The value of, and need for, parent-professional partnership is an unchallenged mantra within policy relating to 'special educational needs'. In spite of this, partnership continues to be experienced as problematic by both parents and professionals. This paper brings together the different perspectives of two disability researchers: one is a parent of a disabled child while the other was a teacher for twenty years of children with the label of autism. The paper deconstructs the concept of partnership and then, drawing on the expertise of parents, suggests how enabling and empowering parent-professional relationships might be achieved. Terminology and scope of the paperThis paper makes reference to two doctoral studies (Hodge, 2006; RunswickCole, 2007) the focus of which was experiences of parenting disabled children.The combined number of parents participating in the studies was twenty seven; some of their children attended mainstream settings and others were at special school. Twenty one parents were interviewed by Runswick-Cole about their experiences of engaging with the special needs tribunal. Six parents participated with Hodge in a year long study, recording their involvement with the process for 'diagnosing' autism in their children. We are acutely aware of the importance of the agency and the views of young people themselves (James and Prout, 2001) and acknowledge that, with some exceptions (Watson et al., 1999), these have 2 been ignored by researchers in the past. However, parents' experiences are also often undervalued (Ryan and Runswick-Cole, in press), so our intention is to focus on the parental voice. However, we acknowledge that other stakeholders' views, including those of children, are of key importance and, yet, are not represented here.

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(DES, 1978) introduced the phrase 'special educational needs' into the UK education system. The argument here is for the abandonment of the special needs discourse, claiming that it has, in fact, led to exclusionary practices within education. Building on the work of early years educators in Reggio Emilia schools in Northern Italy, we advocate for the adoption of the phrase 'educational rights' and suggest that the positive impact of such a linguistic turn would be significant for the lives of children currently described as having 'special educational needs'.

School is a site of critical importance in the development of self, yet little is known about the ways in which school affects how autistic pupils come to describe and evaluate themselves. Educators are centrally positioned to support autistic pupils with development of an empowered sense of self. This article reports on a study which captured how staff in four English schools understood development of sense of self for autistic pupils. We found that educators perceived autistic pupils as being affected by both a particular biology and their social encounters with others. Our participants identified the school environment as a significant influencer on sense of self development but seemed uncertain how to make this more enabling. We suggest that one response could be to develop a framework of activism engagement in schools that might enable autistic pupils to work collectively with other autistic people towards a positive sense of self.

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