Ressourcepersoners fortællinger om normalitet og afvigelse i folkeskolen: Et kritisk perspektiv på positioneringen af børn som "abled" og "disabled" i en folkeskolekontekst

Thøgersen, Karen Marie Berg ; Larsen, Frederikke Friis

4. semester

Læring og Forandringsprocesser, Kandidat

2024

2024-05-31

70 pages

The following thesis is a qualitative study on how understandings of normality and deviation are expressed through the narratives of seven ‘resource-staff’ members in three different Danish primary and lower secondary schools. More specifically, we illustrate how their normative under-standings of children create certain subject positions, which can reflect on the way in which the children understand themselves. Based on these narratives, we analyse how norms and discourses position and maintain children as “abled” and “disabled”. To examine this, we are theoretically grounded in the British professor Dan Goodley and his Crit-ical Dis/ability Studies (CDS) alongside the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault and his Discourse Theory. We are founded within the poststructuralist framework, as we critically examine and challenge embedded assumptions, norms and discourses, that construct and repro-duce specific in/exclusive structures. When examining different mechanisms leading to either inclusion or exclusion, we operate under a pedagogical understanding of inclusion as an ap-proach, where participation opportunities are provided and made possible for all. Empirically, this thesis is based on three qualitative interviews with ‘resource-staff’, who in dif-ferent ways partake in pedagogical tasks, such as collegial guidance on inclusion, teaching and work related to children's welfare. The empirical data consists of two individual interviews with ‘resource-staff’ from two different schools and one focus group interview with a ‘resource-team’ from a third school. When grounded in CDS, we relocate the understanding of “dis/ability” to social, cultural, economic and political registers. Like Goodley, we understand disability as some-thing the individual experiences in the encounter with impassable barriers. This understanding of disability gives a perspective on disablism, that relocates the focus from the subject to the sur-roundings. This thesis primarily focuses on an analysis of three empirically drawn themes from across the narratives: 1) stories about how to be able to be in compulsory public school, 2) stories about special-education and 3) stories about collaboration. Within these stories, we read and highlight different discourses and norms of “normality” and “deviation”, that emerge in the narratives, which we understand as synonyms for “abled” and “disabled”. Following our analysis we discuss a methodological paradox: Using social categories whilst being founded in a poststructural framework, whose aim is to deconstruct such categories. Furthermore, we present an intersectional perspective on how different intersections of social categories rein-force and result in specific privileges or marginalizations for the children. Lastly, we discuss an empirically found paradox, that shows how the ‘resource-staff’ are embedded in an understand-ing of interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration as a necessity in practice, when also expressing how this collaboration, in practice, creates lots of both identity-related and practical challenges. Overall, our thesis shows that certain norms and understandings of normality and deviation creates and maintains a complex and difficult practice of inclusion in the Danish public compulsory schools.

Download
Vis denne rapport i AAU Studenterprojekter