ABSTRACT
In this chapter we explore the growing tension in special education discourse and practice. Traditional special education, steeped in positivist, medical, and behavioral assumptions, relying heavily on the methodologies of prediction and control, has remained astoundingly resistant to the postmodern critiques of social science and educational practices, and of disability studies (Owen, Neville, & Smith, 2001). Th e alternative perspective of the Disability Studies in Education Special Interest Group (SIG) reveals the deep division between educators who uphold the foundational assumptions of traditional special education and those who espouse diff erent constructions of disability as they are related to the principles of social justice and disability rights in schools.
