virginia - please post this reply to Nate....
Nate -
I'll reply to your specific question about how the field of special
education reacts to academics who describe disorders or disabilities as
social constructions. Historically, the two disciplinary traditions that
have formed the foundation of special education research and thought are
psychological measurement and behavioral psychology (see Tom Skrtic's work
on this). Special education has traditionally emphasized the use of
norm-referenced measures for purposes of accurate diagnoses and behavior
modification as the primary form of intervention/treatment.
Epistemologically, this makes for a field that holds pretty strongly to
objectivism. The disorders are assumed to be "in" the kids. We use
psychometrics to diagnose accurately who has it and who doesn't. Behavioral
approaches to treatment and instruction provide the most scientific means of
improving an individual's functioning.
Not surprisingly, special educators who espouse other than a non-objectivist
epistemology, who do not embrace psychometrics and behaviorism, tend to be
viewed as pretty odd. The work in the 1980's of Lous Heshusius and Mary
Poplin fit this bill. What is changing right now, though, is that the
non-objectivists (interpretivists, feminists, symbolic interactionists,
socioculturalists, social constructionists, whatever) are growing in number.
We (this malcontent rabble) recently formed a new AERA SIG called Disability
Studies in Education to provide a forum for support and growth of all these
non-positivist forms of scholarship. We've been finding that many doc
students who are joing the DSE are looking for legitimate ways of moving
beyond the behaviorism of their professors. It is becoming more difficult
for the traditional special educators to simply see this growing bunch as
strange but insignificant crew of oddballs.
In the past five years, I've published a few papers that take a social
constructionist slant on disorder/disability. Based on my experience, I can
say that some special educators have reacted with defensiveness and even
outrage. I've been called a "quack" and my writing "quackery" in print. I've
been verbally assaulted by strangers at conferences (they read my nametag).
US special education journals generally provide little opportunity for
social constructionist perspectives. Many of my friends rarely or never
publish in special education journals (Virginia and I submitted this ADHD
paper to an anthro journal). My last article was published in Disability &
Society, a leading British journal of the sociology of disability, after two
US special education journals rejected it without review. Another leading US
special education journal, Behavioral Disorders, recently (Dec. 99)
published an editorial policy requiring that all papers adhere to a
"positivist" orientation to science. To a very powerful (control most
journals), old school bunch of special educators, the very moral fibre of
our profession depends on a medical model of disability and an objectivist
epistemology.
Scot
At 09:07 AM 3/14/00 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Virginia Navarro, Ph.D.
>University of Missouri, St. Louis
>8001 Natural Bridge Road
>St. Louis, MO 63121
>(314) 516-5871
>Virginia_Navarro@umsl.edu <mailto:Virginia_Navarro@umsl.edu
<mailto:Virginia_Navarro@umsl.edu> >
>FAX: (314) 516-5784
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Nate [mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu]
<mailto:[mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu]>
><mailto:[mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu]
<mailto:[mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu]> >
>Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 9:27 PM
>To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
<mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> >
>Subject: RE: illness and moral culpability
>
>Scot said:
>Nate said that "deconstructing certain discourses carry a higher
price
>than others." The danger of deconstructing ADHD is, if we push to
the
>extreme, that we might no longer view issues of childhood
(mis)behavior
>and school achievement in terms of individual pathology and
treatment
>model of medicine. For all those kids and families who have found
some
>degree of satisfaction by way of diagnosis and treatment, it is a
loss.
>That can't be denied. On the other hand, we have to wonder what
this
>means for our schools and families and communities when the medical
>metaphors of pathology are increasingly applied to childhood. Do
human
>activities necessarily benefit when they are medicalized? Is it
>necessarily safe when new aspects of everyday life are viewed as
medical
>phenomena to be treated, adjusted, augmented, controlled? I think
there
>are dangers in conflating medicine with morality such that
alternative
>ways of conceptualizing, talking about, and addressing lived
experience
>(e.g. human relationships, moral decisions) become difficult to
arrange.
>Scot Danforth
>Virginia, Scot,
>
>I was mostly playing devil's advocate. First, I agree with
everything
>above and these aspects of ADHD must not go unaddressed.
>As far as a devil's advocate, in looking at the xcma archives some
of
>the harshist critiques of Coles were from psychologist or those in
his
>field. I think in many ways McDermett and others are a little
safer in
>that the medical discourse is not taken to task as strongly. One
can go
>about critiqueing, deconstructing "truth" of a "social" nature or
maybe
>we should say the soft truths, but when one takes on the "hard"
truths
>it becomes different.
>Special ed has its connections with development in that there is a
>strong relationship with medical discourses. You mention the danger
of
>conflating medicine with morality, yet I would have a difficult
time
>imagining how they could be seperated. For one, in both
development and
>special education there has always been a strong moral conponent
and
>often been seen as "progressive" or "liberating". This is mostly
devil's
>advocate now, but I can see the argument being made that a
diagnosis of
>ADHD is much better than moral pathology. This is not my reading,
but a
>reading that will nevertheless exist if the article is published in
>special education journals.
>So, I am curious as one in the field of special ed what has been
the
>reaction to this line of argument. I think when anthropoligists do
this
>kind of stuff its one thing, but when someone in the field does it
the
>reaction is different.
>I enjoyed the paper very much.
>Nate Schmolze
>http://www.geocities.com/nate_schmolze/
><http://www.geocities.com/nate_schmolze/
<http://www.geocities.com/nate_schmolze/> >
>schmolze@students.wisc.edu <mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu
<mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu> >
>
>
>************************************************************************
>****
>****************
>"Overcoming the naturalistic concept of mental development calls
for a
>radically new approach to the interrelation between child and
society.
>We have been led to this conclusion by a special investigation of
the
>historical emergence of role-playing. In contrast to the view that
role
>playing is an eternal extra-historical phenomenon, we hypothesized
that
>role playing emerged at a specific stage of social development, as
the
>child's position in society changed in the course of history.
>role-playing is an activity that is social in origin and,
consequently,
>social in content."
> D. B. El'konin
>************************************************************************
Virginia Navarro, Ph.D.
University of Missouri, St. Louis
8001 Natural Bridge Road
St. Louis, MO 63121
(314) 516-5871
Virginia_Navarro@umsl.edu <mailto:Virginia_Navarro@umsl.edu>
FAX: (314) 516-5784
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