Deconstructing Special Education and Constructing Inclusion

Reviews of the first edition:

"...full of sparkling analysis ... an absorbing account of how and why the practice of special education has failed to live up to expectations ... a tour de force ... A challenging, badly needed book likely to be read for many years to come."
Dr Caroline Roaf, British Journal of Educational Studies

"... a sophisticated, multidisciplinary critique of special education that leaves virtually no intellectual stone unturned. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the role and significance of inclusive pedagogy in the new struggle for an inclusive society."
Professor Tom Skrtic, University of Kansas, USA

"While this is a weighty book, there is real clarity about the key ideas and no doubting their importance ... its challenges to our thinking make it essential reading."
Dr Melanie Nind in Times Educational Supplement

“...a striking ... thought-provoking yet lyrical account which is both uncompromising in its stance and refreshing in its intellectually sophisticated critique.”
Professor Phil Garner in British Journal of Special Education

Review of the second edition:

"Having read this book with much pleasure when it first came out in 2001, I am delighted to see its authors rewarded with the accolade of a second edition. Indeed it has been an equally agreeable experience to revisit it, and interesting too, since there have been some significant shifts in thinking in the intervening years. As Thomas and Loxley rightly infer, a second edition supports their contention that there is indeed 'an appetite among professionals in education for ideas, argument and scholarship'. This book provides plenty of all three."
Support for Learning · Volume 23 · Number 2 · 2008

In the second edition of this best-selling text, the authors critically examine the intellectual foundations of special education and consider the consequences of their influence for professional and popular thinking about learning difficulties. In light of this critique, they suggest that much of the knowledge about special education is misconceived, and proceed to provide a powerful rationale for inclusion derived from ideas about social justice and human rights.

Revised and updated throughout, the book contains new material on social capital, communities of practice and a 'psychology of difference', as well as a new chapter on ‘Inclusive education for the twenty-first century’.

Deconstructing Special Education and Constructing Inclusion is essential reading for teachers, head teachers, educational psychologists and policy makers.

Gary Thomas took up the post of chair in education at Birmingham in 2005. Before university teaching, he worked as a teacher and as an educational psychologist. In higher education – at the University of Leeds, at Oxford Brookes University, UWE and University College London – his teaching and research have focused on inclusion, special education, and research methodology in education. He has received awards from the ESRC, the Nuffield Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, the DfES, Barnardos, the Cadmean Trust, local authorities and a range of other organisations. Most of his funded research has been on inclusive or special education, though his Leverhulme Research Fellowship was awarded to examine the role of theory in education. He currently leads an ESRC thematic seminar competition in the Teaching and Learning Research Programme on the assessment of quality in educational research. He is the founding co-editor of a Taylor & Francis Carfax journal, the International Journal of Research and Method in Education and he is an editorial board member of the British Educational Research Journal.

Andrew Loxley is now a lecturer in education at Trinity College,, having previously worked at the University of Leeds and the Open University as a research fellow. Prior to undertaking his PhD in quasi-markets and special education, he worked as a teacher in a residential school for children with behaviour problems.