Special Education

Alongside our growing concern was a sense that the state of theorising in special education was complex, not to say confused. On the one hand, the certainties which underpinned the pioneering work of Burt and Schonell seemed to have disappeared. In their place had arisen a multiplicity of positions ranging from the powerful advocacy of new approaches to difference based on an unequivocal commitment to principles of equity and inclusion to subtle deconstructions of special education based on sophisticated theories of organisational types, or of professional learning or of social interests. On the other hand, much practice and research in the field of special education seemed to be proceeding on a pragmatic basis, as though these newer ideas simply did not exist. Above all, it was clear that, if a single reliable theory on which special educational practice could be based had ever existed, no such simple and universal relationship between theory and practice was now possible.

In view of this situation, it seemed to us that the time was ripe for issues of theory in special education to be placed centre stage. It is evident that the project of theorising special education is important to us and, indeed, in very different ways, to our contributors. But is it important beyond that? Does it matter to practitioners and policy-makers, or, indeed, to the learners who are the supposed beneficiaries of special education?

Our answer is that, the business of theorising is not simply necessary in special education, but is inevitable. Following Schon (1983a, b), we would argue that any form of purposeful action at the very least implies a theory. Simply in order for that action to be purposeful-to be directed at making a difference to the world in order to achieve some goal or other-there must be a set of assumptions of the order of : 'this part of the phenomenal world is such that action of the sort y is likely to produce outcome x'. Such assumptions are theoretical in the very basic sense-but a sense that we accept-that they move beyond a simple description of observed phenomena towards an explanation of how those phenomena come to be, how they interact, and how they might be changed.

Such implicit 'theories in action' may, of course, be made more or less explicit. They may be articulated as the relatively unproblematised assumptions of individual or social groups about their worlds. They may be subsequently developed into local theories which might, for example, suggest how to organise a school, or how to teach particular children. These theories may be further extended in their range, their precision and their coherence so that they become what we might call 'theory proper'-the sorts of theories which offer accounts and explanations of particular 'types' of special needs, for instance, or which seek to explain the historical origins of special education, or which account for special education as the product of professional self-interest.

In the first place, it does not attempt to develop a single 'theory of special education'. The diversity of types of theory, the nature of theorising as a process, and the dependency of that process on the assumptions, interests and priorities of particular contexts make such a venture meaningless. Whatever our past histories and however else we might identify ourselves in other contexts, we do not write here primarily (if at all) as members of other key stakeholder groups in special education. Confusion is not, therefore, necessarily symptomatic of incoherence or doubt but a recognition of the real diversity that exists within the field. We would not wish to claim that the contributions in this book would necessarily lead to an ending of this complexity. What we would hope is that by bringing together a number of contributions into this one volume we can create a point of reference for those who share our belief that the process of theorising in special education remains underdeveloped.