Invisible Cities: The Arts and Renewable Community

Social Justice in Special Education

"Why is it that a person would not be considered educated or privileged if he went through school and never learned there was a France or a French language? But if a person went through school and knew nothing about disability, never met a disabled person, never heard of American Sign Language, he might be considered not only educated, but also lucky?" – John Hockenberry ⁴⁵

Teaching all students, not just those in special education about these different models of disability will be beneficial to the universal knowledge of how the current system is set up. Although this student knowledge is important, we don't have time to wait for these students to grow into policy makers. Systematic change needs to be implemented now. Teaching students about inequity in education will be less impactful, even hypocritical, if they continue to be segregated. Experts argue that the system in which special education students have historically been placed, one of separation, denies them the opportunity to be taught alongside their general education peers. ⁴⁶ This, paired with programs that are inherently inferior, creates a social injustice not unlike the government mandated accommodations to barriers imposed upon the physically disabled community; separate and unequal.

There is a movement called inclusion that aligns itself with the sentiments of the social minority model. Inclusion, as its name suggests, advocates for all students, regardless of their ability to be included in general education classes. Simply placing special education students in general education classes within our current system poses an obvious problem as what is needed is a complete transformation of our educational construct. When approaching this problem Dyson (1999) identifies two discourses in relation to inclusion, justification and implementation. ⁴⁷ These discourses highlight how and why inclusion is a model that could help to shape a more equitable education system.

Justification speaks to reasons we need inclusion in our schools. The main argument is that within our current system, general and special education students are taught in parallel systems and as a result the powers that be are less likely to make changes to the entire system based on the lack of one group's success. If both groups of students were housed under the general education system, disabled students would be more likely to prompt systemic change if they were not successful. ⁴⁸

A second argument arises that deals with how effective special education is in comparison to general education. Studies show that special education students learning within segregated classrooms do not perform better than their peers who are integrated into the general education classroom. Not only that, but this segregation prevents special education students from feeling a sense of belonging. ⁴⁹ Segregation causes the sense of community to suffer in a parallel system.

The discourse on the implementation of inclusion within such a fixed system claims that it is necessary to involve political action. ⁵⁰ This political action would be used to work towards altering the inequalities that have been inherent in the current education system. If inclusion were implemented it would take strong political and grassroots action, as it would be a major deviation from the structure of the current education system.

These ideas look wonderful in the vacuum of theory; however, as educators we know of the wide variety of factors that can influence change. The shift to a successful inclusion model can never happen if the social identities of students are not depolarized. This must be done carefully however, so as to keep intact each student's distinct identity and not fall again into the medical model. ⁵¹ The transition to inclusion must be calculated so as to not miss a golden opportunity to progress desegregation.

The social benefit that comes from integration of different groups within populations is priceless. Looking at the countless cultural enhancements given to us by other minority groups that have been integrated into our society it should be no question whether or not there should be a push to make this invisible community more visible by creating access for them. The thought of mono-sex, racially segregated classrooms is, at this point, a preposterous one; and the benefit students get from having diversity in their classrooms is a boon to education. Diversity is not only beneficial to students but to society as a whole. Learning about disability rights will allow these young people to go through school being more accepting of each other. As students grow older and integrate into adult society, so too does their acceptance and tolerance of different people, and the rights of those people to be successful in society. Why then can we not adopt this model for people with disabilities?