Changing policy and legislationin special and inclusiveedu.docx

Changing policy and legislation
in special and inclusive
education: a perspective from
Northern Ireland
Ron Smith
It is now 15 years since the signing of the 1998 Belfast (or
‘Good Friday’)
Peace Agreement which committed all participants to
exclusively
democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences, and
towards a
shared and inclusive society defined by the principles of respect
for
diversity, equality and the interdependence of people. In
particular, it
committed participants to the protection and vindication of the
human
rights of all. This is, therefore, a precipitous time to undertake a
probing
analysis of educational reforms in Northern Ireland associated
with
provision in the areas of inclusion and special needs education.
Conse-
quently, by drawing upon analytical tools and perspectives
derived from
critical policy analysis, this article, by Ron Smith from the
School of
Education, Queen’s University Belfast, discusses the policy
cycle asso-
ciated with the proposed legislation entitled Every School a
Good

School: the way forward for special educational needs and
inclusion. It
examines how this policy text structures key concepts such as
‘inclu-
sion’, ‘additional educational needs’ and ‘barriers to learning’,
and how
the proposals attempt to resolve the dilemma of commonality
and dif-
ference. Conceived under direct rule from Westminster (April
2006),
issued for consultation when devolved powers to a Northern
Ireland
Assembly had been restored, and with the final proposals yet to
be
made public, this targeted educational strategy tells a
fascinating story
of the past, present and likely future of special needs education
in
Northern Ireland. Before offering an account of this work, it is
placed
within some broader ecological frameworks.
bs_bs_banner
PERSPECTIVE FROM NORTHERN IRELAND
© 2014 NASEN
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8578.12081
Key words: critical policy analysis, special educational needs,
inclusion,
Northern Ireland, transitional society, dilemma of difference,
transformative project

The broader context
No matter the other similarities and differences between
Northern Ireland (NI)
and the other three nations of the UK, it is important to set NI
educational
developments in general, and inclusive education developments
specifically,
against the backdrop of almost three decades of political
violence which saw over
3,700 people killed, and tens of thousands of people injured.
The declaration of
ceasefires by paramilitary groups in 1994 created an
opportunity for political
dialogue that led, in April 1998, to the Good Friday Peace
Agreement. The Good
Friday Peace Agreement represented an attempt at a
fundamental shift within
society, a shift away from a ‘culture of violence’ through the
establishment of new
democratic structures. It enshrined commitments to pluralism,
equality and
human rights for all as essential parts of the settlement. It is
now 15 years since
the Agreement, and, while it represented social and political
possibilities of
immense significance, to imagine that NI had crossed some
invisible rubicon
where social conflict magically disappeared would be naive. A
realistic assess-
ment of the present peace process suggests that peace remains
as yet an unfilled
dream. Northern Ireland is best thought of as a transitional
society within which,
as argued by Barr and Smith (2009), the concept of educational
inclusion needs to
make connections with the social and political environment writ

large. In other
words, it needs to be viewed broadly as a transformative project
in pursuit of a
society where there is equality among socially differentiated
groups who mutually
respect one another and affirm one another in their differences
(Young, 1990). As
Slee (2011) has argued, schooling ought to be an apprenticeship
in democracy,
and inclusion a perquisite of a democratic education.
Segregation features in almost every aspect of life in NI: people
live, socialise,
work and shop in areas where they feel safe (Leitch &
Kilpatrick, 1999).
Unsurprisingly, segregation also remains a distinctive
characteristic of the school
system. The vast majority of children and teachers attend
schools that can be
described as either Protestant (controlled) or Catholic
(maintained) schools. There
has been a trend towards integrated schools that are attended in
roughly equal
numbers by Protestant and Catholic students, although,
currently, only 7% of the
student population attend such institutions (DENI, 2014).
© 2014 NASEN British Journal of Special Education · Volume
41 · Number 4 · 2014 383
Northern Ireland retains a selective secondary education system
as a result of
transfer tests which are no longer regulated by the state because
of contentious

and unresolved policy changes relating to selective secondary
education. This
means that, at the age of 11, children in NI are segregated at the
post-primary
stage by ability, and, in some cases, by gender. Prior to 2008
and the Good Friday
Peace Agreement, NI followed a curriculum framework similar
to the English
National Curriculum. However, from that date, a revised
‘Northern Ireland Cur-
riculum’ was implemented. This aimed to better provide access
to the skills and
competences perceived as more relevant to a twenty-first-
century economy,
provide a rich entitlement and greater choice and enable
teaching to be adapted
more readily to meet pupils’ individual needs and aspirations.
The curriculum also
includes the study of the Irish language in all maintained
schools and Irish is the
language of instruction in a small number of Irish-medium
schools (Smith,
Florian, Rouse & Anderson, 2014).
In recent years, policy initiatives in NI have prioritised issues
of school
improvement, raising standards, and addressing
underachievement in literacy
and numeracy (for example, DENI, 2008, 2011). International
commitments to
establish the ability to read and write as a basic human right
(UNESCO, 2000)
have been mirrored in NI by concerns to raise the literacy and
numeracy stand-
ards of all children and young people – concerns brought to the
fore by a

number of influential enquiries and reports critical of the extant
situation (see,
for example, House of Commons Public Accounts Committee,
2006; NIAO,
2006).
Special needs education in NI
The philosophy underpinning educational special needs
legislation and guidance
in NI has historically closely mirrored developments in
England. For example, the
present framework was effectively outlined in the late 1970s
when the English
Government established a committee of inquiry, chaired by the
philosopher (now
Baroness) Mary Warnock, to undertake a review of special
education policy and
provision. The recommendations of the committee, outlined in
the Warnock
Report (DES, 1978), formed the basis of the the Education
Scotland Act (1980)
(SOEID, 1980); the 1981 Education Act in England and Wales
(DES, 1981); and
the Education Order (1984) in NI (DENI, 1984), which took
place from January,
1986. These Acts attempted to shift the focus of special
education away from the
comfortable certainty of categorical handicaps towards a
consideration of learn-
ing needs and the overarching concept of special educational
needs (Smith et al.,
2014).
384 British Journal of Special Education · Volume 41 · Number
4 · 2014 © 2014 NASEN

More recently too, disability discrimination legislation has been
introduced into
the education services in NI through the Special Educational
Needs and Disability
(NI) Order 2005. This enhanced the rights of children and
parents by prohibiting
discrimination against students – and prospective students –
with disabilities.
Discrimination was defined as failure to make reasonable
adjustments, or the
provision of less favourable treatment, for a reason related to
the pupil’s disability.
Consequently, similar to the situation in England, as described
in this journal by
Norwich (2014), schools as responsible bodies now have duties
regarding stu-
dents with disabilities alongside their responsibilities under the
special educa-
tional needs legislation.
There are 4,600 students in 40 special schools in NI and this
represents 1.4% of
the student population (EADSNE, 2012). Since 2003–2004,
special school
enrolments have remained relatively static. In addition, there
are over 100 units
in NI attached to primary or post-primary schools that provide
mainly for chil-
dren identified as having moderate learning and/or speech and
language diffi-
culties (Smith et al., 2014). The total population of students
identified as having
special educational needs has risen by approximately 2,000
every year since

2008–2009. Twenty-one percent of students in mainstream
schools are placed on
the special educational needs registers (3.3% having Statements
of special edu-
cational needs, and 18% at stages 1–4 of the Code of Practice;
EADSNE, 2012).
Schools in NI have yet to be designated as public bodies for the
purposes of
section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act (1998). Consequently,
they are not pres-
ently obliged to ensure equality of opportunity for all children
when carrying out
their functions, including assessing the impact of all school
policies (Bryne &
Lundy, 2011). Worryingly, similar to the situation in both the
USA (for example,
Donovan & Cross, 2002) and England (for example, Strand &
Lindsay, 2009),
there is some evidence that students from certain minority
groups in NI are
being labelled as having special educational needs at rates that
are dispropor-
tionate to their presence in the student population as a whole
(Black, 2014).
Consequently, as Kilpatrick and Hunter (2006) intimated, much
remained to
be done before the school system in NI could be said to be
inclusive of all
children.
Every school a good school: the way forward for special
educational needs and
inclusion
Shortly after devolved powers were restored to a Northern
Ireland Assembly
(October 2009), the new NI Minister of Education initiated a

process of public
consultation on the policy text formally entitled: Every School a
Good School: the
way forward for special educational needs and inclusion (DENI,
2009, 2012a,
41 · Number 4 · 2014 385
2012b). Perhaps uniquely in the history of NI policy making,
this policy text was
conceived under direct rule from Westminster (April 2006) and
consulted upon at
a time when devolved powers had been restored to a Northern
Ireland Assembly
(October 2009). In April 2012, the Education Minister presented
his recommen-
dations, or ‘direction for travel’, to the Education Committee of
the NI Assembly;
however, at the time of writing, the final text remains
unpublished.
The Way Forward consultation document, locally referred to as
the ‘Fundamental
Review of Special Educational Needs and Inclusion’, or simply
‘the Fundamental
Review’, envisioned ‘a new stronger, more comprehensive,
more robust, inclusive
framework’ (DENI, 2009), and presented an extremely
comprehensive range of
policy proposals addressing issues such as: early identification;
partnership
working; capacity building; early years provision; improving
the learning of all

pupils; replacing the terminology of special educational needs
with the (arguably)
more inclusive idea of ‘additional educational needs’; re-
naming SENCos as
learning support co-ordinators; shortening the staged
assessment and intervention
process known as the Code of Practice; the co-location of multi-
agency profes-
sionals; replacing Statements of special educational need with
Co-ordinated
Support Plans (CSPs); introducing Personal Learning Plans;
and, uniquely for a
NI document, the desire to see a fundamental change in the way
educational
professionals conceptualised diversity in special needs
education:
‘There is sometimes a perception within schools that barriers to
learning
need to be “fixed” (usually with additional support) to ensure
that the child
can “fit” in with a school’s way of working. Many
educationalists are now
coming to realise it is the school’s duty to ensure that the child
is supported
and makes the necessary progress. We wish to move away from
the in-child
deficit model to a much wider approach in which additional
educational
need is a concept in which SEN is an integral element. The
proposals aim to
encourage schools and other educational settings to recognise
the diversity
of pupils within their population and accept responsibility to
address their
needs without recourse to external assistance except in the more

complex
cases.’
(DENI, 2009, p. 7)
While the reasons for the Fundamental Review were
overwhelmingly framed in
instrumental terms (for example: the bureaucracy of the current
special educa-
tional needs framework, inconsistencies and delays in
assessment and provision;
the steeply rising cost of the provision for special educational
needs; the year-on-
year increase in the number of children issued with Statements;
and the need for
4 · 2014 © 2014 NASEN
clear accountability on resource utilisation), the more value-
based strains within
the proposals provided much encouragement to practitioners and
researchers who
had long advocated for a genuine ‘re-visioning’ of the special
educational needs
task. On the occasion of the introduction of the Code of Practice
in NI, some 25
years earlier, just such a re-visioning had been recommended by
Alan Dyson and
his team (Dyson & Millward, 1998). As part of their DENI
commission to
baseline the introduction of the special educational needs Code
of Practice, they
intimated that policy and practice in many NI schools were

based on a model
which was not fully aligned with the model implied by the
Code. Discerning
practitioners read this comment as suggesting that extant
practice was under-
pinned by a deficit model of special educational needs
including: a narrow
conception of special educational needs (relating principally to
difficulties in
literacy and numeracy); a tendency to respond to those
difficulties outside the
mainstream class (in withdrawal groups or ‘bottom’ sets); and
undeveloped ideas
of how children identified with a wide range of special
educational needs could be
supported throughout the school.
Third-way sensibilities: a source of continuity or discontinuity?
People live their lives through the socially constructed
meanings that are avail-
able to them, and these meanings – ‘these discourses’ – are
provided by those
in positions of power, and they construct the realities within
which we live
(Bottery, 2000). With this in mind, Ball (1994) helpfully
encourages us to
appreciate the way in which policy texts exercise power through
the production
of truth and knowledge as discourse. Thus, in these terms,
policies are primarily
discursive; they change the possibilities we have for thinking
‘otherwise’ (Ball,
1994).
As suggested above, the present framework was effectively
outlined by the

Warnock Report (DES, 1978). However, despite this, it was still
surprising to see
just how closely aligned the NI proposals were to educational
policy develop-
ments in England as championed by the English Labour Party.
In other words,
they were closely aligned with New Labour’s ‘Third-Way’
project for creating a
post-welfarist society through wholehearted commitment to a
market economy
supplemented by vigorous state intervention. For example, some
of the text in the
consultation document (DENI, 2009) reproduced, word for
word, the New Labour
position on inclusion, as described in their programme for
meeting special edu-
cational needs (see DfEE, 1998, p. 13).
While these continuities were fascinating, it was nevertheless
their implications
for the development of a more contextually appropriate and
sustainable model of
41 · Number 4 · 2014 387
inclusion in NI that concerned some educationists – myself
included. Embracing
as it does the moral and ontological primacy of the person over
claims of social
collectivity, post-welfarist policy developments in England
were felt to provide an
inappropriate worldview for advancing the sorts of
transformations in human

relationships required for a society emerging from 30 years of
violent
ethnopolitical conflict. As Bottery (2000) starkly remarked, the
first part of the
third-way agenda involved accepting the reality of the market,
while the second
part meant devising policies that ‘bring the losers along’.
The fundamental review: contradictory and ambiguous
discourses
‘It is important not to overestimate the logical rationality of
policy. Policy strat-
egies, Acts, guidelines and initiatives are often messy,
contradictory, confused and
unclear’ (Ball, 2008).
Many educational policies are incapable of successful
implementation because
they are ambiguous, and, as such, remain ‘impossible dreams’
(Morris & Scott,
2003). Consequently, if policy failure is to be avoided, careful
consideration must
be given to both the implementation process and the robustness
of the policy text
at the strategic planning stage. On Friday 9 October 2009, a
group of academics
and practitioners, including myself, met at the School of
Education, Queen’s
University Belfast, to consider the issues raised by the
Fundamental Review. Our
primary observations and concerns revolved around what
appeared to be some
very contradictory and confusing messages about the key
overlapping and under-
pinning concepts of inclusion, additional educational needs and
barriers to learn-

ing. Indeed, there was a concern that, without substantial
clarification and
re-writing, the proposals would simply result in a re-
arrangement of the ways in
which special educational needs were delivered – as opposed to
the construction
of a new form of education that was more equitable in itself and
which promoted
wider social equity.
Despite its stated intentions, we read this document as failing to
escape the
all-pervasive and highly individualistic child deficit gaze that
locates the sources
of all difficulties ascribed to children and young people within
the individual. The
evidence for this lay at a number of levels – both within the
lines of the policy text,
and between them. Most pertinently, considering how language
structures
people’s thinking, we commented upon the frequent use of
language that, for
example, referred to ‘children with barriers to learning’ or
‘children’s difficul-
ties’. A content analysis of the policy proposals demonstrated
that such language
overwhelmed, to the tune of 3:1, alternative expressions that
provided some sense
that systems and contexts also served to limit and define young
people’s school
4 · 2014 © 2014 NASEN

progress. Indeed, we were concerned that the first expanded
discussion of the fact
that barriers to learning and participation might also reside
within school systems
only appeared on page 19 of the proposals.
The extremely confusing discussion relating to the factors, or
‘barriers to learn-
ing’, that give rise to additional educational needs only served
to illustrate how the
Fundamental Review failed to expunge the child deficit gaze.
Beginning in
section 3.4, the proposals attempted to account for these under
four broad themes,
that is, children with special educational needs, the learning
environment, family
circumstances and social and emotional circumstances. This
broad conception of
additional educational needs mirrored Scottish legislation and
policy, which in
turn reflected the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development
model of special educational needs (OECD, 2000). We felt,
however, that it was
extremely unfortunate that, as depicted in Figure 1, the
proposals could only
illustrate these themes by reference to the characteristics of
children. We found it
impossible to map this view of barriers to learning onto a
contemporary ‘inter-
active’ model of teaching/learning, nor with an alternative
model of special needs.
Despite the evidence that special educational needs were related
to the character-
istics of socio-economic groups (as defined by ethnicity, class
and gender; Slee,

Figure 1: Additional educational needs themes in the
consultation document
(DENI, 2009)
Children with special educational needs Learning environment
e.g. sensory, physical, medical syndromes,
cognitive, learning, emotional and behavioural
difficulties, communication difficulties
e.g. children who have
English as an additional language
Family circumstances Social and emotional
Additional educational
needs
e.g. looked-after children, school-aged mothers,
young carers, travellers
e.g. those suffering from bullying; recently
bereaved
41 · Number 4 · 2014 389
2011), the stubborn maintenance of a highly individualised
approach to children
within these proposals was, we feared, also the logical outcome
of the mainte-
nance of a highly individualised needs-orientated view of

resourcing.
The term inclusive education has unfortunately become
sloganised and turned
into a cliché which is used ubiquitously because it adds a
progressive gloss to
what people wish to say (Benjamin, 2002). When attempts are
made to get behind
the meaning of the word, little real substance, and/or confusion,
is found (Allan &
Slee, 2008). We were concerned then that these proposals ran
the risk of engen-
dering similar confusion about key concepts. Howes, Davies and
Fox (2009)
described six alternative and contradictory discourses about
inclusion to be found
within policy texts around the world, at least four of which were
referred to in the
consultation document. For example, the concept of inclusion
was simultaneously
located within a special needs and disability framework and, as
increasingly
accepted and understood internationally, more broadly as a
reform that supports
and welcomes diversity among all learners. There was also a
feeling that the
‘school for all’ – or organisational paradigm – had at some
stage been a source of
reference for the proposals, but, in passage, had lost some of its
original meaning.
For example, within this paradigm, the concept of barriers to
learning refers
specifically to features of the school system that discriminate
and exclude,
whereas this was patently not the meaning intended within the
consultation

document (DENI, 2009), as demonstrated in the following
extracts:
‘Inclusion is not simply about the location or placement of a
child, inclusion
means participation of children in the curriculum and social life
of their
educational setting’
(3.1)
‘We aspire to an inclusive education system in which the
presumption is that
children spend as much time as possible in a mainstream setting
. . .
however this does not presume the integration of all children
into a
mainstream setting’
(3.2)
‘Inclusive practices require us to think about the diverse needs
of all
children e.g. those with SEN, those whose first language is not
English,
those in AEP [alternative educational provision], children from
the traveller
community, LAC [looked after children], those who need help
with literacy
and numeracy’
(3.3)
4 · 2014 © 2014 NASEN

‘Development of a comprehensive approach based on the
inclusive concept
of the continuum of provision for a diversity of need in
different settings’
(3.4)
It was surprising too that the terms ‘integration’ and ‘inclusion’
were used inter-
changeably in this document. Since the concept of integration
represents an
assimilationist value position, this was something we were not
expecting to find in
a document designed to introduce a new inclusion framework.
Finally, we noted
that the new framework was centrally underpinned by the
concept of a continuum
of provision for a diversity of need in different settings.
However, representing as
it does a central idea from the Warnock Report – making
minimal adjustments to
match people with provision, as opposed to restructuring
provision to suit a
greater diversity of need – we were concerned that this concept
had very little to
do with the inclusive education movement.
Language matters, it simultaneously reveals and conceals
meaning and sets the
discursive frame within which policy is framed (Ball, 2008). In
this respect, we
were disappointed that, out of all the contradictory discourses
of inclusion that
were most visible in this document, stronger arguments could

not have been
rallied for the concept of inclusion as an educational project in
pursuit, particu-
larly in NI, of a transformed society; in other words, inclusion
as a principled
approach to education and society.
We were equally concerned about the contradictory messages
within the consul-
tation document with respect to the concept of ‘additional
educational needs’
(AEN). Here, at least three different versions were spotted such
that, when viewed
more closely, it did not appear to represent a very inclusive idea
after all. Most
revealing was the view expressed on page 33 of the Impact
Assessment Document
(which accompanied the proposals), where it was suggested that
the concept of
additional educational needs referred to one in five of the child
population – in
other words, no different from the early Warnock Report (DES,
1978) view that
up to 20% of students might, at some point in their educational
careers, have
special educational needs.
Contesting, bargaining and conflict
‘Policy is not treated as an object, a product or an outcome but
rather as a
process, something on-going, interactional and unstable . . .
policies are
contested, interpreted, and enacted in a variety of arenas of
practice and the

41 · Number 4 · 2014 391
rhetorics, texts and meanings of policymakers do not always
translate
directly and obviously into institutional practices. They are
inflected,
mediated, resisted and misunderstood, or in some cases simply
prove
unworkable.’
(Ball, 2008, p. 6)
The ‘bureaucratic model’ of policy formation views the policy
text (developed
at the strategic level) as having paramount importance, and
characterises any
resistance to this policy (at a tactical or operational level) as
irrational and a
barrier to implementation (Dunsire, 1978). This artificial split
between policy
production and implementation creates a top-down conception
of the policy
process, as if policy can ‘get done’ to people (Smit, 2005). On
the other hand,
the ‘bargaining and conflict’ model accepts challenges and
resistance to
policy as rational, and views implementation as a process of
mediating
between competing interests (Barrett & Hill, 1984; Dyer, 1999).
Policy should
therefore be viewed as ‘a process rather than a product’ (Ozga,
2000), involving
strategic interaction between multiple actors in a policy network

(Sabatier,
1986) including those who may lie outside official policy
making (Ozga,
2000).
The overall response to the public consultation amounted to
2,902 replies.
Respondents chose to present their views in a variety of ways
including comple-
tion of consultation response booklets, documents, forwarding
e-mails, letters and
drawings (DENI, 2012a). As well as individual and group
responses, the consul-
tation attracted comments by way of a number of campaigns in
relation to
particular aspects of special educational needs provision. These
related to provi-
sion for children with Down syndrome, visual impairment,
hearing impairment
and those in special schools. Key policy actors were
organisations such as the
Children with Disabilities Strategic Alliance (CDSA), the
Northern Ireland
Teachers’ Council (NITC), and officers from the special
education sections of the
Education and Library Boards (which are similar to local
education authorities in
England and Wales). The following comments are based on my
reading of the
Summary Report (DENI, 2012a).
Across most respondent categories, the seeming lack of
specificity with regard to
funding caused most concern. The intention to transfer funding
from the ever-
expanding special education sections of the Education and

Library Boards, to the
schools themselves, exercised parents and teachers alike – albeit
for different
reasons. Despite the intention, however, the suspicion that the
whole proposal was
essentially a cost-cutting exercise appeared difficult to dispel.
4 · 2014 © 2014 NASEN
Parents of children having disabilities campaigned vigorously
against the follow-
ing elements in particular. First, they opposed the proposal to
introduce a new and
improved framework for meeting a wide diversity of educational
need, based on
the broader inclusive concept of additional educational needs.
Here, the additional
educational need element was thought to dilute the proposal for
children with
disabilities. Secondly, the proposal to replace the Statement of
special educational
need with a CSP caused great anxiety among parents of children
whose needs
might not be considered ‘complex’, and thus not requiring
frequent access to
multi-agencies external to the school. The lack of clarity about
the threshold that
would trigger one of the new CSPs, in tandem with the idea of
schools themselves
having delegated responsibility for meeting additional
educational needs, led to
the suspicion that significant numbers of children who currently
had full-time

classroom assistants might have them removed (DENI, 2012a),
or alternatively,
that schools might be forced to limit the acceptance of children
with additional
needs depending on the state of their finances. The idea too of
placing the onus on
schools to identify, assess and provide for children’s
educational needs was
thought to be far too hazardous. It was felt that this task
specifically needed
qualified experts such as educational psychologists,
psychiatrists, pediatricians
and occupational therapists. Even with the involvement of these
professionals,
children were thought to be able to escape the net and go
through life undiag-
nosed. Consequently, the proposal to train up the newly named
learning support
co-ordinators (formerly SENCos), in certain norm-referenced
test administration
and interpretation, was considered inappropriate.
Like the parents, the CDSA had grave concerns about
broadening the concept of
educational needs lest it ‘compromised the required focus on
SEN and could
in-fact lead to a dilution of the current statutory entitlement for
children with
special educational needs’ (CDSA, 2009, p. 4).This association
had particular
concerns about the lack of specificity in the consultation
document with regard to
partnerships with parents and the involvement, engagement and
participation of
children and young people in the existing special educational
needs system – and

indeed in their educational experiences as a whole. They
advocated for targeted
strategies, policies and action plans to be underpinned by, or
explicitly assessed
against, children’s rights standards.
The teaching unions also had their own issues. Not least among
these were
concerns over the additional workload, accountability and
responsibility associ-
ated with the broader model of additional needs. SENCos
responded in an equivo-
cal way about the idea of becoming learning support co-
ordinators. Furthermore,
in becoming more assessment-literate, the prospect that they
might face legal
41 · Number 4 · 2014 393
challenges from parents for episodes of misdiagnosis of special
educational needs
was troubling. The proposed network of multidisciplinary
groups aligned to
school area learning communities and local health structures
appeared to cause
particular disquiet. This reaction may not have been helped by
the unfortunate use
of wording in the consultation document suggesting that each
multidisciplinary
group would play an important role in challenging participating
schools regarding
‘the levels of effectiveness of the support they are providing for
their pupils’

(DENI, 2012a, p. 38). The NITC were provoked to clarify that,
whatever the
model underpinning the proposals, it must be made clear ‘that
the policy propo-
sals are not based on a deficit model that sees teachers’ lack of
skills, knowledge
and expertise as the problem’ (NITC, 2009, para. 3.5).
Minor amendments and revisions
In 2006, the Fundamental Review set out to introduce a new
inclusive framework;
one that was stronger, more comprehensive, more robust and
based on the
overarching concept of additional educational needs with
schools taking a greater
responsibility for removing barriers to learning. A dynamic
programme of trans-
formation appeared to have been set in place. However, seven
years later, it very
much seems as if only four of the original 26 main policy
targets will form part
of the new framework – when it is finally published; that is,
Personal Learning
Plans will replace individualised learning plans; SENCos will
be called learning
support co-ordinators (LSCs); there will be a three-phase
special educational
needs framework instead of five; and some Statements will be
set out in the form
of a CSP (DENI, 2012b).
On the other hand, as part of a new statutory Code of Practice,
the Minister has
recommended a plethora (approximately 40) of minor
amendments and revisions
to the Education Committee. He also appears to be awaiting

evaluative feedback
on four pilot projects funded to trial some of the original policy
targets, for
example: a resource file for teachers; a pilot concerned with
early identification
and intervention; a pilot to ‘train SENCos’ (Minister’s words)
in educational
testing; and a two-year pilot to develop Initial Teacher
Education for inclusion at
the Schools of Education, Queen’s University Belfast and the
University of
Ulster.
At this point in time, as far as one can tell, the latter is the only
one of the pilot
projects to have experienced external evaluation and evaluative
research (see, for
example, Smith, 2014; Smith et al., 2014; ETI, 2012; Bell et al.,
2012). The
Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) evaluation of the
latter has now been
published (ETI, 2012; see also Bell et al., 2012; Smith et al.,
2014). Consequently,
4 · 2014 © 2014 NASEN
some of the delegates attending a recent major NI Conference
might well have
been surprised to hear a senior DENI official, who was
intimately involved with
the review process, omit to make any reference to the Initial
Teacher Education
Research and Development work when announcing plans to

extend funding to the
pilot projects. The latter, it appeared, had slipped off the
Department’s agenda.
Conclusions
Drawing mostly upon sociological tools, this article set out to
explore the oppor-
tunities for ‘thinking otherwise’ (transformatively and
radically) about special
needs education and inclusion as a result of the introduction of
a new inclusive
framework in NI. On the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary
of the Good Friday
Peace Agreement, it was considered timely to reflect upon the
role of special
needs education within an education system itself having a
particular contribution
to make towards a socially just society. The sorts of textual
messages and power
relations that surfaced during the elongated policy cycle (Ball,
1994), associated
with, at first blush, a dynamic programme of transformation,
were analysed.
My primary conclusion, however, is that there is very little
fundamental, in the
sense of transformatory, about the Fundamental Review. The
policy lexicon of
defect, expert diagnosis, classification and appropriate
placement all illustrate
how the vision of inclusion has retained some very traditional
approaches towards
special needs education, and for this reason reinforces some of
the less enlight-
ening views of children who experience difficulties or
disabilities (see also

Armstrong, Armstrong & Spandagou, 2011). Little if any
progress has been made
in moving away from conceptualising educational difficulties in
terms of individ-
ual deficits – it appeared to me, as Slee (2011) might say, ‘a
sheep in sheep’s
clothing’. The proposals were initially holed below the
waterline by some very
confusing and contradictory messages, and then, during policy
discussions,
further eroded as they were variously interpreted and
misinterpreted by compet-
ing interests.
Slee (2011) recommended always interrogating policy
discourses in order to
determine whether they connoted a signing on to an agenda for
cultural work, or
liberal assimilation. Using Slee’s (2001) idea of the ‘calculus of
equity’, where E
(equity) is achieved when you add Additional Resources (AR)
to the Disabled
student (E = AR + D), the contestation by various policy actors
appeared to
represent very ‘thin descriptions’ of anything faintly
transformative or fundamen-
tal in terms of educational practice. These discussions were
more illustrative of
the appropriation, or recalibration of inclusion as old-fashioned
integration. As
such, they focused on the assimilation of those experiencing
difficulties into the
41 · Number 4 · 2014 395

mainstream, with no attention to how the mainstream values and
practices of
society and its education system themselves lead to exclusion.
Slee’s (2011)
warning appeared prescient; that is, never to underestimate the
resilience of the
traditional form of special education and educational
psychology to appropriate
new turf.
Dyson (2005) argued that Government proposals for inclusive
education should
always be viewed as an attempted resolution to a dilemma that
is fundamental
to mass education systems – the dilemma of commonality and
difference. Put
simply, such systems have to offer something recognisably
common – ‘an edu-
cation’ – to learners who are recognisably similar, while at the
same time
acknowledging that those same learners differ from each other
in important ways
and therefore have to be offered ‘different educations’. Looked
at in this way,
inclusion is a resolution that emphasises the ‘commonality’ pole
of the dilemma.
However, whether or not inclusive education is actually
implemented depends on
what happens within particular social contexts when such
principles connect with
broader social, political, economic and cultural discourses
(Dyson, 2005).
Despite some laudable aims, the policy cycle associated with
the Review of

Special Educational Needs and Inclusion in NI has resulted in
an extremely
unstable solution to the dilemma of difference (see also Clarke,
Dyson, Millward
& Skidmore, 1997). Like Dyson’s analysis of policy
developments in England,
little of a radical nature has occurred.
Corbett (2001) drew upon the idea of levels of inclusivity.
Level 1 referred to
Government policy, Acts, developments, proposals, intentions
and consultations.
Level 2 involved structural modifications of the school
curriculum, while Level
3 represented the deep culture of fundamental value systems,
rituals and routines
(the hidden curriculum) which formed the fabric of daily life.
As Corbett sug-
gested, this deep culture was often obscure, difficult to grasp
and impossible to
understand without a lengthy emersion. It is within this level
that children feel
either included or excluded (Corbett, 2001). As opposed to
setting a new path for
an inclusive education committed to social justice and social
connection based on
the application of universal principles of human rights, the
Fundamental Review
policy cycle appeared not only destined to reinforce ‘the
mechanics of exclusion’
within the deep cultures of schooling in NI (Slee, 2011), but to
strengthen
them. For example, while NI only ever had Education Plans, or
Individualised
Education Plans, now ‘Personal’ Learning Plans will be
legislated for. While the

legislative definition of special educational needs will not
change, the new frame-
work will now ‘work within the definition of disability as
defined by the Dis-
ability Discrimination Act 1995’ (DENI, 2012b). Should this
transpire, then
4 · 2014 © 2014 NASEN
processes of ‘dis/ablefication’ will receive reinforcement to do
further unjust
work. In other words, those children for whom the terms
disabled and impaired
would be inappropriate, and whose difficulties relate more to
the cultural
resources they bring to school, will continue to be labelled as
having special
educational needs. Such processes, of course, apply to the
majority of children
and young people identified as having special educational needs
and have been
well described by sociologists such as Sally Tomlinson, from
the 1970s onwards
(Armstrong et al., 2011). As Armstrong et al. (2011) remarked,
the concept of
special educational needs was embedded in the trinity of social
class, gender and
race, yet, in the daily decision making of policy makers and
practitioners, the
label continues to be used in ways that mask the intersection
and operation of
these factors in the identification of those with special
educational needs

(Armstrong et al., 2011).
The Minister’s disposition to see Personal Learning Plans also
used for pupils
with additional educational needs, who do not have special
educational needs,
only reinforces fears that the new proposals will merely draw an
even greater
number of children and young people – in the main ‘at risk
educationally’ – into
a framework that is fundamentally flawed in terms of its
underpinning model. The
French have a saying: ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même
chose’. The English
colloquial equivalent ‘same old same old’ conveys a sense of
the inevitable, a
reminder that if we have not learned the lessons of history we
are doomed to
repeat them.
There has been very little legislative reform affecting education
in NI in the last
five years due to the complexity of the political structures.
Significant time lags
between the planning and implementation stages of strategies,
policies or action
plans now appear to be a fact of life in the Province. For some,
the peace process
in NI is now definitely just a protracted talking shop that,
unfortunately, is heading
into an abyss. The power-sharing arrangements resulting from
the Good Friday
Peace Agreement are viewed as only serving to perpetuate the
sectarian divide,
leaving no room for progressive and reforming voices to be
heard. Furthermore,

as suggested by O’Donnell (2013), it is the case that the NI
Executive was framed
specifically to suit the post-conflict situation and that it was
indeed a strange and
limited democratic construct.
Others take a more positive and longer view, pointing to the
inevitability of
slow progress in the context of transitional societies, and,
despite resolution,
point to the significant amount of policy consultation and
discussion that has
occurred. Some academics too point to the work of conflict
transformation
41 · Number 4 · 2014 397
theories and theorists, such as Lederach (1997), to help
contextualise slow pro-
gress and lacunae in decision making within societies emerging
from violent
conflict.
Nevertheless, 15 years later, in the world of special needs
education at least, the
past lingers on like a ghost. Today, there is a conflict between
the protection
offered by the individual needs approach to meeting special
needs as
operationalised by Statements or CSPs, and the resources that
accompany them,
and contemporary views of good practice in educating all
students (Smith et al.,

2014). As Smith et al. (2014) suggest, there continues to be
great scope to
transform current policies and practices through a clearer
conceptual and strategic
vision about what teachers need to know and be able to do, the
role of specialist
facilities, and the ways in which mainstream education could be
improved in order
to educate all children.
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Address for correspondence:
Dr Ron Smith
The School of Education
20 College Green
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast BT7 1LN
UK
Email: [email protected]
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