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What learning disability does: sustaining the ideology of schooling
1Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Journal of Learning Disabilities
|August 1, 1995
Summary
Learning disabilities help uphold societal assumptions by explaining schooling anomalies, perpetuating inequality. Practitioners should address systemic inequities alongside student support.
Area of Science:
- Sociology of Education
- Critical Theory
- Disability Studies
Background:
- Learning disabilities are often viewed through a deficit-based lens within educational systems.
- The social and political contexts of schooling significantly influence the understanding and treatment of learning disabilities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the relationship between learning disabilities and the underlying assumptions of schooling.
- To explore how learning disabilities function within broader social and political contexts.
Main Methods:
- Discourse theory was employed to deconstruct the concept of learning disabilities.
- Analysis focused on how learning disabilities are framed within educational and societal discourses.
Main Results:
- Learning disabilities serve to explain contradictions in schooling, thereby reinforcing dominant societal assumptions.
- The field of learning disabilities inadvertently supports a status quo where social inequalities are naturalized within a meritocratic framework.
Conclusions:
- The concept of learning disabilities can sustain inequities by masking systemic issues within schooling and society.
- Learning disabilities practitioners are urged to integrate advocacy for social and educational equity into their practice.