ABSTRACT
Shirley Darlington is Assistant Secretary – Equal Opportunities, with the National Union of Teachers. In this chapter she discusses the involvement of the union in special educational policy. She provides background details about the effort union officials make to establish credibility with their members and assess the possibilities for influencing the education system. She discusses the complexities of the role of the union in integration policy, matching a principle of integration with negative views and reports of some members. The ambivalence about integration is contrasted with the straightforward support that the union has given to arguing for equality of access for people with disabilities into the teaching profession. She documents the efforts the union made to mitigate what it saw as the retrograde effects of the 1988 Education Reform Act on children and young people who experience difficulties in learning in schools.
