Dilemmas Of Difference

This ground-breaking book examines professional educators and administrators at national and local authority level in England, the USA and the Netherlands and questions how they recognise tensions or dilemmas in responding to student differences.

In Dilemmas of Difference Sarah A. Radcliffe explores the relationship of rural indigenous women in Ecuador to the development policies and actors that are ostensibly there to help ameliorate social and economic inequality. Radcliffe finds that development policies’s inability to recognize and reckon with the legacies of colonialism reinforces long-standing social hierarchies, thereby reproducing the very poverty and disempowerment they are there to solve. This ineffectiveness results from failures to acknowledge the local population's diversity and a lack of accounting for the complex intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and geography. As a result, projects often fail to match beneficiaries' needs, certain groups are made invisible, and indigenous women become excluded from positions of authority. Drawing from a mix of ethnographic fieldwork and postcolonial and social theory, Radcliffe centers the perspectives of indigenous women to show how they craft practices and epistemologies that critique ineffective development methods, inform their political agendas, and shape their strategic interventions in public policy debates.

Should a court order medical treatment for a severely disabled newborn in the face of the parents' refusal to authorize it? How does the law apply to a neighborhood that objects to a group home for developmentally disabled people? Does equality mean treating everyone the same, even if such treatment affects some people adversely? Does a state requirement of employee maternity leave serve or violate the commitment to gender equality?Martha Minow takes a hard look at the way our legal system functions in dealing with people on the basis of race, gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability. Minow confronts a variety of dilemmas of difference resulting from contradictory legal strategies—strategies that attempt to correct inequalities by sometimes recognizing and sometimes ignoring differences. Exploring the historical sources of ideas about difference, she offers challenging alternative ways of conceiving of traits that legal and social institutions have come to regard as "different." She argues, in effect, for a constructed jurisprudence based on the ability to recognize and work with perceptible forms of difference.Minow is passionately interested in the people—"different" people—whose lives are regularly (mis)shaped and (mis)directed by the legal system's ways of handling them. Drawing on literary and feminist theories and the insights of anthropology and social history, she identifies the unstated assumptions that tend to regenerate discrimination through the very reforms that are supposed to eliminate it. Education for handicapped children, conflicts between job and family responsibilities, bilingual education, Native American land claims—these are among the concrete problems she discusses from a fresh angle of vision.Minow firmly rejects the prevailing conception of the self that she believes underlies legal doctrine—a self seen as either separate and autonomous, or else disabled and incompetent in some way. In contrast, she regards the self as being realized through connection, capable of shaping an identity only in relationship to other people. She shifts the focus for problem solving from the "different" person to the relationships that construct that difference, and she proposes an analysis that can turn "difference" from a basis of stigma and a rationale for unequal treatment into a point of human connection. "The meanings of many differences can change when people locate and revise their relationships to difference," she asserts. "The student in a wheelchair becomes less different when the building designed without him in mind is altered to permit his access." Her book evaluates contemporary legal theories and reformulates legal rights for women, children, persons with disabilities, and others historically identified as different.Here is a powerful voice for change, speaking to issues that permeate our daily lives and form a central part of the work of law. By illuminating the many ways in which people differ from one another, this book shows how lawyers, political theorist, teachers, parents, students—every one of us—can make all the difference,

Based on extensive research, Addressing Tensions and Dilemmas in Inclusive Education presents a contemporary and critical analysis of the interaction between different perspectives and positions in the field of inclusive education. Referring to existing attitudes on the education of children and young people with learning difficulties and disabilities, Professor Norwich argues that despite the appeal of inclusion as a single powerful position, its practical realisation involves tensions and dilemmas that have to be addressed and resolved. This core analysis is illustrated by a review of relevant national and international concepts, principles, research and practices drawing on literature in areas of current interest and concern, such as: identification and classification; current national and international conceptions; pedagogic and curriculum issues; organisation of schooling; parental and student perspectives; the contribution of research to policy and practice. Engaging with the fundamental issues in the field and providing a coherent perspective that recognises and justifies the inter-connection between specialised and general school provision, this accessible and timely book will be of interest to all researchers and students of inclusive education.

**Shortlisted for the nasen Special Educational Needs Academic Book award 2008** Inclusion has become very influential internationally in the field of schooling. This has involved the introduction of policies that pursue more provision for, and acceptance of, students with special educational needs or disabilities in ordinary school settings. However, these policies represent different and often conflicting values and approaches to education. The basic dilemma of difference is whether to recognise or not to recognise differences, as either way there are negative implications or risks associated with stigma, devaluation, rejection or denial of relevant opportunities. This is the first book to examine ideas about these dilemmas from a range of disciplines and fields about the nature and origins of such dilemmas as they apply to special and inclusive education. In particular these dilemmas are about: identification – whether to identify students as having special educational needs / disabilities or not? curriculum – how much of a common curriculum is relevant to these students? placement – can appropriate learning can take place in ordinary schools and classes or not? This ground-breaking book examines professional educators and administrators at national and local authority level across three countries – England, USA and the Netherlands – and questions how they recognise tensions or dilemmas in responding to student differences. Of interest to researchers, students, academics and professionals, this study will provide a much needed, balanced and powerful contribution to the inclusion debate.

Draws on little-known legal cases brought by fat citizens as well as significant lawsuits over other forms of bodily difference (such as transgenderism), and asks why the boundaries of our antidiscrimination laws rest where they do. Fatness, argues Kirkland, is both similar to and provocatively different from other protected traits, raising long–standing dilemmas in antidiscrimination law into stark relief. Though options for defending difference may be scarce, Kirkland evaluates the available strategies and proposes new ways of navigating this new legal question. From publisher description.

This book fills a gap in the dissemination of practitioner research on special and inclusive education in Ireland. The successful implementation of an inclusive education policy is a process which depends largely on the attitudes, knowledge and competencies of teachers. In this volume, teacher-researchers report on work undertaken within the Special Education Department of St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin. The studies are grouped around three key issues: responding to diversity, access to the curriculum and collaboration for inclusion. They offer valuable insights into the challenges and barriers to inclusive education and point to ways that schools can address these challenges from the perspective of small-scale research. The authors draw on a range of research methodologies, from single case experimental design to case studies, in order to illuminate the issues at the level of the individual student, teacher, class and school. The book is relevant to all who have an interest in practitioner research, the implementation of inclusive education and how policy translates in individual contexts.

Draws on philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, and other disciplines to analyze issues concerning the relationship between disability, social justice, and education. The 11 essays illustrate the limitation of the distributive views of social justice as they relate to the education of people with disabilities, and demonstrate the importance of such issues as difference, representation, and recognition. Of interest to social workers and policy makers as well as educators. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR