Linear Dichotomy Essay
While we may except that disability is a personal characteristic it is important to consider that it is not a unitary concept like race and gender (Shakespeare, 1993). There are many different types of disability and with these come different experiences of disability, oppression and the psycho-emotional dimensions of disability (Reeve, 2002). Also the concept of disability is not linear (Reeve, 2002). People can be disabled when completing one task yet not disabled when completing another (). For example a deaf student may be disabled when asked to listen to a cd and write down how it makes them feel but not if they are required to look at a picture and write down how that makes them feel. So treating disability as a linear dichotomy is to
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Even for those disabilities that are considered as a spectrum, such as Autism Spectrum disorder, students are still labelled as Autistic or not. By requiring schools to classify a group of children as having additional needs to the rest, SEN policy requires schools to act as if there is a point somewhere along the spectrums of abilities and behaviours that there students’ display that separates those who are normal from those who are not ( 1981 Education Act? – might be a later one). A child considered to have SEN could have far more traits in common with many children the education system considers ‘normal’ than the other children labelled with SEN. Yet they are labelled as diametrically opposed to these ‘normal’ students and their school experience is affected far more by their label of SEN than by all the characteristics they share with the rest of the school populous. They are entitled to different levels of support () their behaviours and underlying intentions are interpreted differently () they may have far higher levels of adult supervision and surveillance () and they are considered by staff and students to be ‘different’ to majority of the ‘normal’ students (). Hence diagnostic labels may serve to reinforce this idea that disability is a unitary dichotomy and construct ideas of normalcy and otherness (Humphrey, 2000).
This unitary view of disability has led to debates within the
Even for those disabilities that are considered as a spectrum, such as Autism Spectrum disorder, students are still labelled as Autistic or not. By requiring schools to classify a group of children as having additional needs to the rest, SEN policy requires schools to act as if there is a point somewhere along the spectrums of abilities and behaviours that there students’ display that separates those who are normal from those who are not ( 1981 Education Act? – might be a later one). A child considered to have SEN could have far more traits in common with many children the education system considers ‘normal’ than the other children labelled with SEN. Yet they are labelled as diametrically opposed to these ‘normal’ students and their school experience is affected far more by their label of SEN than by all the characteristics they share with the rest of the school populous. They are entitled to different levels of support () their behaviours and underlying intentions are interpreted differently () they may have far higher levels of adult supervision and surveillance () and they are considered by staff and students to be ‘different’ to majority of the ‘normal’ students (). Hence diagnostic labels may serve to reinforce this idea that disability is a unitary dichotomy and construct ideas of normalcy and otherness (Humphrey, 2000).
This unitary view of disability has led to debates within the