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.
Leading scholars in special education acknowledge that the field has recently come under intense public criticism. Various defenses have been offered, including the lack of appropriate conditions under which to implement the knowledge base of special education. The nature of this knowledge base is examined, in particular the claim that special education possesses scientifically derived technologies. Specifically, a case is made that the term “science” is misused, and that the methods of empiricist science are inappropriately applied to study of special education. It is concluded that many, if not most, of the criticisms leveled at special education can be traced back to this misunderstanding of science. As a result, the field would do well to reconsider its philosophical ancestry.
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