The Scientific Knowledge Base of Special Education: Do We Know What We Think We Know?

Abstract

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.

A socio-cultural reframing of science and dis/ability in education: past problems, current concerns, and future possibilities

“…In light of the historical relationship between medicine and dis/ability, it is somewhat unsurprising that public education readily embraced the ''medical model'' as its response to dis/ability (Gallagher 1998). In other words, dis/ability-as conceived within American special education-is understood as a pathological condition intrinsic to the individual that is identifiable through objective ''scientific'' assessment and presumably responsive to remediation that seeks to restore or approximate ''normalcy'' (Brantlinger 2004).…”

Who “Owns” Dis/ability? The Cultural Work of Critical Special Educators as Insider–Outsiders

“…In previous decades, critical special educators were often outliers with an idea that piqued the field's interest or pricked its conscience, such as Heshusius's (1989) desire to imagine viewing difference from non-mechanistic paradigms, Gallagher's (1998) questioning of basic assumptions, Skrtic's (1991) structural analysis of inequities, and Reid and Valle's (2004) reframing of learning dis/ability. There is now a critical mass of scholars offering an alternative framework of conceptualizing dis/ability (for tenets of DSE, see Connor, Gabel, Gallagher, & Morton, 2008).…”

Ethics and Special Education

“…The context of this debate has changed dramatically during the past three decades. Different kinds of questions are being raised now, including not just what we know but also how we know it (Gallagher, 1998).…”

“…Can an adequate account of a child's success in school be given in objective terms, or is it so embedded in experience and culture that only narrative accounts are meaningful? These and other epistemological questions have been raised in limited ways within special education over the past decade (Danforth, 1995;Gallagher, 1998;Kauffman, 1999;Reid, Robinson, & Bunsen, 1995) and debates have been difficult and, at times, even rancorous. Those defending more traditional positivist understandings are concerned about relativism and the practical implications of nonpositivist epistemologies for teaching children with disabilities (Kauffman, 1999;Sasso, 2001).…”