ABSTRACT
While the last chapter began to explore the way in which gender is constructed and maintained in the classroom, this chapter considers the idea of ‘special needs’. In the past, children identified as having ‘special educational needs’ were seen as requiring special and separate provision, not compatible with what was defined as ‘normal’ education. More recently, a new discourse of ‘equal opportunities’ has focused not on the individual, but on the environment, attempting to make the ‘mainstream’ classroom more accessible for children with a wider range of needs. However, Caroline Roaf and Hazel Bines warn that an exclusive focus on the environment can lead to a ‘difference blindness’, resulting in some pupils not receiving the extra resources that they need within this ‘mainstream context’ to realise their potential. They therefore propose that a discourse of ‘rights’ and ‘entitlement’ should be integrated with an equal opportunities approach.
