Assessing Special Needs in Canadian and German History: Research-Based Decisions or Situational Negotiations?

• In Event: 18.055 - Free and Appropriate? Contextual Factors Impacting the Provision of "Appropriate" Special Education Services

Abstract

Special education assessment evolved and standardized over the twentieth century. It culminated in decisions regarding the placement of children in appropriate learning environments, and was with regard to its structure as well as to its execution steered by several influencing contextual factors. This presentation therefore looks at these influencing factors in Canada and Germany under a comparative perspective from the 1950s to the 1980s. Amongst these levels educational research is one possible source for legitimizing as well as carrying out the assessment procedure. But at the same time scholarly investigation competes with other multimodal narratives on an individual, local as well as national level and might therefore also be replaced or simply not perceived as source of relevance.

Authors

• John Allison, Nipissing University

• Michaela Vogt, University of Bielefeld