Social and Dialogic Thinking and Learning in Special Education: Radical Insights from a Post-critical Ethnography in a Special School

Drawing on a three-year post-critical ethnography, this volume counters deficit-based notions of disability to present a new social and dialogic theory of thinking and learning for students with significant support needs.

Dismantling ideas around ableism/disableism, Social and Dialogic Thinking and Learning offers a uniquely theoretical and conceptual contribution to special education and capability research. Illustrating how students exhibit varied practical, social, and creative abilities, possess agency and perform identity, chapters present a challenge to the restrictive ways in which disability is constructed through prescriptive forms of teacher-student interaction and instruction. The text ultimately offers a powerful re-imagining of how educators and researchers can perceive, observe, and respond to students beyond current institutional and cultural norms.

This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in inclusion and special educational needs, disability studies, and the theories of learning more broadly. Those specifically interested in educational psychology and the study of severe, profound, and multiple learning difficulties will also benefit from this book.

Karen A. Erickson is the David E. & Dolores J. Yoder Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Charna D’Ardenne is Assistant Professor at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Nitasha M. Clark is Research Affiliate with the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

David A. Koppenhaver is Professor in the Reading Education and Special Education Department at Appalachian State University, USA

George W. Noblit is Joseph R. Neikirk Distinguished Professor of Sociology of Education Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA