Contributions From: M.J. Schoeman - University of Pretoria.
Abstract
"They say in Qwaqwa there is no school for him. The social workers said they are still going to build it. They said that they will build a special school in this area but even today it has never materialised." "I don't think she will have a good life, because she is not in school, maybe if we could afford those schools where they teach people like her, but I hear they are far and expensive". Statements such as these, by parents from a deep rural, disadvantaged area of South Africa, exemplify most of the problems facing families with regard to the education of their disabled children. These problems include: ? professionals who operate within a typically modernist ("medical deficit") approach towards disability, even though it is totally inappropriate within an African context ? lack of empowerment restrains parents from becoming partners in decisions concerning their children's education ? the constant lack of facilities and resources experienced by especially rural Africans ? the persistent idea among parents of disabled children that they are so different/exceptional that they could never become part of the normal social and educational context.
This paper will discuss some of these problems, particularly the last one. We shall argue that resistance to exclusionary practices will only succeed (become effective once those who are excluded or marginalized refrain from presenting themselves as such in the public arena. There is a need for a careful deconstruction of the very structures of dominant and marginal. Such oppositional models themselves may derive from and reproduce the oppressive and discriminatory conditions that prevail. To proclaim oneself as a marginalized or silenced group is implicitly to accept and to internalise the condition of marginality.
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