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Against the Grain: Establishing a Critical Disposition

Mon, April 16, 8:15 to 10:15am, New York Hilton Midtown, Floor: Second Floor, Beekman

Abstract

In 1981, Sally Tomlinson’s Educational Subnormality: A Study in Decision-making was published. Therein she demonstrated the over representation of Caribbean boys to special education. This work remains an important landmark for the fledgling critique of special education. In the following year, a Sociology of Special Education appeared. This encouraged readers to apply a more variegated lens to the analysis of special education. Accordingly, the relationship between regular and special education could be seen as codependent; a means of dealing with the failure of education to meet the requirements of diverse populations. I came to these texts somewhat later and was unable to resist the importance of her work as the foundation for the serious analysis of special education, regular education, and the expanding calibration of so-called difficult or defective students. Sometime later I joined Prof.Tomlinson at Goldsmith’s College and discovered that her work was applied. She is an activist researcher who applies her data and analysis to the fight for real world struggles against prevailing injustices. This paper discusses the nexus between research and activism in the work of Professor Tomlinson.

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