Discourses on bad children and bad schools

First, discourse is discussed as concerning the subtler lineaments of knowledge production in notions about difference and difficulty. The unhelpful influences that these notions have had on the development of special education research and practice are discussed. The importance of the scholar-practitioner in undoing some of these understandings is further developed. Second, the point is stressed that politics and political questions are intertwined with empirical questions and that a discourse of objectivity propagates and fosters a belief that the supposed paraphernalia of science (measurement, experiment, prediction) can be employed without cost. Third, the point is made that the individual discourse is rooted in the theoretical context of special education--with unhelpful consequences for the way that difficulty continues to be construed as rooted in individuals, whether those individuals be children or schools.