Special Education Today in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Understanding that the United Kingdom (UK) is made up of four separate but linked countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is an essential starting point for considering Special Needs Education in the UK today. However, while the strong similarities and links between the different countries and their own educational systems often justifies grouping them for general discussion purposes, this can obscure important differences.Differences in national contexts have resulted in variations in special education policy (e.g. in the language used), and practices (e.g. types of data collected), making some direct comparisons difficult -if not impossible. In this chapter, consequently, the shared concerns that are relevant across all of the countries of the UK are discussed broadly, while differences are identified to make the distinctive nature of each country context explicit. Where data are available, some examples are provided to enable the reader to make comparisons.The chapter will consist of 3 major sections each with a number of relevant sub-sections. The common, but mistaken, use of the term England to refer to the UK or Britain reinforces the misunderstanding that the island of Britain is one country. This error further compounds confusion about the relationships between Britain and the other devolved countries of the UK. To clarify this situation, section 1 attempts to contextualise UK developments by, for example, describing changes in the broader UK social milieu within which education -and special needs education -are embedded. We will also discuss developments within the general school system and some of the recent educational agendas being forged within the devolved countries. Section 2 focuses on UK developments with respect to special needs education more generally, as well as emerging trends within each of the devolved countries.