Page 46 - Looking_after_school

Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in education

(and is) often used in this case is that having separate educational sys-
tems impedes social integration. This idea hopes to avoid “the delin-
quency of general education” and to place ‘special’ students as much
as possible in a normal setting where their special educational needs
are considered as much as possible (Dunn, 1968). This forms the basis
for policies of integration which broaden the scope of care and sup-
port at schools (mainstreaming). Exclusion from regular education
thus becomes something which needs justification. In a way, it is only
legitimised as a last resort, for instance when the purpose of regular
education is impacted too greatly.
In the 1980s and 1990s there was a more radical discussion on segre-
gation due to the rise of the ‘inclusive schools movement’ (Fuchs &
Fuchs, 1994). In contrast to a segregated school system, support grew
in favour for the development of a single educational system (Gart-
ner & Lipsky, 1987, p. 387). This would mean that special education
would have to be phased out and eventually closed, which would
also necessitate reforms of the regular school system so that it could
accommodate every student. The starting point for a system such as
this is the “uniqueness of individuals – the premise that all students
are unique individuals, each with his/her own set of physical, intel-
lectual, and psychological characteristics, and, as such, institutions
should consider the educational needs related to this uniqueness.”
(Stainback & Stainback, 1984, p. 103) Typical for this perspective is that
it no longer starts from a group of students that can be divided into
normal/regular and abnormal/special. The idea that we should take
special educational needs into account next to regular educational
needs is replaced by the idea that every student has specific, unique
needs. The building blocks of this form of educational organisation
are an adaptable curriculum, tailored instruction, and individualised
strategies of teaching.
This perspective thus challenges the use of the norm that categorises
students of being less or more normal from the outset and which then
assigns these students to separate learning paths, groups, or systems
of education. This perspective also blurs the lines between education
and care, between being a student and being someone in need of care,
and between learning and developing; since everybody has specific
needs, there will always be a need for care of some sort. Using a single

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