ABSTRACT
In the USA issues of expanding special education within inclusion were predominantly racial, as white areas and schools continually developed strategies to distance themselves from minorities, despite notional racial integration, but many minority parents demanded the same rights for resources as whites. Requiring constantly raised levels of achievement, with schools, students and families still the scapegoats for failure to reach these levels, was as effective as any overt race discrimination This chapter follows the English story of dealing with the special and low achievers up to the present, notes strategies for separating out those of supposed high ability, the infl uence of neuroscience in helping along myths of deprived brains and other strategies for legitimising ignorance. As there is continued confusion as to which populations all these policies and practices are aimed at, the chapter includes information from three countries where descriptions of these groups were offered.
