ABSTRACT
The assessment of children with special needs is fraught with difficulties and its association with resources has made it the source of heated debate (Barton, 1993a; Galloway et al., 1994; Riddell and Brown, 1994). The statement or its Scottish equivalent, the Record of Needs, functions as a legal document of sorts, but there is considerable scope for challenging the recommendations contained therein. Read from a Foucauldian perspective, the statementing or recording process is a disciplinary technique which legitimizes the surveillance and individualization of pupils with special needs and their parents; it also ‘engages them in a whole mass of documents that capture and fix them’ (Foucault, 1977b:189). The statementing or recording process can be viewed as operating within a Foucauldian framework of hierarchical surveillance, normalizing judgments and the examination, but these are both contradictory and ambiguous, simultaneously constraining and enabling those who fall under its gaze. The document is treated as if it is an objective and scientific instrument; yet it appears more like a ‘pseudo truth regime’ (Magill, 1997:70), which professionals use to record highly subjective and judgmental views about children and their parents. Its gaze appears all encompassing, functioning as if it sees everything; yet it is selective and, as the pupils’ accounts suggested in Chapter 5, sometimes misses the point. As a technique of surveillance, the statement or Record of Needs appears remarkably pervasive; but it has been possible for parents to turn the gaze to their advantage and to seek willingly to submit their child and themselves willingly to this kind of scrutiny.
