers, and teachers to recognize emotional and psychological abuse. Collaboration and cooperation between and among service providers will achieve the necessary coordination of health, social services and education. A community approach that includes children with disabilities will benefit the larger community by enhancing the sharing of limited resources.
References
Baladerian, N.J. (1994) Intervention and Treatment of Children with Severe Disabilities who Become Victims of Abuse. Developmental Disabilities Bulletin, 22:2.pp.93-99
Cavanagh, Johnson,T. (1991) Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse in out-of-home care: Prevention skills for at-risk children..NY: Hawarth Maltreatment and Trauma Press.
Fryer, G.E. (1993) Child Abuse and the Social Environment, Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press.
Garbarino, J.Guttman, E. Seeley, J.A. (1986) The Psychologically Battered Child. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Garbarino, J. &Garbarino, AC. (1986) Emotional Maltreatment of Children, Wash. D.C.: National Committee of Prevention of Child Abuse.
Hart, S.N. Germain, R., & Brassard, M.R. (1987) The challenge: To better understand and combat psychological maltreatment of children and youth. In M.R. Brassard, R. Germain & S.N. Hart (Eds) Psychological Maltreatment of Children and Youth, NY: Pergamon Press.
O’Hagan, K. (1995) Emotional and Psychological Abuse of Children. Burmingham, England: Open University. Press.
Rogow, S.& McNamara, R. The Roots of Social Abuse ( in progress)
Rothery, M. & Cameron, G. (1990) Child Maltreatment: Expanding Our Concept of Helping. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaunm and Associates.
Sobsey,D. Violence and Abuse in the Lives of People with Disabilities: The End of Silent Acceptance. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company.
Sullivan, P.M. & Knutson, J.F. (2000) Maltreatment and Disabilities: A Population-based Epidemiological Study. Child Abuse and Neglect, 24:10, pp. 1257-1273.
International Journal of Special Education2002, Vol 17, No.1.
DISABILITY AND THE IDEOLOGY OF PROFESSIONALISM
Marie Schoeman
Gauteng Department of EducationMarinus Schoeman
University of Pretoria
This paper was delivered at ISEC 2000 in Manchester, United Kingdom. It looks into the causes of exclusion of disabled children and their families from ordinary community life. The voices of parents of disabled children from impoverished rural South African contexts are heard who have not had access to any form of support because support had been organised in such a way that only children who had been labelled by professionals had access to it. It shows that professional roles and service models adopted from the West are inappropriate to the needs of developing societies.
The ideology of professionalism developed in the welfare state has become the primary obstacle to alleviate the problems that persons with disability and their families are facing in their daily struggles to make their lives meaningful and worth living. At the root of the welfare state there is a tendency to define social problems in medical terms - the so-called therapeutic approach. This is the prerequisite for stripping individuals of their citizenship and permanently relegating them to an inferior caste of clients. Clients cannot develop the capacity to overcome or to cope with life’s challenges without professional assistance.
Reforms are futile. The corrective required is the realization of the community vision. The central reform is the conversion of clients to citizens. The community vision seeks to reallocate power from the centralised and professionally dominated service system to neighbourhood associations. As opposed to the pseudo-community envisaged by human service professionals who seek to reduce all individuals to a uniform standard of normality, a heterogeneous community embodying individual diversity should be sought.
If such a revolt occurs, it will not be either Left or Right, but predicated on a renunciation of professionalism and the cultivation of a populist faith in the ability of citizens to cooperatively govern their own lives. This will mean a definite move away from the welfare approach towards one of charity, the essence of which consists in a compassionate recognition of - and respect for - what James Hillman calls the world of chronic disorder. The mission changes into a transformation, not of the disorder, but of my norms of order. The authors are the parents of a 14 year old son with Down Syndrome.
They say in Qwaqwa there is no school for him. The social workers said they are still going to build it. They said that they will build a special school in this area but even today it has never materialised.
I don’t think she will have a good life, because she is not in school, maybe if we could afford those schools where they teach people like her, but I hear they are far and expensive
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Really the child is not progressing at that school, even the doctors confirmed that he cannot be taught at such schools he needs special kind of education. This will enable him to learn at his own pace and to get teachers who are trained to train and take care of children like him.
She explained that there is no support system in the community:
It is very difficult to cope. You always have to keep an eye on him, but we are surviving. There is no school for this kind of child around here, but the doctor said he knows of some school somewhere. He then investigated the prices and I found the fee to be too high for me.
The doctor gave some medication for his condition, he says there is nothing they can do for him at that ordinary school, the only thing this doctor does is to dose him with pills. He only said they will help him to be better and probably grasp something at school.
(Extracts of interviews conducted with parents in a rural province of South Africa by T. Thejane, in Muthukrishna, N and Thejane, T. (1998). An investigation into how rural children with disabilities and their families in the Qwaqwa Region experience their lives. Paper delivered at the SAALED Conference, Cape Town, October 1998)
In the debate around Inclusive Education, it is often hard to discern the real voice of parents. In societies where parents are in a position to organise themselves in articulate and vociferous pressure groups, inclusive education seems to be the choice of the majority of families. Over the past two decades the parent voice in favour of inclusive education has become stronger and stronger and in most countries it has been parents which brought about changes to legislation and policy to make inclusive education a reality for most children with disabilities. The debate in these societies dealt with issues such as reallocation of funds in order to ensure effective support in the mainstream. Assessment, statementing, therapeutic services and other highly technical issues were central in most of the discussions.
There are however millions of parents in the world whose voices are never heard. They are the parents not only of disabled children but also of millions of children who face so many barriers within their living environment and in the education system, that they can never complete a full cycle of basic education and enter the world of work as productive citizens. These parents seldom have organisations through which they can insist on the most basic human right of access to services and to quality education.
This paper will look into the causes of exclusion of disabled children and their families from ordinary community life. The voices of parents of disabled children will be heard who have not had access to any form of support because support had been organised in such a way that only children who had been labelled and placed had access to it.
All the statements in the above quoted interviews with parents of children with special needs shed light on the harsh realities faced by families in impoverished rural African contexts. Once they have overcome the widespread prejudices and suggestions of witchcraft which still abound in many areas, parents are confronted by the wall of inaccessibility constructed by society and often even by professionals.
The problems they face include:
professionals who operate within a typically modernist (medical deficit) approach towards disability, even though it is totally inappropriate within an African context lack of empowerment restrains parents from becoming partners in decisions concerning their children’s education the constant lack of facilities and resources experienced by especially rural Africans the persistent idea among parents of disabled children that they are so different/exceptional that they could never become part of the normal social and educational contextWe would like to quote Lena Saleh in a paper which she delivered some years ago in Pretoria: One reason for the lack of progress in the provision of services is that professional roles in service models
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adopted in developing countries are inappropriate to the needs of those societies. These countries have been seduced by Western models of service delivery, and they insist that these are the solutions and that anything else is humiliatingly second rate. In our desire to copy models from industrialised countries, we have lost sight of the true magnitude of the situation on hand, and of the specificity of our own situation, our own context. The partisans of the traditional Western models argue for mainstreaming standards. How relevant is this however for 98% of the population which have no access to services whatsoever?(Saleh: 1996)
In a rural province of South Africa there are only two government employed speech therapists available to provide services in a region spanning hundreds of kilometres. They are spending 80% of their time each month on screening children for hearing problems, leaving little or no time to set up support structures for these learners once they have been screened. In the end parents are left despondent and the needs of their children unanswered.
Parents need to know their rights and the rights of their children and must be encouraged to pursue these rights. If the few professionals who are available within developing contexts were to reinterpret their roles to empower and mobilise
parents to reach this goal, they would be playing a much more meaningful role. If the social workers or the doctors referred to in the above interviews had the courage to assist the parents in finding access to ordinary early childhood and primary centres of learning, they could have prevented a situation where the children had to stay at home, being denied access to the stimulating environment amongst their age peers.
Although it may sound paradoxical, it is precisely the welfare state, with its ideology of professionalism, that has become the primary obstacle to alleviate the problems that persons with disability and their families are facing in their daily struggles to make their lives meaningful and worth living. At the root of the welfare state there is a tendency to define social problems in medical terms - the so-called therapeutic approach.. This is the prerequisite for stripping individuals of their citizenship and permanently relegating them to an inferior caste of clients. Whatever resources or service they are then entitled to cannot compensate for this degradation. In his book entitled The Careless Society. Community and its Counterfeits, John McKnight succinctly describes the therapeutic ideology as follows: (1) The basic problem is you, (2) The resolution of your problem is my professional control, and (3) My control is your help ... (p. 61).
We should not be hoodwinked by the pervasive ideology of professionalism. The power to label people deficient and in need is the basic tool of control and oppression in modern industrialised societies. The agents with comprehensive labelling power in these societies are the helping professionals. Their badge bestows the caring authority to declare fellow citizens clients - a class of deficient people in need.
According to McKnight there are several visions of society that compete for the people’s loyalty. The dominant one, antithetical to the community vision, is the therapeutic vision, which sees the well being of individuals as growing from an environment composed of professionals and their services. It envisions a world where there is a professional to meet every need and where the fee to secure each professional service is a right. This vision is epigrammatically expressed by those who see the ultimate liberty as the right to treatment (p. 168).
The central premise of the therapeutic vision is that professionals possess expertise in living, based ostensibly on technical scientific knowledge. That makes them indispensable to their ever-increasing population of clients, who do not have and cannot develop the capacity to overcome or to cope with life’s challenges without professional assistance. As McKnight puts it, the client invariably receives the message from the professional: You will be better because I, the professional, know better. He describes the disabling consequences of this ideology both on the poor and on those who are psychiatrically labelled - those regarded by psychiatrists and most of the indoctrinated public as mentally ill. It conceals relations of domination behind the magic cloak of therapeutic help, thus
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facilitating the cultural production and reproduction of a society stratified into competent professionals and deficient clients.
Various efforts aimed at reforming the human service sector miss the point. First, these efforts underestimate the severity of the problem and presume that the service system is a given good. Thus some claim that the system is inefficient or that many professionals have become arrogant and insensitive to the needs of their clients due to the bureaucratisation of the field and the dehumanisation of modern training programmes. Various palliatives are recommended: the consumer movement seeks to give human service consumers more power to evaluate and influence professionals' behaviour, to force them to be more sensitive. The advocacy movement seeks to surround clients with an army of advocates to protect them from abuses in the system, and to improve the quality of service. But the system is intrinsically abusive. Movements for reform only co-opt opposition and strengthen the hegemony of the human service system, obscuring the fact that the problem is not that the system has flaws, but that it does the exact opposite of what it is ostensibly intended to do: it is counter-productive. The illusion fostered by reformers is that an heroic effort can rectify professionalism and create a new class of professionals in the useful service of humanity (p. 21). McKnight, on the other hand, contends: The hopeful future for helping work is more likely to result from the fall of the modernised professions and the development of new definitions of good work (p. 21).
Second, since most critiques underestimate the severity of the problem, it is not surprising that they fail to identify the reason why the human service sector fails, despite the enormous resources devoted to it and the highly educated professionals, to achieve its manifest goal: its latent goal is the opposite. The objective is not to ameliorate the plight of needy people, but to create them. In business terms the client is less the consumer than the raw material for the servicing system .... His essential function is to meet the needs of services, the servicing system, and the national economy (p. 40). McKnight reveals the awful truth which few dare to face: behind the professional's mask of concern hides the servicer, his systems, techniques and technologies - a business in need of markets, an economy seeking new growth potential, professionals in need of an income (p. 39). This is why the number of clients is constantly increasing: It is now clear that the economic pressure to professionalise requires an expanding universe of need and the magnification of deficiency. This form of marginal professional development can only intensify the ineffective, dominating, and iatrogenic nature of the professional class as they invade the remaining perimeters of personhood (pp. 23-24). Efforts at reform are based on a profound misunderstanding of the current professional problem. The basic issue is the profession itself, dependent upon the manufacture of need and the definition of new deficiencies (p. 24).
Reforms are futile. The corrective required is the realization of the community vision. As McKnight ironically puts it: The central reform is the conversion of clients to citizens (p. 62). The community vision seeks to reallocate power from the centralised and professionally dominated service system to neighbourhood associations such as local churches, clubs and neighbourhood taverns. The community vision seeks to provide every citizen, no matter how fallible, with the opportunity to participate as a political equal with other citizens in the process of community decision making and neighbourhood-building. It seeks to recommunalise exiled and psychiatrically labelled individuals. It sees community associations as contexts in which to create and locate jobs, provide opportunities for recreation of multiple friendships, and become the political defender of the right of labelled people to be free from exile .... [Adherents to the community vision] see a society where those who were once labelled, exiled, treated, counselled, advised and protected are, instead, incorporated into community where their contributions, capacities, gifts and fallibilities will allow a network of relationships involving work, recreation, friendship, support and the political power of being a citizen (p. 169).
Thomas Szasz and other critics of psychiatry recognised that the practices of psychiatrists and their allies lead to the social degradation of mental patients, their total isolation from the community and the deprivation of their rights and responsibilities as citizens - in effect, to their spiritual destruction. To the consternation of his colleagues, Szasz has argued that the madman, the social deviant, the Other, is not a victim of mental illness but of psychiatric violence disguised as medical treatment:
The labelling of persons as mentally healthy or ill by psychiatrists ... constitutes the initial act of
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validation or invalidation, pronounced by the high priest of the modern scientific religion, the psychiatrist; it justifies die expulsion of the sacrificial scapegoat, the mental patient from the community (Szasz 1970, p. 267).
McKnight's approach (recommunalisation) is more radical. He situates the solution to the problem within the context of a larger project: the broadening of the powers and responsibilities of citizens, and the regeneration of communities. One extraordinary feature of his analysis is that he demonstrates that the crisis of democracy requires the incorporation into the community of all those citizens who have been transformed into clients, and the solution to so-called personal/psychological problems requires the incorporation of clients into a democratic social order Since professional ideology focuses on the clients' putative deficiencies, it cannot even envision the possibility that they might have something to contribute to the community. It thus denies them the opportunity to engage in the kinds of activities that can restore their sense of self-worth.
Are those individuals labelled mentally ill or handicapped more fallible (McKnight's term) than other citizens? For McKnight, the question is irrelevant, since whatever citizens' fallibilities, their putative defects, they also possess unique capacities that enable them to contribute to the community - capacities which will grow if they are given the opportunity to exercise them.* Accordingly, as we exile our fallible neighbours to the control of managers, therapists, and technicians, we lose much of our power to be the vital centre of society. We forget about the capacity of every single one of us to do good work and, instead, made some of us into servants of those who serve (p. 172). While McKnight does not directly discuss mental illness or disability, the implication is clear: the solution to the problem is political - not psychiatric, therapeutic, or medical.
McKnight realizes that communities and the institutions of the service industry embody antithetical cultural values. Yet he does not elaborate the point. He observes, however, that communities viewed by those who only understand managed experiences appear to be disordered, messy and inefficient. There is a hidden order to community groups that is determined by the need to incorporate capacity and fallibility (p. 178). He senses that there is something in the ideal of service that lends itself to the kind of grotesque corruption represented by the welfare system today. He muses: I wonder whether the human reality is always to make service into lordship, into a system of control (p. 178). It does not occur to McKnight that the reason this happens is because the liberal welfare state, with its service ideal and its ideology of professionalism, is a manifestation of what Adorno and Horkheimer described as the dialectic of Enlightenment. As such, it is confronted with an insoluble dilemma. On the one hand, it desires to annul the Other whose otherness poses the danger of disorder. On the other, it requires the existence of the Other. The ideology of service sets up a dichotomy between servicer and client which can never be overcome: existential security is sought through control and mastery of the Other, not through the recognition of otherness. Clients must be sustained in their otherness while at the same time being compelled to constantly re-enact the rituals of submission. They cannot be permitted to transcend or legitimate their otherness by acquiring the rights and powers of citizens, by becoming full subjects. In that case there would be no Other to manage or control.
What are the alternatives? Should the Other be assimilated? Or was there not a wisdom in the different, the abnormal, the otherness of the Other which assimilation would destroy? Should we not heed the principle of the right to difference, which includes the duty to find in the difference the source of new norms? Michel Foucault, in his Madness and Civilisation, argued that it was precisely because madness harboured within itself the source of new norms that it was silenced by Reason, and lunatics were confined, managed and repressed. With the constitution of madness as mental illness at the end of the 18th century, psychiatry - and society - turned a deaf ear to madmen, and effectively deprived Reason's other of its voice.
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Although McKnight nervously avoids even mentioning madness, except in code words, he brilliantly outlines a viable alternative to strategies of exclusion or assimilation. As opposed to the pseudo-community envisaged by human service professionals who seek to reduce all individuals to a uniform standard of normality, McKnight imagines a heterogeneous community embodying individual diversity. He realizes that the tension between the individual and the community is both necessary and valuable. Refusal to tolerate this tension leads either to disorder or totalitarianism - or both. While institutions and professions war against human fallibility by trying to replace it, cure it, or disregard it, communities are proliferations of associations that multiply until they incorporate both the capacities and fallibilities of citizens. It is for this reason that labelled people are not out of place in community because they all have capacities and only their fallibilities are unusual (p. 178).
Are these ideas about community not doomed to remain a utopia without any major impact? Is it possible to transcend a social order based on management and domination and create one based on fellowship of political equals? The prospects are indeed slim. Yet the advance of the therapeutic state may carry within it the seeds of its own demise. When every citizen is at risk of being transformed into a client, the foundation of the therapeutic state becomes shaky. According to McKnight, the professional problem will be resolved when the lives of enough people are so completely invaded by the professional need for deficiency that a popular revolt develops (p. 24). If such a revolt occurs, it will not be either Left or Right, but predicated on a renunciation of professionalism and the cultivation of a populist faith in the ability of citizens to cooperatively govern their own lives. This will mean a definite move away from the welfare approach towards one of charity, the essence of which consists in a compassionate recognition of - and respect for - what James Hillman calls the world of chronic disorder. The chronic is the incurable. It has its own nature, is its own form. Recognising this is perhaps the reason why freaks and cripples have been coming into prominence in our films and theatres - are we, the heroes of the modern welfare state, at last being reminded again of chronicity?
In the words of Hillman (p. 18), charity means recognition of the God within the condition which God is not to be violated by cure or conversion. Drive out the Devil and drive out the Angel too. Sacredness of the back ward, for even Hell belongs in God's vision. Amelioration performed through charity … and compassion which says: 'here is something to be lived with because of its very difference, its utterly foreign alienness, which leads me to want to be closer to it for what it offers'. The mission changes into a transformation, not of the disorder, but of my norms of order.
References
Farber, Seth Farber (1993) Madness, Heresy and the Rumour of Angels. The Revolt against the Mental Health System. Chicago, Open Court.
Foucault, Michel (1973) Madness and Civilization: A History of Psychiatry in the Age of Reason, New York, Vintage Books.
Hillman, James. (1986) On Culture and Chronic Disorder. In: Stirrings of Culture, R J Sardello & G Thomas (ed.), Dallas, Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.
McKnight, John (1995) The Careless Society. Community and its Counterfeits. New York, Basic Books.
Muthukrishna, N and Thejane, T. (1998). An investigation into how rural children with disabilities and their families in the Qwaqwa Region experience their lives. Paper delivered at the SAALED Conference, Cape Town, October 1998.
Sait, Washeila. (1999) The African Child with a Disability – “The Silent Emergency”. Paper delivered at the African Seminar on Development, Co-Operation, Disability and Human Rights, January 1999, Somerset West.
Saleh, Lena. (1996) From Inclusive Education to Inclusive Communities. In: Down Syndrome Bulletin, Vol. 3, No. 1 and 2. Pretoria Down Syndrome Association.
Szasz, Thomas (1961) The Myth of Mental Illness, New York, Hoeber-Harper.
Szasz, Thomas (1970) The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement, New York, Harper and Row.
International Journal of Special Education
2002, Vol 17, No.1.
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION, POLICY AND HOPE: MAPPING DEMOCRATIC POLICY CHANGES ON INCLUSION IN SOUTH AFRICA
Yusef Waghid and Petra Engelbrecht, Faculty of Education University of StellenboschEducation policy changes and pedagogical transformation in South Africa have become major determinants of democracy as the country moves beyond the pre-1994 politics of discrimination, segregation and contestation. Inclusive education has been and continues to remain in resonance with democratic restructuring which can hopefully ensure an education system that is sensitive to issues of equality, diversity, co-operative social relations and inclusion. This article explores the policy contextualisation of inclusive education in South Africa. We explain the guiding principle of inclusive education, which carries a commitment to educational transformation as espoused through policy. The article concludes with an idea of democracy which not only creates space for practices of inclusion to be lived from inside, but also makes it possible for educators to facilitate future prospects of inclusion. Democratic discourse has the potential to increase the strength of will of educators intent on making inclusive education work and thus establish a sense of hope for learners most vulnerable to barriers to learning and development.
The conceptual understandings of inclusive education in South Africa are presumed to be located in an emerging critical discourse towards inclusion which provides much more than just the physical placement of learners with difficulties (or special needs) in mainstream classrooms (Engelbrecht 1999: 10). Rather, inclusive education aims to achieve education for all (Engelbrecht 1999: 9) and to create school communities that celebrate reflection, diversity, participation, equality and quality - all constitutive meanings of democracy. At face value, the emerging critical discourse of inclusive education seems to be driven by the emancipatory interest; that is, its purpose is to contribute to change in people’s understanding of themselves and their educational practices and thus free them from constraints of society. These may include racism, sexism, discrimination and class inequality. The emancipation of human beings and their educational practices, in particular social and historical contexts, also involves improving their practices, rationality and self-knowledge. For example, it is not sufficient merely to understand how educators and learners in black school communities in South Africa were deprived of good education during the apartheid years. These communities have to be assisted as to ensure their freedom, social upliftment and economic empowerment (Waghid & Le Grange 2000). A critical discourse of inclusive education is interested in contributing to change in peoples’ positions in life. Naicker (1999: 14) claims that inclusive education within the South African context.
(I)s a (critical) discourse that is committed to extending full citizenship to all people. It stresses equal opportunity, self-reliance, independence and wants rather than needs. In essence, the emerging discourse of inclusive education in South Africa seems to break with other nuanced discourses of inclusive education aimed at ensuring the inclusion of learners with disabilities into mainstream social and economic life, and providing humanitarian assistance to those learners (Naicker 1999:14).
Our emphasis in this article is on the development of policy on inclusive education within the South African context and how parallel to the implementation of a strategy for inclusive education and
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training, there should be the recognition and internalisation on the part of educators to live according to the imperatives of equality, diversity and cooperative participation.
Development of policy
Since 1994 the South African government has been committed to transforming educational policy to address the imbalances and neglect of the past and to bring South Africa in line with international standards of recognition of human rights. The education policy documents that emerged were based on the notion of a democratic society including human dignity, freedom and equality as entrenched in the Constitution. Key policy documents and legislation such as the White Paper on Education and Training (Department of National Education, 1995), the White Paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy (Office of the Deputy President, 1996) and the South African Schools Act of 1996 stress the principle of education as a basic human right as well as quality education for all. These principles imply that all learners have the right to equal access to the widest possible educational opportunities as well as encapsulating a vision of an education system that not only recognises the wide diversity of learner needs but also that schools should meet these diverse needs (Muthukrishna, 2001; Williams, 2000).
The first clear indication however of a move towards acknowledging the complexity of learner needs is in the Report of the National Commission on Special Needs in Education and Training (NCSNET) and the National Committee on Education Support Services (NCESS) (Department on National Education, 1997). The document argues that a range of needs exists among learners and key barriers that render a large number of children and adults vulnerable to learning breakdown and sustained exclusion are identified and analysed (Williams, 2000). The document points to some significant directions for transformation and change and recommends a move away from a specific disability focus to a reflection of inclusion (although the word inclusion is not mentioned in the Report) as a general, educational, social and political value within the South African context.
Based on the recommendations of the Report, the Ministry released a Consultative Paper in 1999 (Department of National Education, 1999). Submissions and feedback were collated and resulted finally in a landmark policy paper, Education White Paper 6: Special Needs Education in building an inclusive education and training system (2001). In this White Paper inclusive education and training is defined as
Acknowledging that all children and youth can learn and that all children and youth need support Enabling education structures, systems and learning methodologies to meet the needs of all learners Ack</span><span class="Body-0020Text--Char" style=" font-weight: normal;">nowledging and respecting differences in learners, whether due to age, gender, ethnicity, language, class, disability, HIV or other infectious diseases Broader than formal schooling and acknowledging that learning also occurs in the home and community, and within formal and informal settings and structures. Changing attitudes, behaviour, teaching methods, curricula and environments to meet the needs of all learners Maximising the participation of all learners in the culture and the curriculum of educational institutions and uncovering and minimising barriers to learning.Embedded in the White Paper (DNE, 2001) are recommendations and key strategies, regarding transformative inclusive educational policy: the establishment of support structures (including school based and district support teams), the transformation of special and mainstream schools into inclusive schools and the promotion of the rights of parents, learners and educators within a systemic framework that can reduce barriers to learning within all levels of education and training.
Thus far we have attempted to map the development of an increasing commitment to the implementation of inclusive education and training in South Africa with reference to policy documents which, as indicated, progressively advocate a move towards greater inclusion, particularly removing barriers to learning and development for those most vulnerable to exclusion. However,
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mere policy talk and implementation strategies are not sufficient to effect educational transformation and thus sailing the ship of inclusion. Of course substantial ground on policy transformation has been covered and the process has moved towards implementation. However, the changing impact these new policies on inclusive education and training will have on schools, colleges, early childhood and adult learning centres, universities and technikons should be viewed in conjunction with the strength of will of educators to implement South Africa’s democratic education system. In other words, policy will have to take account of both the contexts and the strength of will of educators and other role players to ensure its implementation, to live inclusion from inside.
Democracy, inclusion and hope
We shall now show how equality, diversity and participation as touchstones of democracy can deepen educational transformation and thus enhance a move towards inclusion. First, equality emphasises the equal position for all ethnicities, cultures, groups and individuals (they are not superior to one another) in order to prevent marginalisation and exclusion. It allows all people to see themselves not as homogenous (the same), but as equal to one another (Fletcha 1999: 162). Everyone is an equal and should be allowed to acquire the competencies to transcend their present social barriers and to act in diverse areas of social life. Moreover, equality is concerned with what Howe (1998: 214) refers to as an enabling good whereby individuals acquire the knowledge and skill to become more transformed. This implies that equality functions according to what Frankel (1971: 203) refers to as a context in which the primary desideratum (purpose) is developmental, educational, the evoking of potentialities in people. In other words, no individual can be denied an equal opportunity whereby his/her potentialities can be evoked. And, bearing in mind that inclusion is aimed at the evoking of potentialities in those learners most vulnerable to barriers to learning and development, its connection with equality as an enabling good seems justifiable. How can educators become more transformed through the evoking of potentialities in learners with special needs? According to Rorty (1999: xxix), equality involves increasing the ability of people to start with an equal chance of happiness. In a different way, learners’ potentialities can be evoked (their barriers to learning and development can be reduced) if they are encouraged to reflect, construct and reconstruct the patterns of meaning available to them. In this way, educators can identify and then suggest approaches to overcoming the causes of learning difficulties. Educators who live equality from inside recognise that addressing barriers to learning and exclusion is congruent with allowing all learners equal chances to voice their responses.
Second, when one engages in a democratic discourse such minimising barriers to learning one does not do so as a solitary individual but as a bearer of a particular social identity through shared experiences. This causes a rational person to reject arbitrariness such as bias, one-sidedness, prejudice, discrimination, intolerance, dogmatism, sexism, racism and injustice. In this way, engaging rationally in a democratic discourse of inclusion offers space for diversity whereby subordinate groups (learners with special needs and characteristics) can develop their voices and articulate their needs if they have their own spaces rather than if they are absorbed in a consensual overarching public sphere (Hernandez 1997: 57). This idea of diversity opens up the possibility for different learners who are most vulnerable to barriers to learning and development to show tolerance to one another and to work together with educators in the same territory or public sphere.
Diversity through a democratic discourse of inclusion also repudiates the idea that the hegemonic power of the dominant educators can be imposed on different learners in the name of integration. In fact, diversity provides the conditions for learners most vulnerable to barriers to learning and development to articulate their needs, and deepens the transformative possibilities that allow them to reflect about their experience and situation within the wider society. In essence, diversity in a democratic discourse of inclusion, in the words of Hernandez (1997: 58), constitutes a space in which (different) people come to consciousness, deliberately transforming not only knowledge about themselves and their reality, but also transforming their own subjectivities.
Our emphasis is on the idea of how different learners can come to the consciousness needed for inclusion. The point of this question is that in order to get diverse learners to think and then for them to go beyond the information given, they have to engage, in the first place, in discussion. Discussion in the classroom requires the establishment of a set of social relationships different from many
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traditional classroom relationships and corresponding significantly with those associated with the idea of a democratic discourse, in this instance, inclusion. According to Bridges (1998: 285) discussion requires of those learners and educators engaged to be prepared to examine and to be responsive to the different opinions they put forward, that is, a readiness to understand and appreciate each other’s different points of view. In other words, discussion is an activity of which the success depends essentially on the reciprocal efforts of those taking part. It requires social involvement, co-operation, mutual attentiveness and responsiveness, respect and appreciation of individual divergence, reasonableness, etc. (Bridges 1998: 305). These qualities and relations, in our view, lie at the heart of a democratic discourse of inclusion.
Third, co-operative participation (dialogism) as a touchstone of a democratic discourse of inclusion creates many important possibilities. In the words of Jones (1998: 150):
Citizens of different ethnic, national and cultural backgrounds can participate in an investigation of one another’s acknowledged prejudices (in particular their feelings about the sort of life they want to lead) with the aim of arriving at compromise to which all participants can acquiesce without resentment and which aims at the optimal satisfaction of the conflicting prejudices of all participants.
Co-operative participation for the sake of compromise opens up the possibility for individuals or different groups to interrelate aimed at exploring their preferred perspectives. Talking together in different voices, aimed at addressing the differences of opinion which emerge through dialogism, participants have an opportunity to acquire a better understanding of one another (Waghid 2000). They also develop a greater self-understanding whereby they bring their prejudices to the fore and express them to others (Jones 1998: 150). This dialogism seems to be grounded in a notion of positive liberty, which rests on the principle that freedom entails a sense of belonging together in a particular society with which the individual shares permanent characteristics. Berlin (1969:158) regards this solidarity with the group or community as a desire for union, closer understanding, integration of interests, a life of common dependence and common sacrifice.
What makes co-operative participation (dialogism) a democratic discourse through which people can achieve compromise? Dialogism allows individuals and groups to live their differences (pluriculturalism) and at the same time creates the opportunity to exchange and share new forms of living and new cultural hybrids with others (interculturalism) (Fletcha 1999: 150). In other words, dialogism extends and radicalises a democratic discourse whereby it is possible for different human beings to share and live together in co-operative participation, in the sense that individuals want their actions to be directed by the community of which they are members. Jones (1998: 150) adequately summarises this sort of dialogism:
This is not the usual debate about truth and who is right or wrong. It is an attempt to understand others and ourselves as people from different backgrounds and is the basis for a compromise aimed at allowing us to live together as a functioning and unified social unit rather than as a collection of warring factions living in geographical proximity.
Of course, the alternative to working towards by way of co-operative participation in the sense outlined would be to accept a move towards fragmentation of society in groups which is neither desirable nor defensible. A pessimist who argues that dialogism in a democratic discourse would not work is not rationally considering how conflict can be avoided and how tolerance and compromise towards different prejudices can be encouraged. Maintaining an unjustifiable partiality for one’s own prejudices without encouraging dialogism is itself a violation of the notion of impartiality. Jones (1998: 152) states the following:
A violation of the principle of impartiality is simply the first step towards the gross violations of the principle of respect for persons which racist practices constitute, because they involve imposing the views of a dominant group on another without acknowledging the members of the subordinate group as potential or actual autonomous agents, beings of praxis or centres of practical reason.
For a democratic discourse of inclusion to be worthwhile, dialogism and its recognition for the
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universality of prejudices should constantly be asserted. We cannot hope to succeed in achieving a democratic discourse of inclusion if we do not rationally consider dialogism as a commitment to co-operative participation and transformative action. In this regard, it is worth quoting Skrtic (1995: 243):
Collaboration (dialogism) emerges when work is distributed on the basis of a collaborative division of labor and coordinated through mutual adjustment, an arrangement that is premised on shared responsibility and a team approach to problem solving and yields a form of interdependence premised on reflective discourse.
It is this kind of co-operative participation between educators, education managers (without excluding learners and parents) which is central to the implementation and success of the policy of inclusive education and training and how the system must change to contribute to establishing a caring and human society, how it must change to accommodate the full range of learning needs and the mechanisms that should be put in place (Department of Education 2000: 7-8).
Conclusion
In conclusion, much has been done concerning policy formulation on inclusive education and training in South Africa over the past six years since the emergence of the first White Paper. The policy documents on inclusive education and training discussed in this article strongly emphasise how the present system still neglects those learners who are experiencing barriers to learning and development. In addition these policy papers accentuate the need of the system to transform towards the development of a system that accommodates and respects diversity … (and) the vigorous participation of our social partners, all role players and our communities so that social exclusion and negative stereotyping can be eliminated. Yet, very little has been said about the kind of disposition required on the part of educators to make inclusive education and training happen, besides having proposed a framework for strategic action. This leaves little hope for the establishment of an inclusive education and training system which can overcome the causes and effects of barriers to learning experienced by learners most vulnerable to exclusion. We have made a compelling case for educators to orientate themselves towards the dictates of equality, diversity and co-operative participation. In our view, for educators to internalise these touchstones of democratic discourse is a necessary condition in the development of specialised competencies such as life skills, counseling and learner support. This leaves much more hope for those learners who are most vulnerable to barriers to learning and development. Put differently, creating conditions of hope for learners with special needs and characteristics should not only be guided by material changes but also changes in the attitudes of those who want to make inclusion happen.
References
Berlin, I. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. London: Oxford University Press.
Bridges, D. 1998. Teaching by discussion. Philosophy of Education: Major Themes in the Analytic Tradition, Volume IV Problems of Educational Content and Practices. Hirst, P. & White, P. (eds.). London and New York: Routledge.
Department of National Education 1997. Quality Education for all: overcoming barriers to learning and development. Final Report - NCSNET & NCESS. Pretoria: Government Printer.
Department of National Education 1999. Consultative paper No. 1 on special education: building an inclusive education and training system, first steps. The Green Paper on Inclusive Education and Training. Pretoria: Government Printers, 1-74.
Department of National Education 2001. Special needs education: building and inclusive education and training system. The White Paper 6 on Inclusive Education and Training. Pretoria: Government Printers.
Engelbrecht, P. 1999. A theoretical framework for inclusion. P. Engelbrecht, L. Green, S. Naicker, & L. Engelbrecht. (eds.). Inclusive Education in South Africa. Pretoria: J.L. Van Schaik Publishers, 3-11.
Frankel, C. 1971. Equality of opportunity. Ethics, 81(3): 191-211.
Fletcha, R. 1999. Modern and postmodern racism in Europe: dialogic approach and anti-racist pedagogies. Harvard Educational Review, 69(2): 150-162.
Hernandez, A. 1997. Pedagogy, Democracy and Feminism: Rethinking the Public Sphere. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Howe, K. 1998. In defense of outcomes-based conceptions of equal educational opportunity. Philosophy of Education: Major Themes in the Analytic Tradition, Volume III Society and Education. P. Hirst, & P. White (eds.). London and New York: Routledge, 192-218.
Jones, M. 1998. Education and racism. Philosophy of Education: Major Themes in the Analytic Tradition, Volume III Society and Education. P. Hirst & P. White (eds.). London and New York: Routledge, 138-153.
Muthukrishna, N. 2000. Transforming the system: the development of sustainable inclusive education policy and practice in South Africa. Keynote Paper presented at ISEC Conference, Manchester.
Naicker, S. 1999. Inclusive education in South Africa. In P. Engelbrecht, L. Green, S. Naicker & L. Engelbrecht. (eds.). Inclusive Education in South Africa. Pretoria: J.L. Van Schaik Publishers, 12-23.
Rorty, R. 1999. Philosophy and Social Hope. Suffolk: Bury St Edmunds.
Skrtic, T. (ed.) 1995. Disability and Democracy: Reconstructing (Special) Education for Postmodernity. New York & London: Teachers College Press.
Waghid, Y. & Le Grange, L. 2000. Repositioning inclusive education in South Africa through a poststructuralist lens. International Journal of Special Education, 15(2): 92-102.
Waghid, Y. 2000. Notions of transformative possibility: equality, development, accountability and quality in higher education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 14(3): In press.
Williams, E. 2000. Building an inclusive education and training system: critical issues in the national policy framework for South Africa. Paper presented at National Workshop to launch the Danida-South African Project, Johannesburg.
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THE EFFECTS OF CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING FOR A MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT WITH ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER
DURING CORRECTIVE READING LESSONS: A CASE REPORT
Alison M. Gurrad
Kimberly P. Weber
and
T. F. McLaughlin Gonzaga UniversityThe purpose of the present study was to evaluate the use of contingency contracting and a token program with an adolescent with ADHD. These data were gathered during Direct Instruction reading lessons in a middle school setting. The participant earned points for participating in the reading lessons. The contingency contract monitored number of participation points as well as interrupts. The overall outcomes indicated that interrupting behaviors decreased and participation improved when bonus points and contingency contacts were in effect. When the criterion for consequences was further reduced, the participant’s interruptions again declined. Changes in academic participation were less dramatic, but increases were found when contingency contracting was employed.
Attention deficit disorder is the inability of a child to attend to a task. Research has estimated that ADHD affects at many school-age children in every classroom (Barkely, 1998; Heward, 2000). These data suggest that a typical classroom may have one to three children who have been diagnosed or whom currently have problems associated with ADHD (Barkley, 1998). Many students diagnosed with ADHD experience difficulties in learning. A majority of persons with ADHD have low academic achievement and are often behind their peers in social maturity (Barkley, 1998; Gentschel & McLaughlin, 2000; Woods & Ploof, 1997). Since a diagnosis of ADHD does not necessarily mean that a student will be identified with a disability, regular educators become responsible for educational progress. In order for educators to have their classrooms and schools function productively, teachers must have well-planned and carefully implemented procedures to assist such children (Grandy & McLaughlin, 1999; Pfiffer & Barkley, 1998).
Children with ADHD and their inability to sustain attention seem to be a leading barrier in learning to read (Barkley, 1998; Edwards, Salant, Howard, Brougher, & McLaughlin, 1995). This may explain why their academic performance remains below that of their same-aged peers (Barkley, 1998; Woods & Ploof, 1997). With these factors in mind, it becomes necessary to educate the child with attention deficit to read and cope socially, as these skills are required to function successfully in the surrounding community.
Several interventions have been suggested to assist children with ADHD (Pfiffer & Barkley, 1998; Grandy & McLaughlin, 1999). Behavioral procedures such as token economies (Williams, Williams, & McLaughlin, 1989), daily report cards (Burkwist, Mabee & McLaughlin, 1987), self-monitoring (Edwards et al., 1995; Stewart & McLaughlin, 1992) and verbal praise (Williams, Williams, & McLaughlin, 1989,
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1991) have been shown to be an effective tool for changing the academic and social behaviors of children with ADHD.
According to McLaughlin and Williams (1988) token economies have been effective in increasing and maintaining behaviors for individuals with and without disabilities. Token economies have benefited children in the regular as well as special education classrooms (McLaughlin & Williams, 1988; Williams et al., 1989). Several studies have shown that token programs increased performance in math and decreased inappropriate verbalizations of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (Ayllon, Layman, & Burke, 1972; Ayllon, Layman, & Kandel, 1975; Ayllon & Roberts, 1974 Pfiffer & Barkley, 1998).
Contingency contracting has also been found to be an effective way of increasing academic performance and social behaviors of children with ADHD (Carnes & Carnes, 1994; Newstrom, Sweeney, & McLaughlin, 1999; Roberts, White, & McLaughlin, 1997). Contingency contracts involve a written agreement where a student agrees to perform a given task and the teacher provides something the child desires (Newstrom et al., 1999). Target behaviors should be stated clearly so both parties understand the expectations. Goals must be manageable for the student (Carnes & Carnes, 1994). The students then can feel a sense of involvement on the construction of the contract and clearly understand what they need to achieve. Finally, the contract should be signed by all. If the student meets the goals indicated, then the reward is received. The purpose is to reconstruct the environment to provide a consistent set of expectations and consequences to the student based upon certain pre-defined performance criteria (Roberts et al., 1997). According to Carnes and Carnes (1994) there are three important factors that contribute to the success and failure of these contracts. They are a) the need to carefully define the desired behavior, b) set the magic number which is a specific requirement, and lastly, c) have a magic button or reward system available. This encourages students and allows them to become more willing to do what is requested because of a set goal.
Students with diverse learning and curriculum needs, primarily children of poverty, disabilities, and English as their second language can be affected by a number of forces which places them at a disadvantage in their social and education environments (Carnine & Kameenui, 1998; Vacha & McLaughlin, 1992). Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) consistently have a difficult time in the classroom due to their impulsivity, distractibility, and overactivity (Pfiffer & Barkely, 1998; Woods & Ploof, 1997). When you include a reading difficulty, the skills and behaviors needed for the student to participate as well as their willingness to participate may well decrease. Students with ADHD present a unique set of characteristics that challenge educators to find strategies to ensure their academic success.
The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a contingency contract program for a middle school student with ADHD during Direct Instruction reading lessons. The present case report also provides a further replication of our earlier work with contingency contracting and other easily implemented procedures as the classroom level for students with ADD/ADHD (Edwards et al., 1995; Hubbert, Weber, & McLaughlin, 2000; Newstrom et al., 1999; Swenson, Lolich, Williams, & McLaughlin, 2000).
Method Participant and SettingThe student in this study was a 7th grade, 12-year-old male, diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 8 by his family physician. He attended a large public middle school and was enrolled in a special education classroom. He also participated in the remedial reading program at the school. The participant also displayed some autistic-like behaviors (e.g., low eye contact, being non-verbal, and a tendency to become inattentive). The student’s full scale IQ from the WISC-III was found to be 92. However, much of his history and diagnosis data were based upon the school records and reports from his classroom teachers.
He was selected to participate in this study because of his need for reading assistance, work completion, and participation when requested, during reading.
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The study took place at the student’s school, in the hall outside his classroom. Sixteen Corrective Reading Decoding lessons were used with the student during the study. The participant, another student from the class, and the first author worked in the hall during the sessions. The sessions ranged in duration from 30 to 55 minutes. The first author received training from her university pre-service program (McLaughlin, Williams, Williams, Peck, Derby, Bjordahl, & Weber, 1999) and the classroom teacher regarding the techniques implemented prior to the start of the study.
MaterialsThe materials included, the book Skills Applications: Student’s Book Decoding C by Engelmann, Meyer, Johnson, and Carnine (1988), a frequency chart used for data collection, a teachers guide for each lesson, rewards (e.g., Butterfingers and Pokemon gum), and a behavioral contract developed for each lesson during the intervention.
Dependent Variables and Measurement Procedures The two target behaviors measured were interruptions and participations. A description follows; An interruption was defined as when: (a) the student added information which was not relevant to the question; (b) if he spoke out of turn and that caused the group to become off-task; or (c) he was observed correcting the other members’ answers. Data were recorded using a simple frequency count of each occurrence of the behavior.A participation was defined as correct oral reading or accurately answering teacher and comprehension questions. The range of participation opportunities was 41 to 84 per session with a median of 55 opportunities across all sessions. Due to this variability, participation scores were converted to a percentage.
Data were obtained during sections B and C of the reading materials for both participation and interruptions, and section D for participation only.
Interobserver AgreementInterobserver agreement was collected on 5 of the 16 sessions (i.e., 31.3% of all sessions). The researcher and the student sat across from each other and the secondary observer sat off to the side of the table, yet across from each other so they could not see what the other was recording when the participant was completing the lesson. This procedure was conducted to ensure the independent recording of the participant’s responses. Mean agreement for participation was 99.4% (range 96.9 % to 100%). The mean agreement for interruptions was 95.5% (range from 87.5% to 100%). The total mean agreement was 97.4% (range of 87.5% to 100%).
Experimental Design and ConditionsA single subject, ABAB reversal design (Kazdin, 1982) was used to evaluate the effectiveness of contingency contracting during reading instruction.
Baseline. During baseline, verbal praise was provided based on correct responses and participation during the Corrective Reading program. Each lesson consisted of five sections (A-E), in which the researcher took data on 2 or 3 of the 5 (B-D) sections. The student began by reading section A orally until the section was read without errors. For section B the participant was required to state sounds and pronounce words from the vocabulary list when asked, What sound? or What word? If an error occurred the first author corrected the error by saying, Stop, that word is ___ and then had the student pronounce the erred word correct twice. For Section C, the student was required to take turns reading sections from the passage. When the reader came to a number in the passage a question was asked regarding what had just been read. A question such as What did the fire chief discover in the snack bar? was asked and the student was required to answer the question. During section D, a two-minute timing occurred but no data were taken on interruptions because the participant rarely interrupted during the timing. Finally for section E, the student completed written workbook pages for the lesson completed that day. Again, praise and feedback were provided throughout the lesson. When inappropriate behaviors occurred, such as an interruption or being disrespectful to other member of the group, the researcher told the student that bonus points were based on how well they participated. During baseline, bonus points were not used to reward the participant in any way. This phase was in effect twice for a total of 8 sessions.
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Contingency contracting and bonus point program. The first author and the participant sat down before intervention began to determine what the student was willing to earn. The participant stated that he would work for candy rewards. On each contract, goals stating the number of interruptions allowed and the number of participation bonus points needed necessary to earn a reward were specified. Once the contract was explained and agreed upon, both the first author and the student signed and dated the contract. If the student met the ever-decreasing goal for interruptions and increasing goals for participation, he earned a candy consequence. Results InterruptionsInterruptions are illustrated in the upper panel of Figure 1. During the first baseline, the mean number of interruptions was 11 with a range of 8 to 13. After the implementation of a contracting system, the number of interruptions decreased to 1.2 with a range of 0 to 3. The mean number of interruptions during the return to baseline was a mean of 7.6 with a range of 7 to 8. When contracting was again employed, the number of interruptions decreased to 0.
Figure 1. The number of interruptions during sections B and C of the Corrective Reading Decoding program (See upper panel). The percent of participations during sections B through D of the Corrective Reading Decoding program (See lower panel).
Participation
The percent of participation in both baselines and contracting conditions are shown in the lower panel of Figure 1. During the first baseline, the total mean percent of participation was 88.5% with a range of 86.8% to 92.2%. During the first contracting phase, the mean percent of participation increased to 98.5% with a range of 95.8% to 100%. The mean for participation during the return to baseline was 87.8% with a range of 86.5% to 89.7%. With a return to contracting the participation score increased to 97.6% with a range of 95.2% to 100%.
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Discussion Data collected from this study demonstrated a functional relationship between contingency contracting and an increase in participation as well as a decrease of interruptions by the participant. Contingency contracting was found beneficial for a student with ADHD, as also noted by Pfiffer and Barkley (1998) and daily contracting with children with ADHD have positive outcomes as noted by Grandy and McLaughlin (1999). Not only did the student benefit from decreasing his inappropriate behaviors, but also his teachers and parents appeared to benefit. Finally, if the classroom teacher continues the contingency contracting his social as well as academic behaviors may increase (Roberts et al., 1997). However, data regarding these two issues needs to be gathered.Research in the area of contingency contracting with a teenager with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is limited in regards to the idea that many teachers may not have time to implement and manage these procedures in their regular classrooms. Some of the strengths of this study include: easy implementation of the contingency contracting, short session length, and the desire for the student's work, increased. Also, the researcher was able to demonstrate and document the positive effects of contracting for a teenager with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The implementation of this study shows contingency contracting during corrective reading lessons can be effective when applied to populations identified as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Finally the study lends itself to further research on the topic of contingency contracting in the classroom with developmentally disabled students.
A weakness of this study was the number of students the researcher used was limited. Due to only implementing the contingency contract and taking data for one student, it is difficult to determine if the effects would be the same for other students with ADHD. A second weakness was the presence of the researcher might have become a reinforcer on top of the rewards that were used. Completing a similar study on the same child or other students by another researcher would do much to extend the researcher’s findings.
The time, effort, and money required by this procedure were very reasonable. The time that was required of the researcher was approximately 5 to 7 minutes to prepare the proper materials prior to the lesson. Each of the 16 lessons took about 30-to 45-minutes two to three times a week to complete. The cost involved in this project was minimal. The Corrective Reading materials were already provided by the school and the tangible rewards of Butterfingers BB's cost $4.00 and Pokemon gum cost just $1.00.
Future research might focus on examining the long-term effects of contingency contracting for students with low motivation, disruptive behaviors, and who have attending problems. Issues surrounding the maintenance or generalization into the classroom of contingency contracting could provide more information concerning the effects of contingency contracting on students with ADHD.
Preparation of this research was in fulfillment of the requirements for EDSE 465 - Classroom Management, a course requirement of the Special Education Degree at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. Requests for reprints should be addressed to K. P. Weber, Department of Special Education, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99258-0025 or via e-mail at kweber@soe.gonzaga.edu
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PORTFOLIO USE IN UNDERGRADUATE SPECIAL EDUCATION INTRODUCTORY OFFERINGS M. A. Winzer University of LethbridgeThe course described in this paper attempted to bring disability from the margins to the core in order to help participants understand disability as a social phenomena. It stressed how the meanings of disability are created and perpetuated by a society, the social meanings and practices of disability, and how people interpret disability. Portfolios were used as one tool to provide a reference point to help students examine disability in new ways through a critical analysis of prevailing social perceptions. To reconstruct views of disability, common assumptions and beliefs about disability were challenged through an analysis of the portrayal of disabilities, through personal reflection, and through reading. Results indicate that the use of portfolios is one promising practice that can serve to modify beliefs so that teachers will become more responsive and accommodating.
