Abstract
In this study 23 former students of special classes for emotionally and behaviourally disordered (EBD) have been interviewed about their school experiences about ten years after completing the compulsory schooling. The qualitative data was gathered in two in-depth, biographical interviews in 1991 and 1995 in southern Finland.
The pros and cons of special education are presented as positive and negative elements of special class treatment. Almost all of the interviewees began their stories with positive memories, and the overall picture of the feelings about being educated at special class seems very positive. The most positive elements were the special teacher and the small teaching group. The most common and significant negative element was experience of being labelled.
Separate special class as a traditional way to arrange special treatment for students with special needs has been criticized during recent years. The positive experiences of former EBD pupils shows that there is still need for this kind of small class intervention at least for some pupils and in certain phase of their school careers. However, the quality of education must be guaranteed with the help of IEP's in co-operation with the regular class teacher.
Introduction
Recently, there has been rising interest in the elucidation of participant's views on their schooling. This point of view has called the client-orient perspective (Wade & Moore, 1993) or consumer's view (Guterman, 1995; Habel, Bloom, Ray, and Bacon, 1999). These researchers are mainly interested in the students' perceptions (e.g. Vaughn & Klingner, 1998), preferences (Padeliadu, 1995) and experiences (Kivirauma, 1997; Wade & Moore, 1993) instead of using only teacher evaluations of the meaning of the education. This kind of perspective is especially valuable in considering special education, in which the participants are traditionally considered as having a disability or a handicap. The consumer's view could serve as a tool for empowerment and a small step toward broader acceptance of individuals with diverse skills and abilities in our society .
A practical reason for the recent popularity of the consumer view point is that it is seen as an effective tool for evaluating the outcome of education (e.g., Kuorelahti, 1998). Indeed, in evaluation of the effect of special education the consumer view has been one of the most useful measures where we need some evidence of the short-term effectiveness (Wade & Moore, 1993). Since in most cases the special education will produce traditional academic gains only in the long run, more comprehensive evaluation needs longitudinal settings and follow-ups where the more stable outcomes can be examined (see Jahnukainen, 1999; Levine & Nourse, 1998). However, such studies are expensive and for administrative decision making the results come often too late.
Previous Studies about the Consumer View in Special Education
There are some classic studies about disaffection and deviance at school like Willis' Learning to Labour (Willis, 1977) and Woods' Divided School (Woods, 1979) written from the micro-sociological point of view. In these studies the consumer view has not been explicitly present, but the basic attitude is the same; the purpose of the observations and interviews has been to elucidate the missing perspective of the deviant pupils themselves and to highlight the social reality of school life.
In some studies of special education the purpose has been to find answers to certain specific questions using open-ended questions like "I like teachers who..." or "what I dislike most about school is..." (Wade & Moore, 1993). However, in studies where older pupils are interviewed, the results give us a broader picture of being a pupil considered as maladjusted (Kivirauma, 1997), behaviorally disordered (Habel et al., 1999) or learning disabled (Guterman, 1995). Social constructivism and phenomenology are therefore underlying theories. The major idea of this point of view is encapsulated W. I. Thomas's maxim "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences" (Thomas, 1928).
The major finding of these studies concerning school experiences of pupils of special education seems to be that the separate special education placement is not at all so bad (Padeliadu, 1995; Vaughn & Klingner, 1998) as strict full-inclusionists have thought (e.g., Lipsky & Gartner, 1996; McLeskey & Waldron, 1995). The satisfaction of students of special education is an interesting phenomenon because there has been rising concern about general disaffection with school (e.g., Antikainen, 1998; Kinder, 1997). One might expect that these pupils if any would dislike school most. And so they did, but the target of this dislike was not the special education but the regular education in which they experienced most difficulties with teachers.
However the results of these studies are somewhat contradictory. For example, according to Guterman's respondents the general education teachers had rarely adjusted curricula or requirements to accommodate their individual needs, but otherwise a majority also said that their special education placement had not helped them academically very much, because of a low level, irrelevant and repetitive curriculum (Guterman, 1995). The paradox is that special education students might value the special education services because they are trying to avoid an unresponsive general education system (Guterman, 1995).
Method
Purpose
The purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) to
follow-up the life-course of former special class pupils from comprehensive
school to early adulthood (Jahnukainen 1997; 1999); and 2) to search for the
meaning of special class treatment from the perspective of former pupils
experiences and life-course. This article is focused on the second aim.
Participants
For this study twenty-three former students of
EBD classes (classes for the pupils with behavioral and emotional difficulties)
were interviewed about their experiences of schooling. These students had been
out of special education and compulsory schooling for about ten years. Since
their evaluation is based on their life-course experiences, they have a broader
view of the meaning of special education than pupils in school.
The subjects (n = 23; 18 male, 5 female) completed comprehensive schooling in EBD classes in a small town in southern Finland between 1985 and 1987. They have been served in separate special classes, which means small group education (maximum ten pupils) integrated in mainstream comprehensive school. This is a common solution in Finland nowadays (see Jahnukainen, 2000). The curriculum in these special classes is the same as in mainstream education, but however, in practice the academic standards are often adjusted in favor of educational and social development goals.
Fifteen of interviewees were placed to special class during primary stage of compulsory schooling (grades 1 to 6) and eight during upper compulsory years (grades 7 to 9). They all have been studying in general education before the special education placement at least one year.
Interview method and data analysis
The qualitative data were
gathered in two in-depth interviews by biographical method in 1991 and 1995.
After transcription the data was analyzed using the NUDoIST program which is
methodologically based on the grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss,
1967; Silvonen & Keso, 1999). The texts were read and coded several times
before the core categories - called here as elements of special class education
- were complete. However, it was clear since the first interviews that the pros
and cons of special education will be the main themes in this part of the
study.
Results
Positive experiences
The pros and cons of special education
could be presented as positive and negative elements of special class
treatment. Almost all of the interviewees began their stories with positive
memories, and the overall picture of the feelings about to be educated at
special class seems very positive. The most positive elements were the special
teacher and the small teaching group. The teacher's competence and personality
have also influenced the other positive elements including improved school
achievement, a feeling of fair discipline and joy of learning. These positive
memories provide a strong contrast to the former regular class experiences,
where these pupils have generally failured behaviorally as well as
academically.
Figure 1. The positive elements of special education experienced by the former EBD students (n = 23)
Teachers
Male 5
"...so, are you going to complete your
schooling or not? A lot depends on what kind of teacher you will have. I think
that is the crucial factor..."
My respondents' view is that the characteristics of the teacher are intimately related how these pupils are going to work and behave. If the teacher does not pay attention to interaction with individuals, she or he is doomed to failure as a special teacher. It seems that these pupils need a teacher who is able to function in different roles; as a teacher but also in the less formal role as a model of a normal adult person. The "new" method of teaching is more a process, in which "older citizens" are working with "younger citizens" starting from the individual baseline of each student. The task of a teacher is to let the students find out what kind people they are and let them reflect on themselves and the world around them. The teacher is not just a "teaching machine".
In the next section we will identify these themes. It is very interesting that this interviewee compares the work of the teacher to marketing and selling by his own work experience. Here the client-oriented perspective emerges from the data.
Male 5:
There are good teachers and bad teachers. Not necessarily in terms of their teaching abilities but more as human beings. If you are lucky, you'll get a good teacher. It could have an effect on your whole life... on the rest of your life. If some teacher doesn't like you as a person. They should not do that, but if you just don't like that person. His or her face just doesn't appeal to you... of course it is hard to be neutral but... and that could have an effect on rest of your life.MJ:
Could you define a good educator?Male 5:
I think he has patience, let's you have time to learn and first of all he will listen to you. listen to you honestly and understands what he hears and teaches on the basis what he has heard. That's one important characteristic... He makes you understand the things...it is like sales talk: a minute could be the decisive... the pressures of voice and what you get out of yourself... how you conduct yourself... are you nervous and so on. You have to listen to the client. Then you will answer the relevant questions and leave the irrelevant... that's a kind of psychology...
The key issue seems to be the relationship and interaction between teacher and pupil. Do they find positive common ground, or not?
MJ:
How do you define a good special teacher?Male 8A
A teachers have to get down to the level of the pupil, so that he or she is also a human being... after that there are common goals in the classroom... we had free discussions about things and everybody's opinions were wanted on things and so on... and it was possible to express your own opinion honestly... this was the biggest difference compared to regular education...
Negative experiences
Though the general opinion seems to be
very positive, negative views were also expressed. However, only fourteen
interviewees mentioned negative experience whereas all of them had expressed at
least one positive view of special education placement.
Figure 2. The negative elements of special education experienced by the former EBD students (n = 23)
Labeling
The most common and significant negative element was
the experiences of being labeled. The stereotyped labeling was most often
committed at school either by some teachers or pupils.
MJ:
How about the other pupils at your school, how did they treat you?Male 2A:
Do you mean at primary school... when something happened they yelled "ebd boys" and it was the same in secondary. But it could be said that we were restricted at primary school in the end... we weren't allowed to go into the area of the regular pupils during breaks... we had our own corner and we spent our recesses there.. teasing the janitor...MJ:
So at first you were there with other pupils and then you were confined to your corner?Male 2A:
Yeah, when I was put in special education, I didn't know anybody from there, so I used to hang around with regular class kids, but then they began to say, "you're are an ebd kid, go to your corner"...MJ:
Who said that?Male 2A:
My old classmates, who I used to study with...
- - -Male 4:
I didn't have any difficulties after that. However, sometimes at school some other teachers... if something was smashed or something... it was always our fault... sometimes for no reason. So regular teachers soon blamed us in situations like this...
One aspect of labeling is the fear of labeling. This means that one is afraid that one's reputation as an EBD kid could affect the attitudes of others. This could be an obstacle to integration back to the regular class.
Male 6:
I was ready to go back to regular class... there weren't any obstacles to that and it would have been successful, I think... but first of all I was afraid of the stigma... it comes with you when you go there to the bigger group, everybody knows where you come from. You're there, you're sitting there in the middle of the class and everybody is watching you... that's what I felt in my mind most often. I thought that I'd have lots of battles there...
Only three respondents mention about problems after leaving compulsory school because of a history of special education. Two of these incidents were committed by employers and one by an ex-girlfriends parents.
MJ:
You said, that you have had some negative feelings about being in special education. That some people has treated you as deviant or something because of that...Male 2:
In some cases, yes. They thought that you were a kind of lower-class human, a criminal or something...MJ:
Could you please give an example?Male 2:
My ex-girlfriend's parents...when they had heard that I had been at EBD class, they said yuk... don't come here any more...and they always checked after my visit, did I steal something or what...
Discussion
The stories of former special education students are very interesting. Thomas and Znaniecki (1918 -20) have argued that personal life records constitute "the perfect type of sociological material" (cited in Allport, 1951). I would say that pupil's stories serve as useful information for educational researchers who want to get a broader view of "what's going on at school". The power of (life) stories is succinctly described by Goodley:
"We understand an official document intellectually, yet the human document is comprehended emotionally. Empathy accompanies insight-we know another's life because we feel it. As the informal, anecdotal and personalised elements of a story are internalised, then I would argue that these very qualities provide a direct route to social understanding." (Goodley, 1996, p. 335)
However, the use of narrative stories may have some weaknesses including errors of memory (Allport, 1951) and the possibility that informants could lie (Goodley, 1996). The researcher's own preoccupations "may lead to highlight some points at the expense of other experiences that hold greater significance for the informant" (Goodley, 1996, p. 344).
I have no reason to suspect that any of my respondents would have lied. However, it could be, that not every detail has been stated. These could include unpleasant experiences forming part of my respondents' later life-course (like criminality), not the school experiences. I have also tried to avoid the effects of my preoccupations, using grounded theory analysis, where I have built the classifications as inductively as possible from the data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Keso & Silvonen, 1999). One detail worth mentioning is that in the first phase of study in 1991, I had myself only very limited experience of special education. It could be said that the interview situations were very close to an anthropological or ethnographic approach in which the researcher focuses on questions like "what is the culture of this group of people?" and "what's going on here?" (see e.g. Patton, 1990, p. 67 - 68).
However, the findings of my study should be interpreted with caution mainly because of the limitations of the methods used. First, there should be noted that these results are based on stories of study group formed using a purposeful, criterion sampling strategy (Patton, 1990; 182 - 183) which is not representative in the traditional sense. Second, the interviews were done several years after graduation, when retrospectiveness might produce some bias; there could be a "time will gild your memories" effect. However, it is interesting that my findings of the present study compare positively with Padeliadus' and Guterman's findings, despite the methodological and cultural differences. It should also be mentioned that Kuorelahti's (1998) survey with 220 EBD students still at school in Finland supported my findings concerning the important role of the special teacher.
Implications
A separate special classroom as a placement for students with special needs has been criticized during recent years. However, the full inclusion are still based mainly on ideology, not on scientific evaluation (Zigmond & Baker, 1995). The findings from studies comparing inclusive and separate settings are contradictory, partly because of methodological limitations (Carlberg & Kavale, 1980; Salend & Duhaney, 1999).
The positive experiences of former EBD pupils reported in this study shows that there could still be a need for this kind of small class intervention, at least for some pupils and in certain phases of their school careers. Separate special class education is not thoroughly defected. It seems that the former students considered as maladjusted themselves, as well as disabled (Guterman, 1996), mostly have positive experiences about their schooling in special classes.
However, it is clear that special class education is not perfect either and segregated special education suffers from some dysfunction. Some of them are expressed again in this study. It seems that at least some pupils considered as behaviorally disordered and placed in the special class acquired the extra stigma of being deviant in the eyes of other pupils and regular education teachers. This might have an enduring effect on self-image and serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, in this study the negative effects are found to be restricted to school, only a couple of respondents having experienced labeling after completing schooling. From the point of view of labeling theory (e.g., Furlong, 1985, p. 130) it could be said that there is no evidence of "secondary deviance", which means that the label is accepted by an individual as part of his or her identity. It seems that special class placement with its public label has produced "primary deviance" only. It is, however, important to try to diminish unnecessary labeling in all possible situations.
As to the outcome of the special education, the criticism concerning the level of instruction may be even more serious. If special education is really not able to produce instruction challenging and relevant enough for its students, there really is a reason for the crisis of the existence of special education. From the Finnish point of view it is evident that instruction based on IEPs is still on the way to our schools in reality, and that this will be one helpful solution in the near future. Further, we should be aware that it is not enough that our students graduate from compulsory school. These days the vocational qualification is even more important than it was and the "low-level, irrelevant curriculum" (see Guterman, 1996) could be one explanation of the failure and dropping out of further education common to the former special education students (Blackorby & Wagner, 1996; Jahnukainen, 1997, 1999, in press).
The findings concerning the positive aspects of special classes, especially the personality, roles and behavior of a special teacher presented in this study, bring out new objectives for educational research. For example, we do not know exactly how the special teacher behaves in the classroom situation and how she or he builds a personal relationship to his or her pupils. These are questions, which needed more ethnographic fieldwork and classroom observation. Here we are coming back to the tradition of the British micro-sociologist (e.g., Woods, 1979) and social psychologist (Marsh, Rosser & Harré, 1978). With such inquiries might produce more detail about how our most skillful special educators are able to arrange the kind of instruction not possible for some other teachers. This could also be valuable information in training our general education teachers to confront the special needs in more inclusive settings.
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