The missing piece of the puzzle : the voices of disabled students within inclusive education practices

Abstract

This dissertation is inspired by a Foucauldian theoretical perspective and explores whether and to what extent inclusive education practices allow disabled students voices to be heard and their own educational goals to be realised equitably. The basis of the research objective is based on the idea that the students voices are imperative in their Individualised Educational Programme. Therefore, from a critical disability studies standpoint and emancipatory aspiration, I embarked on this dissertation to give prominence to the five participating disabled students voices throughout this study. In using critical discourse analysis within a Foucauldian framework, I analyse the genealogy and archaeology of the students discourses. Furthermore, I delve into the discourses of the participating students educators and subsequently probe into how these discourses are linked with inclusive education policies and practices. The most notable themes which emerge from the qualitative techniques used in the study are: the disabled students muffled voices; their missing peer relationships and their ignored adolescent identity; the schools disability stigma; the educational system acting as a barrier to inclusion; and the systems medical approach to inclusive education. Following these emerging themes, I take a Foucauldian stance and draw on Foucaults box of tools to explore how they are linked to discourses of power and normalisation and consequently to the stigmatised identity of the disabled student. In particular, this study illustrates that depie he fac ha inclusive edcaion is presented as a more progressive/emancipatory model, it is still ridden with similar poblem aociaed ih he olde paadigm of pecial edcaion need. The participating students voices reveal that they are indistinct or muffled by the educators and professionals dominant voices. Moreover, the participants discourses depict disability as a negative personal feature which is defined in relation to normalcy. Consequently, this study evinces that disabled students IEPs are formulated to somehow fit students within societys normalised standards. Nevertheless, when through this study disabled students were made aware of the social construction of their disability, they showed determination to transform their subjugated identities into empowered selves.