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Remedial and Special Education
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published online 5 March 2010Remedial and Special Education
Susan Baglieri, Jan W. Valle, David J. Connor and Deborah J. Gallagher
Disability Studies in Education: The Need for a Plurality of Perspectives on Disability
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Remedial and Special Education
XX(X) 1­–12
© 2010 Hammill Institute on Disabilities
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DOI: 10.1177/0741932510362200
http://rase.sagepub.com
Disability Studies in Education:
The Need for a Plurality
of Perspectives on Disability
Susan Baglieri1
, Jan W. Valle2
, David J. Connor3
,
and Deborah J. Gallagher4
Abstract
This article asserts that the field of special education, historically founded on conceptions of disability originating within
scientific, psychological, and medical frameworks, will benefit from acknowledging broader understandings of disability.
Although well intended, traditional understandings of disability in special education have inadvertently inhibited the development
of theory, limited research methods, narrowed pedagogical practice, and determined largely segregated policies
for educating students with disabilities. Since the passage of P.L. 94-142, along with the growth of the Disability Rights
Movements, meanings of disability have expanded and evolved, no longer constrained to the deficit-based medical model.
For many individuals, disability is primarily best understood within social, cultural, and historical contexts.As career-long
educators, the authors describe the emergence of Disability Studies in Education, illustrating ways it offers them the means
to engage with longstanding tensions, limitations, and promises within their chosen field of special education—helping to
reframe, accurately ground, and define their own research and practice.The authors call upon the field of special education
to acknowledge and accept a greater plurality of perspectives about the nature of disability, recognizing the profound
implications this raises for research, and viewing it as a welcome opportunity for ongoing dialogue.
Keywords:
disability studies, special education, inclusion, research
Introduction: Toward Cultivating
Open Dialogue
In the September 2000 issue of Remedial and Special
Education (RASE), a now oft-cited article appeared in
which a disparate group of 15 influential scholars in education
weighed in on an apparent and growing schism within
the field of special education (Andrews et al., 2000).1
The
authors clearly identified a divide between those who conceptualized
special education as merely requiring the
“incremental improvement of a basically sound system”
and those who saw special education as needing the “substantial
reconceptualization of a fundamentally broken system”
(p. 258). Now a decade since the publication of this
article, it appears timely to consider our current state of
affairs in special education by revisiting the five areas of
disagreement originally posed by these authors. In that our
article extends the conversation begun in 2000, we begin
with a brief summary of the points of debate presented by
Andrews et al. (2000).
1. Conceptualizations of Disability
•• Incrementalists, working out of the medical model
of disability, assume that a deficit exists within the
individual—something to “fix, cure, accommodate,
or endure” (p. 259).
•• Reconceptualists frame disability as a social
construction and, while not denying physiological
aspects of impaired function, address disabilities
as they gain meaning in social and cultural
contexts.
1
Long Island University–Brooklyn Campus, NewYork, USA
2
The City College of NewYork, USA
3
Hunter College, NewYork, USA
4
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA
Corresponding Author:
Susan Baglieri, School of Education, Long Island University–Brooklyn
Campus, 1 University Plaza., Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA.
E-mail: susan.baglieri@liu.edu
Remedial and Special Education OnlineFirst, published on March 5, 2010 as doi:10.1177/0741932510362200
2		 Remedial and Special Education XX(X)
2. Purpose of Special Education
•• Incrementalists understand the purpose of special
education as changing the individual through
performance-enhancing interventions.
•• Reconceptualists see the value of enhancing individual
performance but focus more on changing
environmental limitations placed on students with
disabilities.
3. Beliefs About the Expected Outcomes
of Special Education
•• Incrementalists believe special education prepares
students to adapt for the postschool world.
•• Reconceptualists seek the creation of a caring society
that accepts human differences without labeling,
hence stigmatizing, them.
4.The Current State of Knowledge About Special
Education Practice
•• Incrementalists believe the course taken by the field
is set and practices are promising.
•• Reconceptualists claim the knowledge base is limited
and inadequate.
5. Necessary Steps for Improving Special Education
•• Incrementalists continue to support traditional
research, understood to mean scientifically proven
practices to be used by teachers, whose work is
construed as the technical application of interventions
and strategies specific to types of educational
deficiencies.
•• Reconceptualists seek substantial change, calling
for more self-reflective, ethical decision-making
responsibilities for teachers.
The authors, representing both sides of the divide, believed
the opposing position to pose a genuine threat to the wellbeing
of the field. They asked, “Can the distinct views be
reconciled?” and concluded, “We think so” (p. 260).
Since Andrews et al. (2000) first appeared in RASE, proponents
of incremental progress and those seeking a reconceptualization
of special education have continued to
debate, explore, and research the “either/or” nature of these
issues. At the same time, a group of critical special educators
became increasingly engaged with the interdisciplinary
field(s) of Disability Studies (DS), from which the robust
subdiscipline of Disability Studies in Education (DSE)
emerged, complete with tenets that articulate points of connection
and difference between itself and special education
(Connor, Gabel, Gallagher, & Morton, 2008).
In what follows, we offer an overview of DSE, a field
that has attracted scholars, both in the United States and
from around the globe, who are interested in engaging with,
rather than avoiding, difficult questions about the nature of
disability and the educational practices surrounding the phenomenon
of disability. In the process of providing this overview,
we argue that despite what appears to be an apparent
standoff in some quarters, the vast majority of special educators
have more in common with critical special educators
than is usually thought. All of us have an interest in averting
an unnecessary discordance by encouraging a plurality of
perspectives not only about the nature of disability but also
the research and educational practices surrounding the phenomenon
of disability (Danforth, 2006; Paul, 2002).
A Brief History of DSE
The academic discipline of DSE evolved, in part, from
scholars in special education whose foundational works
posed such questions as:
•• What is the nature of disability? (see Bogdan &
Biklen, 1977; Bogdan & Taylor, 1994; Danforth
& Rhodes, 1997; Shakespeare, 1994; Sleeter,
1986)
•• What are appropriate teaching practices for students
with disabilities? (see Heshusius, 1984; Iano,
1990; Poplin, 1988)
•• What counts as research and inquiry in the field of
special education? (see Danforth, 1999; Gallagher,
1998; Heshusius, 1989; Iano, 1986; Poplin, 1987;
Skrtic, 1991).
Perhaps the most contentious issue of all is found in
ongoing debates surrounding inclusive education—in other
words, those arguments concerning where and under what
conditions students with disabilities should be instructed
(see Allan, 1999; Barton, 1997; Kauffman & Hallahan,
1995; Kavale & Forness, 2000, Sapon-Shevin, 1996). In the
years following Andrews et al.’s (2000) optimism about the
possibility for reconciliation, it seems that anything
approaching consensus has, so far, eluded our grasp. More
recently, in fact, it appears that achieving if not a consensus
then perhaps a rapprochement or détente seems less,
rather than more, likely (see, for example, Brantlinger,
1997; Gallagher, 2006; Heward, 2003; Kauffman & Sasso,
2006a, 2006b, Kavale & Mostert, 2003; Sasso, 2001).
Like other forms of oppression, the history of disability
discrimination chronicles a relentless infliction of segregation,
dehumanization, and exploitation. However, unlike
race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, disability as a civil
rights issue has received considerably less public attention.
L. J. Davis (1997a) pointedly observed, “As fifteen percent
of the population, people with disabilities make up the
Baglieri et al.	 3
largest physical minority within the United States. One
would never know this to be the case by looking at the literature
on minorities and discrimination” (p. 1). According
to Fleischer and Zames (2001), the lack of attention is
attributable to two factors. First, disability is often misrepresented
as a “health, economic, technical, or safety issue”
such that “prejudice based on disability frequently remains
unrecognized” (p. xv). Second:
this oversight stems from a collective fear of disability
since everyone is subject to illness, accident, the
declining powers of advanced age—all forms of
human vulnerability. “Handicapism,” also referred to
“ableism,” is the only ‘ism’to which all human beings
are susceptible. (p. xv, emphasis in original)
As most special educators are aware, a major groundswell
demanding equality for people with disabilities emerged
through the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
during the 1960s. In the United Kingdom, the Disabled
People’s Movement was initiated by a proclamation by the
Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation in 1972.
Out of this movement emerged the social model of disability
that reframes, indeed redefines, disability as a set
of restrictions, an identity, and a set of power relationships
imposed on people with impairments (see Oliver, 1990).
The social model of disability, like its American counterpart,
the minority group model, provides modes of inquiry
and understanding that counter ways in which the medical
model has shaped the narratives surrounding disabled persons’
experiences (discussed in greater detail in a subsequent
section of this article). The rights movements in the
United Kingdom and the United States, and the field of DS
inspired by these movements, were instrumental in asserting
disability both as a social phenomenon as well as a civil/
human rights issue.
Over the past three decades, DS has grown to become an
established academic field both international and interdisciplinary
in scope. We emphasize the origin of DS in the activism
of people with disabilities to highlight its conception as a
field strongly rooted in its commitment to social and political
transformation. It has evolved, as Barnes, Oliver, and Barton
(2002) expressed, “from a position of engagement and activism
rather than one of detachment” (p. 2). Today, DS scholars
can be found in the arts and humanities as well as in law,
medicine, and the social and natural sciences.
Many special educators are surprised to learn that the
primary journal addressing interdisciplinary scholarship on
disability, Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ), was founded
in the United States in 1982 as the Disability and Chronic
Disease Newsletter. Shortly after, Disability & Society was
launched in the United Kingdom in 1985. Both are regarded
as flagship journals of the field. In 1986, the establishment
of the Society for Disability Studies (SDS) marked an
important milestone in the development of the discipline.
SDS became affiliated with and named DSQ and has since
published the journal and hosted annual conferences dedicated
to interdisciplinary scholarship on disability.2
During the 1990s, special educators seeking to examine
the ethical, social, and political problems resulting from the
domination of the medical model of disability and its positivist
underpinnings were increasingly drawn to the field
of DS. Those in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the
United States increasingly focused their disability research
on the DS framework using non-positivist and critical theory
methodology. Academics from Europe, Australia, and
New Zealand coalesced within an organization named the
International Council for Inclusive Education. In June 1999,
Linda Ware, with the support of a Spencer Foundation grant,
organized an international conference in Rochester, New York,
that brought many of these scholars together for the first
time in the United States. The conference encouraged continued
international engagement with DS (Ware, 2004).
In December 1999, Scot Danforth submitted a proposal
to the national conference of The Association for Persons
With Severe Handicaps (TASH). The session was titled
Ways of Constructing Lives and Disabilities: The Case for
Open Inquiry. The session’s panelists asked questions, such
as “Why should a person with a disability, a teacher, or a
parent care what academics say in their research and scholarship?”
“Why should you care about the seemingly distant
and esoteric writings in research journals and university
textbooks?” “What is happening in the world of academia
that makes a difference?” The panelists centered their presentations
on the social and political value of current trends
and developments in disability research and scholarship. In
the process, they explored the importance of “open inquiry”
in addressing the social valuation and inclusion of education
of people with disabilities. In short, they made the case that
“open inquiry,” meaning an expansion and diversification
of what is considered legitimate and valuable research and
scholarship, should be welcomed in special education journals,
conferences, and other venues.
Also during the 1999 TASH conference, a group of about
30 disability researchers from around the world gathered
together with the purpose of forging new alternatives to traditional
special education research. They explored innovative
ways of envisioning, writing about, and talking about the lives
and possibilities of people with disabilities, including many traditions
of scholarship (in social science, humanities, arts, spiritual
traditions, etc.) and the numerous voices that have
something of importance to say about disability issues. The
group came to a consensus that the kind of work they were
discussing is best described as “disability studies in education.”
Near the conclusion of this discussion, Susan Gabel
announced that she had taken the initiative to submit an
application to form a new special interest group called DSE
at the American Educational Research Association. This
4		 Remedial and Special Education XX(X)
marked the founding, at least in a formal sense, of the now
thriving field of DSE (Gabel, 2005; Gabel & Danforth, 2006).
Interest and involvement in questions concerning how
various conceptualizations of disability could affect research,
policy, and practice has continued to grow. In June 2001,
a small national conference hosted by National-Louis University
titled Disability Studies in Education: Critical Reflections
on the Themes of Policy, Practice, and Theory was held
in Chicago, Illinois. The conference proved such an enormous
success that it has become an annual event attracting
ever-growing numbers of researchers, academics, teachers,
and others actively seeking a more pluralistic approach
toward theory and practice in educational and rehabilitation
services for people with disabilities.
In defining or characterizing the relatively new field of
DSE, careful consideration has been paid to ensuring that
it retains its commitment to “open inquiry” and honors the
spirit of pluralism on which it was founded. As Taylor
(2006) pointed out:
Neither Disability Studies nor Disability Studies in
Education represents a unitary perspective. Scholarship
in these areas includes social constructionist or
interpretivist, materialist, postmodernist, poststructuralist,
legal, and even structural-functionalist perspectives
and draws on disciplines as diverse as sociology,
literature, critical theory, economics, law, history, art,
philosophy, and others. (p. xiii)
Taylor went on to add that this diversity does not preclude
the existence of “key themes or core ideas” that characterize
DSE, chief among them “the idea that disability is a social
phenomenon” (p. xiii). It is to this core idea that we now turn.
What Is the Meaning of Disability?
Today’s special education programs in American public
schools emerged in a time when children and young people
with disabilities were routinely denied the access to education
that their “nondisabled” peers could take for granted.
The signing of the Education for All Handicapped Children
Act in 1975 (reauthorized in 1997 as the Individuals With
Disabilities Education Act [IDEA] and amended by the
Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act
[IDEIA] in 2004) marked a decisive shift, making the
denial of educational access illegal and thereby putting the
full force of federal legislation behind their right to a free
and appropriate public education. Special educators of all
stripes have remained steadfast in their commitment to
make good on the promise of this legislation. This is an
accomplishment about which we can all be proud, and it
serves as common basis for continued efforts to improve
the educational lives of all children. Even so, the debates
surrounding the provisions of this legislation endure.
Several years before the mandate requiring special education
programs in the public schools, provocative discussions
had begun taking place among scholars about the meaning of
disability. IDEA (1975) did not reflect, and perhaps could not
have reflected, an adequate account of these important discussions
if it was to accomplish its more immediate goal of
advancing educational equality. The fact that unconventional
ideas about the meaning of disability were in their relatively
early stages offers an explanation for why the more familiar
medical model understanding of disability was embedded
into, and thus systematically informed, the new legislation. It
was simply too early and the ideas too new, too unfamiliar
(and possibly too exotic) for any thoroughgoing consensus
about the meaning of disability to emerge at that point.
It was then that scholars in sociology, psychology, education,
and special education began making the case for a minority
group model of disability. In the process, they asserted that
the medical model’s objectivist depiction of disability was neither
as straightforward nor as sufficient as it appeared (Taylor,
2006). In retrospect, the crux of their collective analyses is
actually rather obvious—disability is an idea, not a thing. It is
not that people do not vary or differ from one another in sometimes
very noticeable ways, but to call or think of some of
those differences as “disabilities” is to make a social judgment,
not a neutral or value-free observation. Put differently, it is not
the way in which people vary or the differences they have in
comparison to others but what we make of those differences
that matters. Ultimately, this has an impact on the material consequences
of people with disabilities.
As DSE scholars and former teachers of students receiving
special education services, we do acknowledge that individual
differences may have neurological, biological, cognitive, or
psychological referents. Our collective experiences of teaching
span the decades since the first passage of IDEA to the millennium,
during which time we have experienced and here recognize
the significant contributions of science, technology,
medicine, psychology, law, and institutional practices to the
field of special education. However, our intention is to question
conventional and naturalized ways of thinking about difference
to bring greater balance to the intellectual grounding for understanding
and responding to school failure. We are interested
in generating knowledge about how macrolevel processes—
such as societal attitudes about diversity—intersect with disability
issues as well as how better to understand the ways that
race, class, gender, language, culture, and sexual orientation
shape the experience of disability.
Furthermore, we make a distinction between impairment
and disability. Impairment, as described by DS scholar Simi
Linton (1998), refers to “variations that exist in human behavior,
appearance, functioning, sensory acuity, and cognitive
processing” (p. 2). Disability, on the other hand, is the product
of social, political, economic, and cultural practice. Consider,
for example, the ongoing problem of defining mild disabilities
(e.g., learning disabilities [LDs], mild intellectual/
Baglieri et al.	 5
developmental disabilities (or mental retardation [MR]), and
emotional disturbance (ED). If the definitions of these disabilities
can change, as they certainly have over the years,
then clearly they are the product of judgment. If the criteria
for identifying any of these disabilities involve drawing a
line somewhere between what is and what is not considered
to be LD, MR, or ED, these judgments are necessarily, and at
best, arbitrary. All of this is not to denigrate the role of judg-
ment.3
It is simply to say that the fact that they are judgments
should not be forgotten or disregarded. Such ambiguity creates
confusion for educators and parents alike. For example,
eligibility criteria for high-incidence disabilities (e.g., LD, ED)
may vary from state to state or even district to district. In other
words, a student may become “disabled” or “cured” by crossing
a state or district line. If these disabilities were anything
other than interpretations about certain context-dependent
differences, crossing state or school district lines would not,
and could not, change a student’s disability status.
Educators’ sincere, though frustrated, attempts to distinguish
a child’s cultural and linguistic diversity from a disability
is a further source of confusion that reveals the judgmental
nature of disability. The reason attempting to make such a
distinction is frustrating is because both cultural/linguistic
diversity and disability are differences that are contextdependent
(Connor, 2008; Ferri & Connor, 2006). It is quite
easy to recognize that cultural/linguistic diversity is contextdependent.
Anyone who has traveled to a different country,
even one where his or her first language is widely spoken
albeit with a different accent, knows firsthand that the context
determines his or her status as a member of the majority
or a member of the minority.
It requires a bit more of a conceptual leap to understand disability
as context-dependent, but most of us have had life experiences
that are instructive in this regard.Anyone who has ever
taken a class in which the instructor graded on a curve knows
that a significant portion of the students in that class will experience
low achievement no matter how much they actually
learn. The same holds true, although less overtly, in classes
whose instructor is bent on demonstrating his or her “rigorous
standards” by designing tests guaranteed to result in low grades
for many if not most of the students. Finally, bear in mind that
very capable people can be made to appear quite incompetent
in an academic situation in which most or all of the other students
have more background knowledge, life experience, personal
dispositions, and interest in the subject at hand. This is
the reason the dazzlingly accomplished art major rarely
enrolls in an advanced accounting class or vice versa. Any
one of the above situations, that is to say, contexts, transforms
competence into incompetence, ability into disability.
It is important to note that understanding disability as a
social phenomenon also pertains to what are known as
moderate and severe disabilities as well as physical, visual,
or hearing disabilities. Historical examples of communities
like the Martha’s Vineyard towns of West Tisbury and
Chilmark offer glimpses into contexts in which hearing and
deaf persons’ use of sign language to interact emerged as a
cultural response to a citizenry with high rates of hereditary
deafness, thus exemplifying the viability of an argument to
distinguish impairment from disability (Groce, 1985). In spite
of the example, however, the initial contention is, understandably,
a bit more difficult to come to terms with because
people described as having moderate or severe disabilities
seem so different from those considered nondisabled that
thinking of their differences as socially constructed (the
context-dependent creation of our interpretations) may well
strike one as, well, nonsense. We (the authors) can certainly
relate to this response because initially we also found this
perspective more than a little bewildering.
Yet the lines drawn to produce the “existence” of mild disabilities
are no less arbitrary than those drawn to establish moderate
or severe disabilities. Where, after all, is the cutoff between
nondisabled and mildly disabled, between mildly disabled and
moderately or severely disabled?Are not all of these lines, in the
end, judgment calls? And are not these lines premised on our
beliefs about what constitutes normal, a concept that is itself
context-dependent (see Brantlinger, 2004; L. J. Davis, 1997b;
McDermott & Varenne, 1995)? What is normal in one time and
place is not in another.As L. J. Davis (1997b) has noted,
“a common assumption would be that some concept
of the norm must have always existed. After all, people
seem to have an inherent desire to compare themselves
to others. But the idea of a norm is less a condition
of human nature than it is a feature of a certain
kind of society” (p. 9).
Might we instead consider all of human differences or
diversity normal? Yes, until we decide to do otherwise for
various reasons or purposes, most, if not all, of which are not
so helpful upon careful consideration.
The idea that disabilities having an obvious physiological
referent (e.g., anatomical structure, vision, hearing) are
socially constructed also strikes many as nonsensical. It
seems ridiculous because it appears to deny that some people
cannot walk, see, or hear. To be clear, the fact that some people
cannot walk, hear, or see is not what is being questioned.
What is being questioned is the significance or meaning that
we, as educators, place on those biological differences. This
is not a trivial point, nor is it making too much of what seems
to be a minor issue because the interpretations made about
some people’s differences holds direct and profound implications
for how they are educated in our public schools.
DSE: Implications for Pedagogy
and Practice
A view of pedagogy from a DSE perspective of disability is
aligned with, although not always synonymous with, work
6		 Remedial and Special Education XX(X)
in inclusive education. If we perceive disability as manifest in
interactions among social contexts and bodies and minds—
all of them unique—our work in practice is primarily to
shape learning environments in ways in which all classroom
and school members have access to curriculum and learning
opportunities (Baglieri & Knopf, 2004; Reid & Valle, 2004).
Imagining education as a practice of access can be conceived
through three general considerations:
1.	 Perceiving ability and disability, and ideas about
mastery and learning as fluid.
2.	 Considering how the interactions and settings
contribute to the creation of disability (i.e., make
markers of difference/impairment meaningful as
dis-ablement).
3.	 Querying how pull-out, tracking, or containment
practices both mark individuals as disabled and/
or limit their access to curriculum and learning.
Let us consider, as an example, two of the hottest topics
of inclusive practice in today’s research literature—co-teaching
and modifying/accommodating instruction for students
with impairments, or those labeled with disability. Many, if
not most, of us in DSE struggle with the unintended consequences
of these approaches even though we share the inclusive
ethos that animates them. Our concern centers on the
way that the concepts of accommodation and modification
contribute to the separation or partitioning of types of students
as “special needs” as opposed to “typical” or “general
education.” One way that the concepts of accommodation
and modification contribute to isolation of certain types of
students is that they presume the “rightness” of a normal
(one-size-fits-all) curriculum and set of teaching practices
(Dudley-Marling & Dippo, 1995). If these are unsuccessful
for some students, it is the struggling child who is deemed
problematic, rather than our curricular choices and pedagogical
practices. The students who do not experience success
become the problem to be accommodated and the ones for
whom modifications are needed, which stigmatizes the individual.
Furthermore, left unexamined are the decisions and
practices that led to their struggle. Subsequently, we labor
away at trying to fix or remediate the students rather than
altering the teaching and learning conditions in the
classroom.
In addition, the essentially static baseline from which we
begin to imagine instruction too often creates a situation in
which working with diverse students appears to be extra work
for the general educator in the inclusive setting. Conventional
wisdom suggests that this kind of work is best left up to
those specifically “trained” to teach these students (i.e., the
special educator). Problematic is the division of labor that
can emerge in the co-teaching relationship—most often recommended
for inclusion—that positions the consideration of
particular students as marginal to the “regular” work of teaching.
In turn, a synthetic, detrimental division is created
between special and general educators just as it is between
special and general education students. Thus, the supposed
solution to the problem leads to newer and more intractable
problems, which are well captured in research on co-teaching
arrangements. An old adage appears to apply well here—if
you are in a hole, stop digging.
One approach to getting out of the hole is the use of Universal
Design for Learning (UDL) as a way to approach all
teaching situations, useful to all teachers (Hitchcock, 2002;
Pisha, 2001; Scott, McGuire, & Shaw, 2003). The principal
concept of UDL—universal design—was drawn from
architecture and engineering and refers to the design of
physical spaces that anticipates the diversity among users
of spaces and seeks to design them such that they are both
functional and elegant for the broadest possible constituency.
UDL seeks the same elegance and functionality, as it
offers a conceptualization of planning, teaching, and
learning, which presumes that all students possess unique
sets of strengths and needs. It precludes the unproductive
and rather frustrating need for teachers to make modifications,
a process better understood as retro-fitting instruction
after the fact.
UDL invites us to
(a)	 think broadly about the learning opportunities
(cognitive, social, and emotional) that can be
featured in our curricula and teaching practices,
(b)	 think fluidly about the ways that learners may
choose to or need to interact with the curriculum
and classroom/school space to the maximum
benefit, and
(c)	 recognize and put a stop to educational practices
and arrangements that position general and special
educators as occupying different roles and
responsibilities in the inclusive classroom/school.
Instead of tediously piecing together accommodations
or modifications based on what we believe a learner can or
cannot do (should or should not do), we design in ways that
offer a spectrum of possibility. We structure our teaching
always and already designed for the many ways that learners
can engage learning, thus allowing opportunity to emerge
in each new moment, in each new day.
We acknowledge that the popular idea of Differentiated
Instruction (Tomlinson, 1999) is similar to UDL. Differentiated
Instruction offers a concept of lesson planning that
strives to incorporate diversity into whole-group design by
including modifications that can be made to the learning tasks
offered to students. Three operations of teaching that may be
modified are (a) content, the topics, and skills; (b) process,
the mode of engagement; and/or (c) product, the evidence of
Baglieri et al.	 7
learning. Although promising in its ideals, Differentiated
Instruction—when narrowed into learning operations—too
often materializes as a hierarchical tiering or tracking process.
That is, differentiation assumes a baseline and then modifies
“up” or “down” for particular individuals. Consequently,
it recreates the same divisions it seeks to eradicate. In other
words, precision in leveling emerges as deterministic tracking
and ability grouping in the field of practice, rather than inviting
fluidity in approach.
Practice born in UDL, in contrast, begins with a holistic
conception of the potential for many possible learning experiences,
in which the emphasis shifts from a focus on the
benefits to an individual to the benefit of the whole community,
from determined outcomes to those interpreted through
open inquiry in assessment. When many possibilities are
presented, learners are poised to interact with the multitude
of variations in context that inform whether a task is achievable
one day but not another. Teachers are positioned to
assess and plan based on learner strengths that show themselves
in context, occasionally in surprising ways.
Another approach for educational practice suggested by
DSE relates to centering the stories and desires of disabled
persons to understand disability experiences and in considering
instructional practices for students labeled as having disabilities.
Despite IDEIA’s policy that gives the appearance of
including families and learners in educational planning, special
education remains steeped in an expert discourse that privileges
the opinions and perspectives of professionals over
learners and families. This expert discourse also tends to relegate
educational planning to what is available in the school
rather than what may be most beneficial to the student (Ferguson
& Ferguson, 2006; Solis & Connor, 2006; Valle &Aponte,
2002). For example, it is the school’s prerogative to choose an
oral approach over one that centers on American Sign Language
for students who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing despite the
student’s possible identity as a member of Deaf Culture (Baglieri,
2006).These kinds of choices can have the untoward effect
of precluding the student’s potential for seeing himself or herself
with a Deaf (capital D) cultural identity or, at least making
such an identity unwelcome in the school. In honoring the
preferences of learners and families, we cease imposing barriers
such that they are positioned as the central narrators in
their stories of school and education (Valle & Reid, 2001).
Centering self-narrated stories of disabled persons in our
curriculum for children and in programs of teacher education
is another way to shift the expert-driven discourse to
one that opens to their life experiences in all of their complexity.
Such works as Jonathan Mooney’s (2007) book The
Short Bus and Kenny Fries’s (1997) collection Staring Back
capture the complexity of disabled experiences and resist
the imposed meanings that have been made about them by
others. Categorical views of disability and their labels do
not address the intricacies of the body and mind, identity,
and other ways that they are positioned in schools and society
(Connor, 2008; Harry & Klingner, 2005). Providing a wide
variety of self-narrated accounts can support teachers and
children by revealing and discrediting the deceiving “neatness”
of disability “diagnoses.” The narrative accounts
make clear the failure of these diagnostic categories to contribute
anything meaningful to our interpretations of people’s
differences. Through these narratives, we mitigate beliefs
about disability and disabled lives that lead to divisions
between special and general education and perceptions
(judgments) about groups of children as not-able.
UDL, centering on learners and families, and including
curriculum rooted in disabled persons’ self-narrated experiences
are not concepts, ideas, or theories of practice that are
unfamiliar to our fields of study. We all continue to struggle
with realizing the best our fields can offer in practice, and
teachers continue to contend with under-resourced schools,
state-imposed curricula, and funding formulas that complicate,
indeed hamper, our efforts to support school-wide universal
design. Social models of disability, however, provide
theories of practice that disrupt much that we have taken
for granted in education. Through them, we have the opportunity
to alter the systems in which we seem embedded and
find possibilities for something more workable and satisfying
for everyone. We raise human questions of voice, of
agency, and of the beliefs and commitments of education
for all children.
Research
The issue of voice—that is, who is allowed or not allowed
to tell their stories—figures prominently into how DSE
approaches questions about research and inquiry. Heshusius
(2004) cut right to the heart of the matter, stating that
“[s]cholarship in special education has always been about
the other—about the differing other, about the other that
needs to be measured, ranked, segregated or integrated, remediated,
or adjusted to” (p. 216). Of primary importance to
DSE scholars is taking great care that we do not use research
as a means of excluding the voices of people with disabilities.
Said differently, we aim to use research as a vehicle for
their voices so that they can tell their own stories and share
their own goals, aspirations, and needs (Broderick &
Ne’eman, 2008; J. M. Davis & Watson, 2000, 2001; Keefe,
Moore, & Duff, 2006; Rodis, Garrod, & Boscardin, 2001).
In effect, DSE researchers view research as an emancipatory
tool that affords those who do not hold power in our society
to achieve more equality, more inclusion, and ultimately
more of the dignity they deserve (Mercer, 2002).
One might ask, Isn’t that being ideological? The answer
is an unqualified “yes.” In that all research is, at its core,
ideological (i.e., values-laden), DSE scholars have sought
to bring this condition to the forefront. Rather than pursue
8		 Remedial and Special Education XX(X)
the unattainable goal of research objectivity and neutrality
(a goal they find fundamentally misleading), they turn
instead to the concern about how all researchers construct
knowledge about disability and the consequences this
knowledge has on the lives of those we call disabled.
We would hasten to add here, however, that this does not
mean that DSE scholars take this as a license to be undisciplined,
dishonest, or self-indulgent. In short, it does not mean
that “anything goes.” Like all researchers, they are obligated
to exercise skepticism toward their own interpretations in
the conduct of inquiry. They are emphatically required to
listen to others who raise questions and doubts about their
research knowledge. And they are obliged to concede to
others whose research not only provides a fuller, more consistent,
and lucid account of a given phenomenon but also
to those whose research knowledge results in more worthy
outcomes for the people they serve. Inevitable judgments
about what outcomes are more worthy must be resolved dialogically.
Again, discussion over rival claims unavoidably
involves putting our values on the table for serious scrutiny.
In short, DSE scholars’ recognition that no research methodology
provides foundational objectivity enjoins them to
engage inquiry not only as a technical undertaking but also
as an ethical one—a central organizing idea that honors our
civil rights roots.
Some have found DSE’s position on research methodology
difficult to abide (see Kauffman & Sasso, 2006a, 2006b;
Sasso, 2001). At the core of their disagreement is the belief
that research neutrality and objectivity are possible, and
they wonder why others would contest the authoritative
knowledge claims of “scientific” or “evidence-based” educational
research in special education. The straightforward
answer to this question is that there is no defensible basis for
the claim of scientific objectivity. The methods of scientific
educational research are neither objective nor neutral.
Although this answer appears to fly in the face of generally
accepted beliefs and assumptions, they are just that—
beliefs and assumptions.And these beliefs and assumptions
have been challenged (and soundly undermined) by eminent
philosophers of science as well as scholars in the
social sciences, including education and special education.
Unfortunately, most of us have not been exposed to this
very important work. For our purpose here, we provide a
brief overview with the hope that those interested will pursue
more information on this topic.
One might ask, How can anyone contend that “scientific”
research in education is not neutral and objective? The most
straightforward answer is, Because it is not possible for
researchers to achieve theory-free observation. All researchers
(like all people) view the world from someplace in it, meaning
that all our observations are influenced by our intentions,
experiences (what Gadamer, 1975, calls our “effective histories”),
culture, and values. As philosopher of science Hillary
Putnam (1981) puts it, there is no “God’s eye point of view.”
Similarly, Thomas Nagel (1986) pointed out what is obvious
once we think about it—we cannot view the world from no
particular place in it. There is no such thing as “a view from
nowhere.” If all of our observations as researchers are valuesladen,
that means we are not (and cannot) be neutral and
objective. This is the case in both the physical and social sciences,
but it is especially problematic in the social sciences
because we are dealing with human beings and are interested
in the how they make sense of their social and educational
worlds and how this accordingly influences their behavior.
We always start our research endeavors from a particular position
or set of assumptions. In turn, our position or assumptions
influence what research questions we ask, the specific methods
we choose, the operationalization of variables, selection
of control and experimental groups, outcome measures, and so
on. All of these decisions are choices and are loaded with
researchers’values, whether we recognize it or not.
One might then ask, Well, if we cannot be totally objective,
do not the procedures of science at least make us more
objective than we otherwise would be? No. This is so for a
number of reasons. First, even the statistical formulas we
use do not enforce objectivity. Though the details of this
point are too complex to cover here, it is important to realize
that both the normal curve and the related statistics used in
“scientific” research were developed by people (including
Sir Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and R. A. Fischer) whose
goals were quite ideological. Simply put, their goal was to
lend scientific justification to existing social hierarchies.
More to the point, they wanted to further the goals of the
eugenics movement they founded. This involved the need to
demonstrate conclusively that some people were naturally
(i.e., genetically) inferior to others. Interestingly, that is
exactly what the normal curve appears to accomplish. For
an in-depth analysis of this history, please see Donald
MacKenzie’s (1981) Statistic in Britain 1865-1930.
Second, the concept of partial objectivity is seriously
problematic. To make good on the claim of “partial objectivity”
would require one to then be able to sort out what
part of the research findings is objective and which is not.
How can that be accomplished? The answer is, It cannot,
because we now find ourselves back to the impossibility of
theory-free observation. Third, many people attempt to bolster
the claim of scientific neutrality/objectivity by citing
Karl Popper’s falsifiability thesis, which says that we can
hold research knowledge to be factual or true until it can
be falsified. As Lawrence Hazelrigg (1989) pointed out,
though, this would require being able to verify that the new
knowledge that falsified the old knowledge is true in an
objective sense. Because we cannot do that, we are back
to square one. In beginning to see the circularity of all these
arguments defending the objectivity of scientific educational
research, we are right on the mark. Hazelrigg aptly
Baglieri et al.	 9
refers to this situation as a “wilderness of mirrors” (see
also, Gallagher, 2006).
This situation raises a further question, Can’t “scientific”
research do a better job predicting the probability of some
teaching practices working better than others? Again, the
answer is, No. There are complex issues here, but briefly,
probabilistic generalizations work in the physical sciences
because of the control physical scientists can exercise over
their variables. For this reason, they can pin down the variables
with precision. This means they can achieve genuine
predication and control because they can eventually figure
out why something does not work 100% of the time. This
just is not the case with educational research. The reasons
some educational “intervention” does not work on this day
with these students in this classroom with this teacher (and
so on) are endless. So when an educational researcher claims
that this or that intervention works 80% of the time, all she
or he is really providing us is a list of instances in which the
intervention worked in his or her experimental settings. That
is a far cry from a scientific probabilistic generalization (see
Gallagher, 1998, for a fuller explanation).
Finally, the question has been raised, If both quantitative
and qualitative research cannot claim scientific objectivity,
why not use both?Actually, a case for using both can be made,
so long as both kinds of researchers acknowledge that both
forms of research construct knowledge. That said, we would
add here that there are also some very convincing reasons
why quantitative research procedures can be problematic.
First, there is the problem of reductionism. Because quantitative
research must “operationalize” variables to make them
observable and quantifiable, those variables are necessarily
taken out of the unique contexts of real-life classrooms (Iano,
1986; Poplin, 1987). This leads to the infamous “research
to practice gap” because once we de-contextualize, it is difficult
or impossible to re-contextualize (i.e., to apply the
research in real-life classrooms).
Even scientific special education researchers have
acknowledged and attempted (unsuccessfully) to deal with
this problem (see Gersten, Baker, & Lloyd, 2000); only they
refer to it as the problem of internal versus external validity
(for a fuller examination, see Gallagher, 2004). Second,
quantitative procedures have the unfortunate effect of taking
the moral nature of education and our attendant practices off
the table for discussion (again, see Iano, 1986). These procedures
attempt to determine if an educational intervention
“works,” but they cannot address whether the intervention
is a good thing to do to children. Nor do they allow us to
examine the worthiness of what we are trying to achieve. In
fact, one of the most longstanding arguments against inclusion
is the one that insists that we should not implement it
until it has been shown to be scientifically superior to segregated
special education placements (Kavale & Forness,
2000). Is this a scientific question or a moral question?
Third, research using these procedures distorts the
nature of teaching. It characterizes the act of teaching as a
technical undertaking, turns teachers into quasi-technicians—
exemplified in our earlier discussion of the concept of
Differentiated Instruction made operational—and deprives
educators of their professional autonomy (Iano, 1990).
Finally, and of great importance to DSE scholars, “scientific”
research procedures have the very regrettable consequence
of objectifying people, especially people with disabilities. In
effect, these procedures enjoin us to see them as “subjects”
rather than complex and competent human beings (see
Heshusius quote earlier). Subsequently, we wind up centering
on pathologizing them, asking what’s wrong with them,
how we can fix them, and so on, until eventually they become
the deficient, “disabled” other.
Conclusion: What We Have in Common
Like Andrews et al. (2000), we find no use for the notion
that competing methodological frameworks, ideas, or positions
must inevitably give rise to schisms (or opposing factions)
that make dialogue and action impossible. Nor do
we believe that disagreement must invariably produce
discordance. Much depends on how we approach disagreement.
It can either be welcomed as an opportunity to
deepen and broaden understanding, or it can be met with
resistance and even outright rejection. The latter does not
appear to have served us very well. A refusal to participate
in genuine dialogue rarely does. More often than not, it
leads to a lot of hard feelings and misunderstandings, but
not much else.
Jim Paul (2002) made the case that “the strong resistance
to philosophical changes is a marker for a discipline, or area
of professional practice, being in the ‘parenthesis’of change,
or experiencing the cumulative effects of bracketing ideas
that do not fit within the conventional discourse . . .” (p. 74).
In plainer terms, resistance to dialogue means that change is
closer than it may seem precisely because bracketing ideas
that do not fit within conventional discourse has clearly not
resolved fundamental questions about the nature of various
educational disabilities—or many other problems confronting
special education for that matter.
The evolution of DSE by special educators who felt confined
by the self-imposed limitations of their own discipline
and looked to DS in general has given rise to a diverse body
of knowledge that is globally recognized (Gabel & Danforth,
2008). At its core, DSE holds that understandings of disability
occur through human expectations and interactions
in social contexts. As such, it offers much to the traditional
field of special education, providing various lenses through
which to view disability that, in turn, influence how we
conduct research, the ways that we teach, and the place of
students with disabilities in schools.
10		 Remedial and Special Education XX(X)
As a relatively new and growing field, DSE is interested
in exploring questions that are of importance to all of us.
We, the authors, believe that regardless of one’s particular
academic allegiances, the common ground we all share
happens to be those values that are most important and
most defining. We know of no disagreement in education
about whether people with disabilities should be afforded
full equality. We know of no disagreement that educational
arrangements and teaching practices should reach for the
greatest extent of participation and should strive to eliminate
segregation and isolation. All of us share a commitment
to ensuring the human dignity of all of our students,
regardless of their differences or the sources of their diversity.
We are also aware that everyone shares a common
interest in resolving the most intractable problems or obstacles
standing in the way of achieving these goals.
To accomplish this progress, it is necessary to engage
new thoughts and alternative philosophical perspectives and
to welcome ideas that do not sit easily with current beliefs
and assumptions. For this reason, DSE encourages professional
dialogue that embraces the values of pluralism. We
are convinced that all of us committed to the issues of disability
and education can carry on such a conversation, and
we invite everyone interested to join us.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with
respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
Financial Disclosure/Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or
authorship of this article.
Notes
1.	 Although guidelines of the American Psychological Association
state that only the first six names of a long list of co-authors
should appear (followed by et al.) in a reference citation, we
list all 15 co-authors (see this page) to highlight the breadth of
scholars who debated these issues in RASE.
2.	 SDS still remains the leading organization for DS in the United
States. Of note, because of an increase in interest of DS in the
United States, in 2004 the International Review of Disability
Studies was launched from the University of Hawai’i.
3.	 Here the argument may be raised about the superiority of professional
or clinical judgment over everyday or lay judgment.
The distinction of professional or clinical judgment as superior
has been seriously critiqued and undermined by Danzinger (1994)
and Biklen (1988).
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About the Authors
Susan Baglieri, EdD, is an assistant professor in the School
of Education at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, in
New York. Her interests include teacher education, disability studies,
and inclusive education.
Jan W. Valle, EdD, is an associate professor and the program
director of childhood education at The City College of New York.
Her current interests include disability studies, parents of children
with disabilities, and inclusive classroom practices.
David J. Connor, EdD, is an associate professor in the School of
Education at Hunter College, City University of New York. His
interests include disability studies, inclusive education, and learning
disabilities.
Deborah Gallagher, PhD, is a professor of education at the
University of Northern Iowa. Her research interest centers on the
philosophy of science as it pertains to research, pedagogy, and
policy in education and special education. Among other recent
publications, she is the lead author of a book Challenging Orthodoxy
in Special Education: Dissenting Voices (Love Publishing
Company, 2004), with co-authors Lous Heshusius, Richard Iano,
and Thomas Skrtic.