It is difficult to overstate the significance of nation’s education system for children with disability. Of course education is important for all children and mostly children with disabilities

1. Social Care Practice
Name
Institution affiliation
Date

2. Introduction
 Children disability is a multi-dimensional and
complex construct around the world.
 Disability prevalence in Ireland is estimate at 2.4
percent representing 21.9 million people and about
35 percent of people with disability are children (NESF
(2002, p. 2).
 Education is important for all children, but even more
so for disabled children in the society because their
socio-economic opportunities are limited.
 In Ireland, special education system has provided
children with disability advanced access to public
education that has promoted greater inclusion.

3.  Education contributes to an individual’s journey towards
independence and self-reliance.
 Therefore educational institutions should be organized
and designed to meet the various needs of individual
learners.
 Delia and Peggy (2009, p. 586) defines inclusion as
providing support for students with special needs in the
context of regular education settings.
 Children with disability should participate in school’s
attendance equitably in the responsibilities and
opportunities of overall education environment.
 Instruction approaches should also be made
understandable to ensure diversity and benefit all
students.
 Children with special needs requires supplementary aids
and specialized instruction.

4.  Too many disadvantaged children in Ireland grow up
without knowledge and skills necessary for surviving
in the 21st century.
 Low performance level among children with disability
create lasting problems as even the special
population can acquire skills for economic
development.
 Educational inequality, Robert (2005, p. 17) claims,
results from low socio-economic class. However,
discrimination against children with disability has
also been argued to contribute to educational
inequality.
 Social inequality and educational disadvantage
provides adverse impact on schooling outcomes,
labor markets and the school environment.

5.  Education disadvantage is a scenario whereby the
society members derive less benefit from the
education system than their peers.
 Education disadvantage is closely linked with
disability and poverty.
 Substantial research suggests that children with
disability and from poorer socio-economic
backgrounds are more likely to underachieve in the
system of education than their normal peers.
 National Assessment of English Reading indicates
that 3.2 percent of disabled children leaves primary
school with significant literacy problems despite
increase in special needs educational resources and
availability of special education teachers (Shiel,
Cosgrove 2001, p. 98)

6.  Curtails personal and social development and
become prone to social exclusion and poverty
 Reduction in pool of skilled workers from the
special population dimension
 Decreases ability of people with disability to
compete economically.
 Results in foregoing economic benefits and
reduction of human capital.
 Results to reduced efforts to advocate for
their rights and improve health status. (Lipsky
& Gartner 1995, p. 7).

7.  Children with disability face discrimination and
injustices across the nation that contributes to their
exclusion from the for formal and informal education
sector.
 Recent studies suggests that 1-2 percent of children
with disability in Ireland receive education (Hocutt,
1996, p. 89).
 Also, most children with disability in the country that
does not access education accounts for one in five of
the poor people (Hocutt, 1996, p. 89).
 Poverty and lack of education locks out children with
disability into a chronic cycle.
 Therefore, children with disability has less social
contacts, low self-esteem and poor health.

8.  Lack of satisfactory access to children with
disability welfare needs such as sleep and diet.
 Over protection from parents who most likely
lacks tradition in education.
 the failure of educational institution curricula to
reflect and validate the learning styles and
cultural background of children with disability
 High cost of educational participation for
children with disability in terms of specialized
learning resources and supportive services.
 The failure of the education system in Ireland to
address the special needs of children with
various disability issues (Robert 2005, p. 19).

9.  Different cases of disability leads to different
challenges in educational attainment.
 In Ireland, dropout rates are lower among
children with physical and visual impairments
than their peers with mental impairments.
 Children reported as mute or deaf living with eye
or mental impairment are also far less likely to
enroll in school than those with physical
impairment.
 In Ireland, 6-9 year olds with no disability are
enrolled in school while their counterparts with
moving impairments or walking had never been
to school (Johnston 2007, p. 307).

10.  Distribution of education with reference to quantity
and quality is highly uneven Ireland communities.
 Educational inequality among children with disability
depends on their social classes and both territorial
and regions.
 Most children with disability live in rural homes and
the education system differs from urban to rural.
 Educational institutions in urban are well-established
and enjoys better financial allocation and facility
development.
 Most higher learning institutions are concentrated in
urban areas and children in urban areas are favored
for admissions than their peers in rural areas (Lipsky
& Gartner 1995, p. 12).

11.  Children with disability in rural homes are barred
from education that leads to effect of insulating
the educational facilities from being used by
these children.
 Bias in education system is often defended
based on the potential progress of developing
societies.
 Urban bias in education neglects numerous
children with disabilities in villages where
majority lives.
 There is also government bias based on the
method of estimation of the educated manpower
necessities.

12.  Exists in three forms namely; embodied state, institutionalized,
and objectified.
 Cultural capital has led to the explanation of unequal scholastic
achievement of children from different social classes in relation
to success in academics.
 Economist argues that scholastic achievement accounts for
monetary involvements and profits, such as cost of schooling.
 Also, different social classes allocate different time for schooling
because they fail to account for the systemic structure of
differential profit chances offered by various markets.
 Scholastic achievement from educational actions depends on
cultural capital previously invested by the family.
 Previously, scholars have shown deep interest in three different
perspective of social capital: Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Putnam, and
James Coleman (Bourdieu 1986, p. 113).

13.  Pierre Bourdieu was an influential French sociologist
with deep interest in how dominant classes retain
their position and reproduction of society.
 Cultural capital, according to him, is the approach
that people can use cultural knowledge to undergird
their place in the hierarchy.
 He defines social capital as the sum of the resources,
virtual or actual, that accrue to a group or individual
by virtue of processing a durable network of more or
less institutionalized relationship of recognition and
mutual acquaintance (Bourdieu 1986, p. 119).
 Social capital is a tool in the armoury of the elite,
deployed to endure less privillaged people dont enter
their circles.

14.  Consists of familiarities with the dominant culture,
particularly, those with the ability to understand the
use “educated language.”
 Varies with social class, yet education system
assumes cultural capital possession.
 Education system presupposes the possession of
cultural capital.
 Lower class students are disadvantaged in the
competition for educational credentials.
 Social inequalities are legitimated through
educational credentials held by individuals in
dominant positions.
 Therefore, education system leads to maintenance of
the status quo ((Bourdieu 1986, p. 119-122).

15.  Educational inequalities witnessed among
children with disability does not take place solely.
 Theorists explain that social stratifications
influences education that supports the
individuals from higher socio-economic classes.
 Widespread educational inequality that fails to
account for disabled children is a direct result of
socio-economic factors operations.
 Cultural capital influences educational attainment
it accounts for higher allocation of occupational
positions in the labor market.

16. 

 Bourdieu, P. (1986). The Forms of Capital, in Richardson, John G., ed., Handbook
of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, New York: Greenwood.
 Delia M., & Peggy G. (2009). Transition to Preschool Special Education: A Review of
the Literature, Early Education and Development 20, no. 4: 584–602
 Hocutt, A.M. (1996). Effectiveness of special education: Is placement the critical
factor? Special Education for Students with Disabilities, 6(1), 77-102
 Johnston, H. (2007). The Nature and Effectiveness of Irish Policy Interventions in
Addressing Educational Disadvantage’ in Transitions in Youth: Combating
Exclusion. Proceedings of the fourth European Workshop of Network on
Transitions in Youth, Dublin: ESRI & Comb at Poverty Agency, p. 307.
 Lipsky, D.K. & Gartner, A. (1995). National study on inclusion: Overview and
summary report. In National Center on Educational Restructuring and Inclusion
Bulletin, 2(2), 1-8
 NESF (2002). Early School Leavers Forum Report No. 24, Dublin: NESF
 Robert J. (2005). Response to Intervention: An Alternative to Traditional Eligibility
Criteria for Students with Disabilities, Saint Paul: Education Evolving.
 Shiel, G., Cosgrove, J. (2001). Ready for Life: The Literacy Achievements of Irish
15-year-olds with comparative International Data, Educational Research Centre,
Dublin.