SPECIAL EDUCATION: THE RESTRUCTURING OF EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSE Cheryl Carpenter Department of Education University of Queensland Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Flinders University, Adelaide S.A., 27 November - 2 December, 1989. Introduction Society has undergone some dramatic changes during the late 1970's and 1980's and almost every sector of our society has faced some form of restructuring. These decades are often referred to as part of the technological era or information age. Yet others equate the significance of present day events with that of the industrial revolution. In this paper I argue that the 1980's has witnessed the formation of a new social order, that of corporatism. Corporatism is not confined to the economic or government fields but also refers to the cultural, everyday aspects of our personal and professional lives, the field of symbolic control (Bernstein, 1987). It is an integrated social order which is removing the traditional distinctions between professional, cultural, political, economic and social groups. In the place of such social categories is an all embracing social order of corporate consensus. The move towards a corporatist social order indicates a shift in the power and control relations of our society. The once widely acknowledged issues and demands of social collectives such as the women's and black movements, along with the status, authority, autonomy and influence of many professions are being delegitimised. Authority and legitimacy in the 1980's no longer belongs to members of particular social groups or professions. Instead authority and legitimacy belong to the individual who speaks the consensus decision arising from the corporate process. The change in positions of status and authority indicate the emergence of a new middle class, that of the rational Man as the model citizen advocate. As a rationally objective and politically neutral individual, the rational man is best able to identify, monitor and assess problem situations and issues and advocate those solutions which are in the general interest of all society. The rational Man, as the dominant social group, is not someone who gains their identity from class heritage, professional or political affiliation, gender or cultural background. Instead the attempt is to disassociate oneself from such areas of bias and unequal benefit by placing them as merely characteristics and skills of the individual which mathematically compound to form one's overall image and value to society. Directing the restructurings of the 1980's is the ideology of possessive individualism. The model citizen is both the possessor of skills for exchange within the market place of a free and equal society and the presenter of the right image to enhance the marketability of the product, the individual. The corporate order of the 1980's operates on a technical approach which quantifies individuals, their skills, knowledge, associations, relationships, services and organisations. Quantification serves two purposes. It depoliticises people and their social collectives by separating them from their historical, cultural, social, political and economic contexts. Quantification then repositions people as individuals within the new corporatist order which places a socially determined value on their skills and overall image. The corporatist order of the 1980's is concerned with both an economic and cultural rationalisation. I now turn to consider how the restructurings of special education fits into the corporate order of the 1980's. The Restructuring of Special Education in the 1960's and 70's During the 1960's and 70's special education experienced a substantial growth in its status, funding, resources, services and student population. Internationally, the United Nations published the Declarations of Rights for the child, the disabled child and the mentally retarded. These rights encompassed both the rights of the normal citizen and the right to specialised treatment for the disabled individual. In the USA, Public Law 94-142 set an international landmark which ensured the right of every disabled child to an appropriate education. It demanded accountability from special educators and instigated the individualised education program (IEP) with its behaviourist objectives and intervention to ensure it. In Britain, the Warnock Report (1978) stressed the co- ordination and co-operation of services and extended the definition of educational provision to human services and professions outside of the special education system. It also disbanded many of the labels used to categorise the various forms of disability and replaced them with the broader category of 'special needs' which included many previously unidentified students within the regular school system. In Australia, the National Survey into Special Education (Andrews et al., 1979) made similar recommendations. It also called for the State resumption of educational services provided by voluntary organisations and legislative changes to guarantee the participatory rights of parents and educational provision for all children. Special education and the human services prior to these changes had been in a state of disarray. Some children received no assistance at all because they did not fit any specific service category. Other children were placed within service care which provided minimal physical care and operated on a custodial basis of mass institutionalisation. Yet others received ad hoc assistance which saw them lost within the gaps in service provsion. Consequently, many children received little or no education or intervention. The discourse in reaction to this situation was one of service co-ordination, co-operation, efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and outcomes. The attempt was to ensure the rights of every child to an appropriate education by providing a more coherent and co-ordinated service system which emphasised the development of the child, with proven outcomes, through direct intervention. These changes were usually associated with the theory of normalization and its demands for as normal a life as possible for the disabled individual. The changes normalization brought to special education were integration into the societal and educational mainstreams and behaviourist technologies of intervention to enable the disabled person's functional independence within normal society. The central features of special education have become integration, intervention, the least restrictive alternative and rights, all based on the concepts of the normal and the individual. Normalization has become the international password for present day policy and practice within special education and the human services to such an extent that we are now witnessing the 'Normalization Era' (Judge, 1987). As Ross Ferguson (1987:1-2), the Assistant Director of Special Services in Queensland, verifies: According to Wolfensberger (1972:41) the normalization principle is now the most powerful ideological perspective in service delivery...This principle, embracing the...systematic progressive implementation of integration, is now impacting upon educational provisions for the disabled, bringing profound changes. Some developments in special education do not officially recognise normalization and others arose prior to Wolfensberger's (1972) publication of 'The Principle of Normalization'. However, such developments still belong to the 'Normalization Era' with its provision of the normal for the disabled individual. We can, following Foucault (Rabinow, 1986:101-20), say that Wolfensberger is not the name of the author but the name of the discourse. Normalization, did not arise as the result of an individual's creativity or originality. Instead, the historical, economic, social, political, social and cultural forces at play within the wider social context provided the conditions for its emergence. Furthermore, the State and its legislative bodies have accepted and legitimated normalization as a regulatory discourse according to society's dominant principles (Bernstein, 1987). Normalization is inextricably linked to the power and control relations of the wider social order. Normalization, through its concepts of the normal and the individual represents the power interests of the dominant interest group within our society. It identifies, intervenes, evaluates and places the individual along a continuum (the least restrictive altenative) of status, rights, surveillance and material wealth according to how he/she measures against the norm of the most 'valued', the most powerful and influential, members of our society. Normalization can not be divorced from the social context in which it gained its pre-eminence. In fact, it is because normalization represents and conveys the power and control relations of the wider social context that it has been so widely accepted and instigated at the international, national and local levels of government. Normalization has become the official discourse of the State for the restructuring of both special education and the disability services. However, there are two quite distinct theories of normalization. Nirje (1985; Wolfensberger, 1972) was the first to formulate a theory of normalization. Nevertheless, '[t]he whole process called 'normalization' has become synonymous with the name Wolf Wolfensberger' (Judge, 1987:77). Wolfensberger's theory had already restructured and reshaped the discourse of normalization prior to its application within special education. As Perrin and Nirje (1985:70-1) state: We wish to clearly indicate that Wolfensberger's version of "normalization" deviates in many significant ways from the original concept of the principle, and thus contrary to Wolfensberger's claim (1972,p.28) cannot be considered as a reformulation, refinement, or operationalisation of the principle. Rather his version, with its focus on using normative means and on establishing normative behaviour, is built upon a fundamentally different value base and conception of people, with quite different implications for how we view and treat handicapped people. The initial restructuring of normalization by Wolfensberger was based on the socially dominant ideology of possessive individualism. Wolfensberger's version claimed that it was culturally neutral and took as its yard stick what a given society placed as highly valued, culturally normative, in order to determine which individuals were to be considered 'deviant'. These individuals then required an intervention which would negate/reduce their deviancy and develop their normalacy. This in turn would enhance their skills and societal image which ultimately lead to the attribution of a high value, the perception of normalacy, and the natural granting of status, rights and friendships through the attainment of a highly valued social role. Skills become a market commodity and the individual's image of normality the market packaging to enable the exchange of skills for an equally valued social role, its associated rights, wealth, knowledge and status. The Restructuring of Special Education in the 1980's Altough the ideology of possessive individualism has always been present within the theory of normalization, the initial concern present in its discourse and subsequent restructurings of special education was the issue of rights. However, as special education moved from the 1960's into the 1970's and 80's there has been a gradual shift in the emphasis. The shift began with the move from Nirje's theory which stressed the rights of the disabled individual to the same experiences as the normal citizen which included the right to choose one's associates and to formulate and voice issues and demands. The move to Wolfensberger's theory saw the onus of success/failure placed onto the individual and the 'price' one was willing to pay. [I]t will, of course, come down in many circumstances to the question of whether or not a person wants to be accepted, whether or not a service worker wants a person or group to gain acceptance, and what price one is willing to pay in the pursuit of that goal (Emphasis added). Part of the price is an insistence on separation from other 'deviants', other disabled people, and striving to reduce one's deviancy and enhance one's normality. The ideology of possessive individualism became more explicit in the very early 1980's when Wolfensberger (1980a, b) clarified his concept of a conservatism corollory. Because a disabled person already had a negative social value, it became necessary to argue for the most highly valued social attributes and skills if the disabled person was to present the skills and image that would enable them to attain a social position of value which would lead to their acceptance within the societal mainstream. The most explicit expression of possessive individualism came in 1983 when Wolfensberger renamed the theory of normalization as social role valorization. Wolfensberger (1983:26) provides the dictionary definition of valorization as 'attempting to give a market value to a commodity'. He (1983:26) refutes this meaning on the grounds that 'it implies the attachment of a value to objects instead of people'. Yet in the same article, Wolfensberger (1983:238) states: One of the first steps in getting people to be less devaluing is to get them to approach the negatively charged...stimulus object, i.e. a person with devalued characteristics (Emphasis added). Wolfesnberger (1983:237) also claims that the definition of valorization is 'an unrelated technical concept...inapplicable to the context to which it is being applied'. Yet the technical approach of normalization has been one of its major justifications (See Beckey, 1980; McCord, 1982; Wolfesnsberger, 1980a, b). The dictionary definition is applicable to normalization with its underlying ideology of possessive individualism. As the ideology of possessive individualism has become more explicit, the discourse of special education has changed. Where the discourse centred on rights it now openly focuses on the 'worth' (value) and contribution of disabled people to society. Here the Advisory Council for Special Education in Queensland states: Free and accurate information on the known causes of handicap, the concept that development occurs along a continuum of individual rates, the moral aspects of the worth and importance of each societal member's contribution, are just some of the matters which society needs to contemplate seriously (Wanstall, et al., 1983: 25. Emphasis added). Wanstall et al. (1983:12) reiterate the concern with the individual's contribution to society: [C]umulative effects threading through to adult life and the world of work can often be discerned. The tragedy...is the failure to achieve one's potential as a human being and the consequent loss to society of the complete contribution of one of its members. The ideology of possessive individualism is directing the restructurings of special education and the disability services through the discourse of normalization. Normalization, the least restrictive alternative and integration are more than moving people towards a 'normal as possible' lifestyle or recognising their rights to intervention and independence. These concepts are moving people out of fully funded government provision, into partially funded and generic services to finally a user pays provision: To be integrated means that the general community should be given assistance to provide specialist support themselves...Some disability agencies could provide the specific workers/staff to support a few individuals in their own rented house-or they could assist people to get a loan to buy a house-and then provide the workers. Local industry could employ a person with a disability with some "expert" advice and help (Office of Disability; 1988:29). Even for those receiving a pension or some form of government support there is an economic return to 'society': [D]isability will create a cost to society regardless of whether or not rehabilitation services exist...[T]he more a society recognises these costs, and the more it attempts to ameliorate them through...adequate disability prevention and rehabilitation services, the greater is the overall economic return that may be expected (United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs, 1977; cited by ASTEC, 1984:62). Possessive individualism is explicitly expressed in the New Directions publication which formed the basis to Austalia's 1986 Disability Services Act (HPR, 1985:140). In this document, the individual is a consumer of services which develop the skills they need to possess if they are to participate in society and its market relationship of supply and demand. Here the fictitious Ms Mary Brown, initially defined as severely, physically, intellectually disabled with associated visual and hearing impairments, is described within the new future created by the new legislation as: [A] consumer, an individual with severe multiple disabilities requiring some additional support to help her achieve her desired goals. She has a number of employment options including working in competitive employment with support. She thinks she might take up a job in a local computer factory assembling word processor keyboards, where she would be able to earn a wage according to her productivity (HPR, 1985:140). An illustration accompanies the above quote. Today, Ms Brown is in a wheelchair and obviously disabled. Her presentation in the Year x shows her without a wheelchair, with a much brighter disposition, and a greater number of exchanges between herself and the community (HPR, 1985:141). The concern is a general presentation of normality to enable the exchange of strong competencies. The inference is equality through integration into society. However, the ASTEC Report (1984) acknowledges the link between disability, poverty and the difficulties in gaining access to even the basic technology required for everyday life. This difficulty is then justified as being the same for the rest of the economic market: [A] vital element in making technology accessible to the disabled is marketing. It is at this stage that some of the most serious barriers arise to diffusion of new technology. A particular aid of technology will only be available to a disabled person if the research and development behind the technology is translated into usable and affordable product or service. The potential manufacturer of an aid...has to make an assessment of not only of the technical feasibility of the product, and the cost of producing and marketing the aid, but must also assess the size of its market and the ability of consumers to pay for the product. In this respect, the production of aids for the disabled is no different from the development of products for the general market (ASTEC, 1984:67). Disabled people are a small group, with often different 'needs' even to each other, and therefore hold no collective power as a consumer group. There are serious problems associated with this economic discourse that emphasises individual purchasing power while privileging market profitability. These people, and their families, already facing higher than average living costs and loss of the carer's (usually the mother's) income, are having to assume the major responsibility for care and provision (Holt, 1987). The implication is of a social status of poverty, hidden by the isolation and segregation (integration) of disabled people from each other and through this the loss of a collective political power. The limitations and problems created by this discourse are not simply theoretical, they belong to special education itself. The major limitation of this discourse is that its emphasis on the individual negates any substantial understanding of special education's position within the wider social context. Soder (1984:22) terms this the socio-psychological approach: [T]he socio-psychological approach has only resulted minimally in investigations of the elements in the environment and society that demarcate the group and govern the lives its members lead...[T]here has been a tendency to turn back the relativistic approach to elements centred on individuals. Studies of the adaptive behaviour of the mentally retarded have been more usual than studies of the characteristics of the social system ...We have...more of a broader clinical perspective than a developed perspective of the social system. Special education's discourse assumes that society is coherent and stratified and that disability is an inherent trait. This leads special educators to accept a 'fixed' low status as natural for disabled people. These people are placed at the 'bottom' (Abbott, 1981:238) or within a 'surplus population' (Soder, 1984:22) and therefore subject to the criteria of the status quo: Similar to the hierarchy established by general society with the atypical at the bottom, there exists an established hierarchy of treatment of the exceptional. Those behaving most like the social mean or norm are accepted most readily (Abbott, 1981:238). They are also subject to the economic and political priorities of the status quo: Today the mentally retarded are further from the labour market than ever before. They are less attractive as producers than the large numbers of young people unemployed. As consumers of public care they have been hit by cuts in public sector spending (Soder, 1984:28). As a low status category, the 'disabled' () and their services such as special education are a low priority. Policies, like integration, are instigated because they fulfil a higher priority within a time of economic constraint. That is, they are cheap (Soder, 1984:24): Making the needs of the severely disabled invisible fills an economic function. The present economic crisis has created strong political pressures for cuts in public sector expenditure. Cuts in a sector that is primarily constructed to meet the needs of groups of less fortunate individuals will naturally affect these groups the most. There is therefore every..., reason to look closely at the ideological reasons for cuts. That...motives are clothed in progressive words concerning integration and normalization possibly makes critical inspection more difficult, but no less necessary (Soder, 1984:33). The plight of special education is becoming that of its students, low status and exclusion: A society that values excellence (in the sense of improving education for the best and brightest) may be unwilling to spend large sums on education for the handicapped...Calls for excellence may cause a rechanelling of funds from remedial programs to programs for the gifted (Yudof, 1984:495). Education systems in general are experiencing major restructurings directed by the same discourse as special education's systems theory of accountability, efficiency, effectiveness, standards, outcomes and excellence (Andrews, 1983a, b; Chandler, 1984a, b, c; Gartner, 1986; Harris, 1986; Katz-Garris & Garris, 1981; Liebermann, 1985, 1986). Special education is concerned about its exclusion from official documents, the increased competitiveness for reduced funds, and the marginalising of equity issues by an emphasis on excellence (Harris, 1986; Katz-Garris & Garris, 1981; Sapon-Shevin, 1987a): "[E]xcellence in education"...results in less than adequate treatment of equity issues,...to the point that "special education students are not considered worthy or needy of educational attention" (Sapon-Shevin, 1987a:305). The threat is being 'bypassed' entirely or 'worse yet,' having 'some of the tenuous progress that has been made in special education to date' destroyed (Pugach & Sapon-Shevin, 1987:299). Accountability is based on standards and outcomes biased toward the gifted and regular education students (Katz-Garris & Garris, 1981; Sapon-Shevin, 1987a, b; Yudof, 1984). Also, the political and legislative avenues used to secure special education's reforms are now being used to secure contradictory reforms (Yudof, 1984). Special education's position within the political, social and economic power plays of society is becoming frighteningly obvious. However, its own discourse of accountability and its marginalising of the social context leave it with little option but to accept the terms and conditions threatening it: While one can hardly argue with the goals of "excellence" presented in the national reports, little mention is made of what will happen to those youngsters who are unable to meet these new standards (Sapon-Shevin, 1987a). Paradoxically, special education attempts to ward off this threat by using the same discourse that is posing it. The explanation for poor outcomes is inefficiency, ineffectiveness, self-interest and poor standards. To justify a continued practice of integration and and integration, reduced spending and accountability based on differential outcomes are advocated (Pugach, 1987; Sapon- Shevin, 1987a; Wang & Reynolds, 1986). Differential outcomes assume achievement through innate ability/ disability. But they infer differentiation and the positioning of people into low status categories. This low status allocation means the differential distribution of funding and resources and therefore low prioritisation of special education itself: The Heritage Foundation's report (1984) states explicitly that special education services are being provided at the expense of other members of society. When discussions on educational policy are linked to economics, the underlying assumption is that the amount expended on education for any given individual is somehow linked to what the person is "worth" to society (either in terms of projected income or other societal contributions). This has serious implications for those individuals considered to be "surplus population" (Sapon-Shevin, 1987a:305). Special education stresses outcomes and is being made accountable according to its outcomes. Special education is in a precarious position as much of its own research indicates dependency on beneficiaries, families or the State (Christie, 1981; Edgerton et al., 1984; Toomey & O'Callaghan, 1983); low or below minimum standards of living (May & Hughes, 1985; Mithuag et al., 1985); and unskilled, inconsistent or sheltered employment for its students (Atkinson, 1982; May & Hughes, 1985; Mithuag et al., 1985; Hasazi et al., 1983; O'Callaghan & Toomey, 1983; Wehman et al., 1985) . Normalization and the international field have strongly influenced the Australian and Queensland special services. The State's political, administrative and legislative agencies have instigated major changes in special education and the human services with the Queensland Education (1984) and Disability Services (1986) Acts (Andrews, 1979: Handicapped Programs Review (HPR), 1985). Underlying this discourse is also an economic rationalisation which is challenging the status and legitimacy of special education. Ferguson (1989:2) comments on the economism in special education in Queensland and internationally: It is an interesting phenomenon of our times that the compelling ideology which pervades the western democracies is not socialism, nor is it liberalism but rather economism which is driven by the product/output model evaluated in terms of profit generated. Clear evidence of the degree to which this ideology now permeates educational planning and administration is found in the current vocabulary of educators. We now talk about services to clients. We arrange our services in programs which are subject to annual performance auditing. We set quality control measures and look for performance outcomes. The paradox of special education actually advocating the discourse which is threatening its existence remains for the Australian situation. Harris (1986:7) indicates that Australian special education faces the same dilemma as special education internationally: [E]ducational thinking and development in recent years has been completely dominated by an economic view of education, to the point where a Government can cut special education funds...and receive less than ten letters of complaint... [B]ecause we have grown accustomed to thinking, writing about, and discussing education in terms of economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equity and priority, we are now, generally, accepting of cuts. Similarly, Rod Cavalier, Minister for Education, rejected the New South Wales Doherty Report (1982) on special education because it made extensive requests for increased resources. In a Radio TBL broadcast (Media Monitor, 1985:8), Cavalier argues: [I]f there is going to be reports with massive resource implications that among the authors will be hard headed economists...who will be able to go through and say... "Let's look at this in the world of reality, what real prospect is there of this having any real success in...parliament ?" The changes in special education use an economic discourse about the 'current fiscal climate' (Ferguson, 1987:10) to exclude some issues and prioritise others (DSE, 1988; Ferguson, 1987; Wanstall et al., 1983). The irony is that within the wider social context the same discourse is de-prioritising special education. The authroity and status of special education within the political agenda of the State is being eroded so that requests and arguments for funding, litigation (social reform) and egalitarianism are now marginalised. Adherence to normalization and its systems co-ordination provides special education with its 'vision of excellence' and so ensures the rights of its students by providing a more efficient, effective and accountable service system (DSE, 1988:1). The 1980's has resulted in a subtle move away from issues, inequalities and rights to efficiency, effectiveness and quantifiable outcomes as proof of secured rights. As such rights and inequality are a non- issue. Special education holds a new status position within a new social order which stresses accountability and outcomes. The social order of special education, its form and content, is also changed to one of integration. The State's political and economic discourse is using normalization and its issues of integration and economic efficiency to restructure special education. Efficiency becomes topics such as the 'reality of staff ceilings' (DSE, Staffing, 1984) and 'cluster systems' for the efficient, economic and co-operative co-ordination of resources, personnel and time between organisations (DSE, No.4, 1986, 1988:12). It is a discourse of economic rationalisation. Integration, on the other hand is reshaping special education itself. The following section on the restructuring of special education in Queensland, also indicates that normalization in is also a discourse of cultural rationalisation. The Restructuring of Special Education in Queensland Special education's new social order is the result of power shifts, a new middle-class, in the wider social order. Once relatively autonomous professions are now forming part of an independent primary sector of the labour market. This sector allows some professional autonomy but uses invisible bureaucratic controls to select and constrain its new middle-class members (Edwards, 1979). This control refers to the power and control relations relayed in special education by its central concepts of the normal (integration) and the individual (intervention). The social order they form is bureaucratic corporatism. The corporate management style (DSE, 1988:24) insists on the co-operation, co-ordination and integration of professional domains where consultation ensures participation (DSE, 1988:13-4). Authority does not belong to special education, or any other agency, agent or profession. Such authority is illegitimate. Here medicine faces a subtle reprimand for its autonomy and provision in 'vacuo': In the medical area, the hospital family practitioners and well baby care services are seen as central. Their relationship is of the nature of a triad involving also the parents and the child. In this regard, it can be seen that monitoring programs cannot, work, and will never work successfully, in vacuo (Wanstall et al., 1983:20). Authority belongs to leadership groups with representatives from those services which are relevant to the task at hand (Wanstall et al., 1983:26). The 'team' extends from normalization's individual as a heterogeneous range of professions which gain coherence through their shared philosophy. Thus, Wanstall et al. (1983:47) state: The exchange of information and ideas, which occurs when professionals work cooperatively and share common goals rooted in a shared philosophy, ensures that programs for the handicapped are of the highest quality. When barriers are transcended so that professionals can serve as models for one another and combine skills and competencies, an important instrument for change emerges in the educational management team (Haring, 1977, p.183. Emphasis added). The model student, service provider and organisation of bureaucratic corporatism are ideologically premised on normalization's individual as the model citizen. The model student strives 'to achieve maximum capacity', 'independence and control of own circumstances' and shows 'positive reactions', 'enthusiasm', 'willing involvement', 'pleasure and happiness', 'satisfaction' and 'no signs of frustration' (DSE, 1988:7-9). The service provider, as a 'good model', 'advocates for disabled persons', shows an 'interest in the welfare of staff and students' and 'commitment', displays an 'entrepreneurial spirit', is 'personally stable' and consistent in 'behaviour and attitudes', 'values, goals and expectations' and is 'well-known and accepted amongst the total school community', is an 'effective communicator', demonstrates 'leadership in the community' and has the 'capacity to act as a change agent' (DSE, 1988:10-21). The model organisation assists 'in compensating for disability', seeks the 'acceptance of disabled students within various communities', 'provides rational advocacy for rights of the disabled', promotes the 'worth of the disabled' and advocates 'equitably for all' (DSE, 1988:28-30). Service providers and organisations are the model citizen advocate which is the goal of normality for the student. The model citizen is consistent, positively controls emotions, is 'rationally assertive' and 'works from a logical valid basis to assert influence' (DSE, 1988:12). The 1980's European middle-class male is a technocratic discourse of the rational Man which privileges a new middle-class or cultural elite and their objective, rational, scientific and non-emotive forms of speech and social relations (Peller, 1987; Singh, 1989). The discourse appears politically neutral and as presenting objective truths while discrediting the discourses of others as value laden, biased, emotive and irrational (Peller, 1987). In special education the discourse appears altruistic; free from vested interests whilst advocating for others. The rational Man forms special education's moral ethos of advocacy, quality of life, a positive climate (DSE, 1988) and cultural order of a normalizing environment (DSE, 1988:26). Behaviourist objectives (regulative discourse) stipulate how staff, students, schools and teams, as model citizens, are to conduct themselves (DSE, 1988) and so relay the power and control relations of the 1980's. The values and interests of the rational Man are framed in behaviourist terms of the 'appropriate'. Table 1 shows the Table 1: The Regulative Discourse of the Appropriate ---------------------------------------------------------------- Regulated Areas Examples ----------------------------------------------------------------- Behaviour ---------------- Emotions ---------------- Interactions ---------------- Perspectives ---------------- Communication ---------------- Authority ---------------- Teacher Education ---------------- New Knowledge ---------------- Curricula and Programs --------------- Instruction ---------------- Experience, Content and Contexts of Programs --------------- Evaluation inappropriate and non-co-operative behaviour (Vidler, 1986:1, 6) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate control of stress (DSE, 1988:7) ----------------------------------------------- appropriate personal interactions (DSE, 1988:28) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate philosophical and ideological perspective (DSE, 1988:12) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate means to include parents in decisions regarding their child's education (DSE, No.3, 1985:3) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate leadership groups (Wanstall et al., 1983:26) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate teacher education (Wanstall et al., 1983:49) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate research programs (Wanstall et al., 1983:49) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate curricula (DSE, No.3, 1985:2) age appropriate programs (Vidler, 1986:3) appropriate program (DSE, No.4, 1986:5) appropriate early intervention (Wanstall et al., 1983:11) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate techniques (DSE, 1988:21) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate concrete experiences, real life situations and hands on approach (DSE, 1988:19) age appropriate activities (DSE, 1988:19) appropriate levels of stimulus (DSE, 1988:7) ------------------------------------------------ appropriate data to measure behaviour and evaluate outcomes (DSE, 1988:21)------------------------------------------------------------------- special education practices regulated by the discourse of the 'appropriate'. Special education's regulative discourse of the appropriate (normal) is so strong that it forms the content, contexts and methods of its instruction. Real life situations relevant to students' 'natural environments' gives the appropriate content (DSE, No.3, 1985:4). Appropriate contexts are 'community facilities' which 'incorporate community based learning experiences' and so give the real life situations (DSE, 1988:7, 28). The community and real life are then transformed into objectified extensions of the normal healthy Man. They are changed into social, moral, affective and cultural domains (heterogeneous whole) (DSE, No.3, 1985, 1988:7). These domains are then further characteristics) to form a balanced, life skills program (coherent modified into a range of activities, experiences and skills that are age appropriate (DSE, 1988:19), concrete (DSE, 1988:19) and functional (Vidler, 1986:3). The regulative discourse of behaviourist psychology also forms the instructional methods of special education. The methods are task, activity and situational analysis, and data based decision making (DSE, 1988:19). The activities, tasks and experiences derived from the community and real life are further modified into sequences of incremental steps (DSE, 1988:20; Vidler, 1986:2). The skills to be acquired become a series of data (DSE, No.3, 1985:5, 8), objective goals, processes and outcomes (DSE, 1988:5, 12, 13). A series of minutely sequenced, highly abstract, tangible activities within separate unrelated domains are taught to develop skills rather than any knowledge relating to everyday life or the community. It is the 'program not the placement which provides the focus' (DSE, 1988:17). Even community based programs re- contextualise the community into unrelated domains of targeted skills and incremental steps. The discourse creates an ideological order which stresses function, independence and the development of isolated skills for exchange in, and contribution towards, a healthy normal Australian society (see Wanstall et al., 1983:12). Children, teachers and special education are removed from their everyday, traditional practices, experience and knowledge and placed into a new ideological order of integration/normalisation. Thus, the corporate focus re-positions the abnormal within the normal for the development of the abnormal towards the normal in special education. The discourse of change requires 'a vision...to see in the present an emerging future' (DSE, 1988:13). Special education's society, real life and community are myths: a vision that can never exist because it assumes a politically neutral, conflict free, coherent individual and society. The vision, is possessive individualism's rational Man as the model citizen. It is presented in a behaviourist discourse which demands programs and curricula have their own social validity (DSE, No.3, 1985:4, 1988:20). A world of objective reality is alluded to by focusing on the tangible, concrete and functional. People and their social relationships are dissociated from their actual contexts of the social, political, economic and cultural and so bear no resemblance to the everyday, its issues, complexities or ambiguities. The 'real life' content and contexts of programs () in special education do not relate to the socio- cultural-economic life experiences of students such as having an ethnic background, living on a pension with higher than average living costs or facing youth unemployment when disabled youths are the most disadvantaged. The ideological, visionary and unrealistic discourse of the rational Man as a behaviourist construct of the appropriate/normal defines the 'real' in special education's social order. Bureaucratic corporatism forms a specific set of social relations. Special education's individualisation forms its social relations which are identified as the child-centred approach (DSE, 1988). This 1960's/70's approach is transformed in the 1980's to something other than student control over their knowledge, learning experiences and environment (). The re-contextualisation of the child-centred approach parallels the change from Nirje's person- centred theory to Wolfensberger's behaviourist theory. Individualisation focuses on the individual's development and their environmental interactions. Hence, Wanstall et al. (1983:14) argue: The recognition that an interaction is occurring between the developing organism and its total environment, so that a continuous process of monitoring is necessary. The child, the living organism defined by the neutral pronoun it, is the object monitored by the focus of the corporate team. The 1980's child-centred approach monitors the object and 'its' environmental interactions. The individualisation of special education objectifes the child rather than providing her/him the opportunity to have any input into their learning experiences. The focus redefines individual authority and autonomy to an expert/object status hierarchy. Also objectified are those people who are regarded as prominent components in the individual object's environmental interactions. Students, staff and schools become components split into criteria and then quality indicators to be monitored as the student, service provider and organisation 'focus' (DSE, 1988:5, 10, 23). Parents are objectified as the major component in environmental interactions (Wanstall et al., 1983:10- 4). The process is one of ongoing surveillance providing a 'richer knowledge of the child and family' (Wanstall et al., 1983:17). Parents and staff are also part of the team (DSE, 1988) where co-operation and liaison are crucial (Wanstall et al., 1983:20-3). All must be committed to the importance and philosophy of the operation and are to know of all other professions and services (Wanstall et al., 1983:21, 25). The team demands 'acceptance and support of consensus decisions and outcomes' (DSE, 1988:11). The criteria for consensus are predefined. Team members must have an 'appropriate philosophical and ideological perspective' and be committed to normalization (DSE, 1988:12, 17). Normalization, the ultimate expert, creates the multiple or team focus on the individual object within the corporate approach. Wanstall et al. (1983:16) identify the function of the multiple gaze as monitoring and identifying those with abnormal development: [A] child showing a mild delay at one age may subsequently exhibit deviant development. A surveillance program involving all children with ongoing monitoring of growth and development would have many advantages. Directing the multiple gaze is a knowledge and information sharing limited to a specific construct of normality/abnormality (DSE, 1988; Wanstall et al., 1983). As Wanstall et al. (1983:21) state: [C]hildren initially noted as at risk may require referral to a more specialised agency in order to have an initial index of suspicion confirmed and to begin the process of quantification of the extent of handicap (Emphasis added). The multiple gaze reduces knowledge sharing to the student's quantifiable characteristics of function. Wanstall et al. (1983:32) give an example in relation to severely disabled students: It is of greater value educationally, to describe this population in functional terms. Many young...handicapped children cannot suck or chew, and some cannot feed themselves...Some cannot walk, and often display deficiencies in simple manipulation of objects. The reduction of knowledge to the normal/abnormal as a statistical objective reality hides the social construction of the 'normal'. Deviancy and the need for intervention are defined by the norm of the rational Man. Parents, as the main environmental factor, also need intervention to ensure the child's progress toward the norm. Those parents specifically targeted for intervention are from lower socio-economic groups: [A] child who is born at risk into a family of low socio- economic status, or one whose parents are not adequately involved in habilitation and assisted with knowledge and emotional support, is not only suffering form the original disability. Rather, such a child is suffering from a compound set of problems (Wanstall et al., 1983:13). And as Wanstall et al. (1983:11) further indicate, women are especially targeted: Seemingly, those [programs] which appear to endure share some commonground, particularly that they are family oriented, and support, with a view to enhancing, the maternal interaction system...Sensitivity to the child and the involvement, very directly of the mother, are very significant factors in any successful program outcome. The bureaucratic corporatist focus is biased toward the rational Man. It perpetuates existing inequalities by differentially targeting and allocating specific groups to the socially constructed category of deviancy. The socio-cultural relationships of groups other than the rational Man are considered inappropriate/deficient and therefore requiring intervention into the relationships within families and especially the relations between mothers and their 'atypical' child. In addition, professional disciplines have extended their authority to all parents through their concern for the entire population. A growing body of information which extends further into the personal lives and relations between parents (especially mothers) and child is collected and collated from the information sharing of the multiple gaze (corporatist bureaucracy) (Wanstall et al., 1983). Normality defines who requires intervention and who is a legitimate authority, not object, within the multiple gaze. Parents, students and teachers need to acquire normalization's discourse or its status quo, the rational Man, to gain authority in the corporatist order. Singer and Butler's (1987:141) findings on parent involvement in the IEP (Individual Education Program) process support this claim: All...districts did have a limited number of vocal parent groups and a handful of (usually middle-class) parents who protested a placement...But the vast majority, especially low income parents, have been generally passive ...Some districts however, have been effective in attaining parent participation...Part of this high participation rate can be attributed to the relative affluence and higher parent education levels in the district: parents were able to make the time, were highly motivated to attend, and were not intimidated by the schools. In providing mechanisms for parent, student and staff involvement, special education tries to acknowledge the legitimacy of various social groups (DSE, 1988: 5, 7, 16). Normalization's corporatist settlement, however, sets and ensures adherence to its status quo through consensus. The rational Man predefines who can access the status positions in the corporatist order. Normalization directs special education's social order and relations and forms the same dividing practices, criteria of the normal/abnormal, that previously excluded its students from social positions of power and control. Students, staff and parents are re-positioned within the power and control relations of the dominant social group where the discourse of objectification and normality negate their voices and conceptions of reality. Students, teachers and parents remain objects and as such are irrelevant to the revelation of truth (identification of abnormality) gained through the quantifiable multiple gaze. However, Wanstall et al. (1983:11) indicate that the major function of the gaze is to intervene and not simply to identify abnormality: It has been demonstrated that not only does an impoverished environment exert a serious detrimental influence on the child's development, but that these detrimental effects can be prevented by appropriate early intervention efforts (Haskins et al., 1978). Intervention restructures the communications and relations between people by focusing on how environmental interactions compound, create and meliorate handicap (Wanstall et al., 1983:17). The individual object and the relations between individuals (students, staff, parents) are continuously and constantly monitored, objectified and reviewed as technologies of exchange (DSE, 1988:6). The social relations in the home, classroom and community are reduced and re-contextualised to behaviourism's stimulus- response and reinforcement and then extended to systems of process- goal or objective-outcome, review and feedback (DSE, 1988). Relationships are redefined in terms of the environment providing 'appropriate levels of stimulus' and positive student response (DSE, 1988:7, 8). This positive, warm and encouraging approach (DSE, 1988; Wanstall et al., 1983) demands 'clear goals and high expectations', 'a reflecting of values through consistent behaviour and attitudes', 'explicit standards' and 'rewarding good work' (DSE, 1988:12, 15). The approach encourages 'growth' by reinforcing normative responses and behaviours from students (DSE, 1988:13). Teaching has become a technocratic process aimed at modifying the individual's behaviour. Classroom pedagogy is no longer teaching or education concerned with relaying, developing or evaluating knowledge. The following statement in the Curriculum Policy (DSE, No.3, 1885:5) attempts to overcome this problem: Without the awareness perspective the curriculum would be too narrow and the function of the school would be reduced to something less than education. Teaching has become 'management' or 'management techniques' (DSE, No.10, 1986:1; Wanstall et al., 1983:49). Special education has a unique policy on Time Out and Physical Restraint (DSE, No.10, 1986). This policy is an extreme form of behaviour modification in danger of denying human rights. Strict guidelines regarding approval from parents, the Regional Director and involved agencies, are required (DSE, No.10, 1986). Consensus legitimates the continuation of direct intervention to modify a person's behaviour and the way they relate to others when an obvious contradiction between such modification and rights is evident. The relationship between student, teacher and team members is 'management' or control of people's behaviour. Resistance such as expressing frustration or stress (DSE, 1988) is reconceptualised and redefined as either behaviour problems or inappropriate (Christensen et al., 1986). The positive perspective relays the discourse of normality and allows only the legitimate readings which support the status quo of special education's pedagogic discourse. The positive perspective is a pro-active orientation to problem solving. Problems are addressed before they arise or recognised and removed from the public arena as negatives (DSE, 1988:15). Issues are marginalised by a 'bias toward problem solving' (DSE, 1988:15). Problems belong to the local and specific student, service provider, and organisation contexts (DSE, 1988) and are solved by action-based, technocratic processes (DSE, 1988). As Wanstall et al. (1983:21) indicate, the action orientation of the stimulus-response relationship negates wider social issues and controversies by making the central issue one of mechanics: [P]rocedures for smooth operation need to be actively planned. It is often the case that so-called team approaches, so necessary and appropriate in many circumstances, induce stress and pressure on parents because of time lags and lack of co-ordination. Mere mechanics of operation should not be allowed to delay or confuse...habilitation/rehabilitation. Queensland's discourse, like normalization and special education internationally, takes a systems theory approach which equates with vulgar pragmatism. It privileges efficiency over thought and action over theory in the pursuit of improvements (Cherryholmes, 1988:230-1). The 'consultative and participative processes' and 'feedback procedures from stakeholders in the education process' of the 'corporate management style' (DES, 1988:24) are a process of effective and efficient mechanisms (DSE, 1988:24-5) which innovate, implement, problem solve, communicate and review change (DSE, 1988:23-4). Normalization has addressed the issues and presents as a transcendental theory for special education. The remaining issue is how to efficiently and effectively implement its advocacy and change (DES, 1988:12, 15, 23). The theoretical traditions, standards and criteria are predefined and beyond question. The concern is to ensure that the status quo (new social order) of the rational Man (bureaucratic corporatism) is implemented. Social relationships are controlled to ensure support for the status quo (consensus). Normalization determines which knowledges and social relations are contradictory to the corporatist order and therefore illegitimate. Within these boundaries special education has two distinct teams: the practitioners (teachers, professionals) and the bureaucrats (State officials, administrators). Bureaucrats discuss the issues and define the possibilities of practice within the existing limits of pedagogic discourse. Their reports use an elaborated code which places issues and topics on a general level across different social contexts and fields of debate. However, discussions do centre on implementation (Ferguson, 1987; Wanstall et al., 1983). Knowledge is controlled by limiting debate of the theoretical foundations, controversies and issues to the State level of official pedagogic discourse. As Wanstall et al. (1983:vii) state: [P]rogress can...falter...because of the absence of robust and sustained effort on the part of service providers. Therefore, this collection of papers should be viewed more as serving the purpose of a catalyst for further activity ..The worth of the Advisory Council's deliberations will be evidenced by the discussion and action that grows out of this report (Emphasis added). The code for practitioners is restricted. Issues are bypassed in the latest policy (DSE, 1988) by behaviourist objectives which direct the staff's focus onto implementation in their immediate contexts. Policy developed and documented in schools, must be clear, concise, simple, current, accessible and 'accepted practice' (DSE, 1988:23). School policies are 'working documents' to enable effective implementation (DSE, 1988:23). The action orientation limits any reviews and changes conducted by staff to action based literature and practices in other schools (DSE, 1988:15, 24). Teacher education is witnessing the same action orientation and illegitimising of theory. The knowledge and practice of teachers are controlled by an insistence on action based training and credentials at the pre-service and inservice levels. Wanstall et al. (1983:48-9) define the requirements of teacher education as acquired skills related to teacher performance and pupil progress. Skills are action oriented and competency based. Educational theory takes a secondary position and is only legitimate if action oriented. Theory is validated by monitoring and testing in practice and through course presenters being practically aware participants within the clinical/ practical experience. As Wanstall et al. (1983:49) argue: [T]eacher education programs should involve extensive clinical and practicum experience so that the relationship between theory and practice is monitored and tested at each stage. Clearly, this relationship between theory and practice cannot be assessed in those situations where persons presenting courses are not fully involved in the supervision of practical work. The irony is that special education's discourse purports a theory of practice which removes and silences those (students, parents and staff) directly involved from any critical thought, evaluation or say in these practices. The practitioner is negated by being re-positioned as an object which then has 'its' performance monitored and evaluated according to how well 'it' implements the predefined criteria/behaviourist objectives (DSE, 1988). Moore (1987:235) argues that official documents use behaviourism to infer that they are based on commonsense or an objectively neutral realism. The wider field of debate and its problems with theoretical and academic traditions, terminology and controversies are obscured. Official rhetoric is guaranteed and legitimated by inferring that the real world/normal is its starting point. Any discussion or knowledge of the theoretical assumptions, debates and literature (beyond a general recognition of normalization and rights) is negated or marginalised as needing to be action oriented. The individual derived from the rational Man as the epitome of normality and as an objectively real and naturally developing organism, is fundamental to every aspect of special education. The individual presents the norm of the rational Man as the natural outcome of development and the universal trait natural to all humans. It ensures consensus and acceptance of the social order of the rational Man, its bureaucratic corporatism and inequalities, as the natural way of things. Special education's discourse also re-positions the abnormal within the normal. People with disabilities, ways of interacting, experiences, knowledge and discourses which contradict the claims of the dominant discourse regarding its naturalness and universal representation are neutralised by being re-positioned into the social order and relations of the normal as individuals. On the other hand, the individualisation of special education's intervention differentially determines the categorisation of people and their access to the different forms of knowledge, status and consciousness in the new social order. Those who contravene the dominant social order are separated from their associates and re-positioned as individuals requiring intervention. The initial claim was that the corporatism of the 1980's is an integrated order. However, underlying this more inclusive social order is a strong categorising of people which operates at the ideological level of possessive individualism. The social order appears integrated because the power and control relations of special education set the boundaries and operate at the level of the individual object and not collective categories such as the classroom, subject areas and schools. The strong distinctions between who and what forms the content and contexts of individual programs and how they are taught and structured at the individual level creates a heterogeneity within the teams, student population, contexts and curricula of special education. By operating at the individual level, special education's power and control relations are more intrusive and all pervading than those operating at a more collective level. People are placed into relationships of constant 'surveillance', 'behaviour management' and evaluation which explicitly demand and redefine just what can and cannot be discussed. They are strictly confined to the knowledge and relationships considered appropriate by the status quo. Students, parents and staff are limited to a functional knowledge of their immediate 'environments.' Legitimate knowledge is no more than a set of quantifiable functional skills, competencies and technologies. Moore (1987) refers to such discourse as totalitarian. Special education is being limited in its policy formation, practices, pedagogy and educational content to the local and immediate contexts of its students and schools. Students, staff and parents are being placed within the power and control relations of the rational Man, its criteria and standards. It denies access to any form of power, control or knowledge with the potential for people to question the existing order and realise the possibility of a new social order with different social relations. People are being placed into restricted forms of knowledge through evaluation and evaluation is the point where power speaks (Bernstein and Diaz, 1984). Pedagogic discourse is concerned with 'normalisation' or transmitting the normal. However, within the population of special education is a variety of socio-cultural, ability, political and economic orientations which can influence their social relations and what they acquire. Evaluation answers the contradiction. Evaluation redefines people as individuals and their orientations as needs according to their acquisition of the normal. Evaluation enables special education's discourse to infer that it provides equally for all social groups through the concept of meeting individual needs which differentially places the individual into the status hierarchy of bureaucratic corporatism. Individuals and services are monitored, appraised, evaluated and promoted according to special education's criteria and objectives which represent the normal (DSE, 1988:1). The identity, or conscience and consciousness, of individuals is created by their positioning within special education's social order and relations. Evaluation creates the developmentally homologous individual with a heterogeneous range of strengths and weaknesses. Evaluation arbitrates the statistical point at which such heterogeneities compound to become abnormal. Evaluation creates the 'student profile' of the IEP which constructs their general identity of abnormality/normality and thus determines their placement within the least restrictive alternative. The least restrictive alternative and the individualised education program are the points at which power speaks in special education. They place students into specific categories/degrees of abnormality which determine the degree of management/behaviour modification, skill enhancement and knowledge modification required. The quantifiable of special education is the commodity of possessive individualism. The strengths and weaknesses, the functional levels, of individuals statistically compound to form their own personal values. The skills they possess are to be exchanged for positions within a continuum of varying degrees of power, status, rights and legitimacy to speak. Special education shares normalization's goal which is the absorption of the deviant individual into society's mainstream via the exchange of skills and the general presentation of the 'deviant' as normal to ensure this exchange. The discourse constructs special education's identity as therapeutic rather than educational. Hence 'schooling' is no longer education and the distinction between education and 'training' no longer exists for the 'service' of special education, the 'clinical' practice of its teachers or its student 'clientele' (Wanstall et al., 1983). The conscience/competence and knowledge of teachers is formed by their role as co-ordinators of the educational management team (Vidler, 1986; Wanstall et al., 1983). Their knowledge is reduced to a range of skills and functional technologies. The status of special educators is raised by association with high status professions, their management and deployment of adults (especially teacher aides and volunteers) and their new status as support, consultants and technical experts for regular education. Giroux (1986:33) defines the new role of such teachers as 'technical experts'. He argues that the new status allocation disempowers and removes teachers from their traditional roles as critically reflective practitioners and from control over their work conditions. The identity of the special education teacher is the technocrat. With the new identity is a new consciousness. Teachers are now the model citizen who rationally and objectively advocate for their students. Ironically, teachers are being removed from their practices. Special education's intense individualisation creates a diversity of programs, content and contexts. Increasingly, teacher aides and volunteers are replacing the teacher in the everyday personal contact with students so that programs can in fact be implemented on an individual basis (See Giroux, 1986). Teachers, as co-ordinators, base their advocacy for students on the quantifiable data of their strengths and weaknesses and the process-goals of the school rather than any personal association with students. Likewise the conscience/competence of students is reduced to a range of functional skills and competencies. Their knowledge is limited to an awareness of their own functional strengths and weaknesses. Their consciousness, however, is one of striving toward independence and acceptance. The consciousness of student's is an obligation to contribute to society and to be always positive, pleasant and to act appropriately to enable their acceptance. Some may argue that normalization's concept of the 'dignity of risk' (Perske, 1972), or special education's high expectations (DSE, 1988) and parental rights to integrate their child (DSE, No.4, 1986) are a move beyond special education's positioning and construction of the individual's identity by evaluation. However, the dignity of risk needs to be put into perspective. The Wanstall Report (1983) speaks of students 'at risk'. 'At risk' is then defined as at risk of failure which is then equated with abnormality. The dignity of risk is to risk being 'normal'. Nirje and Perrin (1985) critique the dignity of risk when they argue that Wolfensberger's recognition of rights denies any rights to be 'different'. The dignity of risk is the 'normalisation' of students beyond the expectations of the team. Wolfensberger's (1972) example is of an intellectually disabled lad who risked his life in a fire. The concept incorporates the notion of high value: the attainment of a valued social role. In the final analysis the dignity of risk is conformity to the status quo to such an extent that the ultimate success or failure, obligation to achieve a valued social role belongs to the 'individual', their families and their willingness to strive to develop the skills, positiveness and presentation of normality that are required. Conclusion Bernstein (1987) argues that what is transmitted is not necessarily acquired and what is acquired may not have been transmitted. Special education is concerned with the transmission and acquisition of a message. It is a dynamic process which embodies contradiction and conflict at every point of the relay. This paper has focused on the transmission of the message of the 1980's social order rather than the dynamic of transmission/acquisition. The conflicts, resistances and challenges which exist in special education and the mismatches between its levels of practice and policy have not been studied. The theme is power and control. The focus is on how the power and control relations of society create social inequalities in the policy and practices of special education when special education strongly claims an advocacy role for its students. The problem is the restructuring of the pedagogic discourse of special education through its appropriation of normalization. Normalization was restructured out of the 1960's/70's into the 1980's. Epitomising this restructuring is the move from Nirje's to Wolfensberger's theory. Nirje's theory is concerned with equal status, power, rights and collective action and seeks to empower disabled people to voice their own demands, issues, terms and conditions. It was part of the 1960's/70's general discourse that saw various social collectives, such as the women's and black movements, demand equality and rights. Wolfensberger's theory forms a new social order of corporatism or the quantitative corporate gaze. Advocacy, the defining of issues and needs are placed in the hands of the dominant social group. Issues and rights are re-positioned within the new social relations between the expert and the object where they become corporate technocratic processes and bureaucratic mechanisms. Disabled people are prevented from forming an alternative social consciousness by their position as individual objects in the corporatist order which isolates them from others in similar social circumstances. Normalization is restructured into the 1980's power and control relations of the new corporatist order of the rational Man by the hegemony of possessive individualism. The new social order is an increasing field of symbolic control. The 1980's power and control relations move beyond social collectives to the individual and so negate any other political, social, cultural and economic explanations of and challenges to the dominant order. Individual consciousness replaces social consciousness. Everything, including inequality, is framed in terms of the individual, the skills they possess and the statistical compounding of skills to form a general 'image' of normality which then enables skills to be exchanged for positions of status, power and rights. The emphasis on the presentation of normality means that these skills are primarily cultural. The way individual's speak, relate to others, dress, present themselves, relax, and socialise, their cultural capital, plus their qualifications and credentials, have become commodities in a market exchange relationship. It is a market relationship which privileges the rational Man (the dominant social group) as the only legitimate representation of the normal. The only legitimate social collective and spokesperson for a healthy normal society is the rational Man. The rational Man is the criteria by which value in the form of rights, a voice, status and elaborated forms of knowledge is differentially attributed to the individual. When special education appropriated normalization the power and control relations of normalization within the official discourse of the State did not change. Only some of normalization's terms change once within special education. Normalization, as a regulatory discourse of the State, restructures special education into the 1980's new social order with its social relations and inequalities. People, their everyday lives, experiences and knowledge are removed from their initial social, cultural, political and economic contexts (their normal community, life and social relations) and then re-positioned into the new normal: the ideological order of bureaucratic corporatism with its relations of technocratic objectification, intervention, quantification and identity as the individual. The person is disembodied from their own socio-cultural orientations and incorporated as the 'individual' into the new cultural order of the rational Man. Special education was identified as an integral part of the wider social order, influenced by its power and control relations. Special education as an agency of the State relays these power and control relations and their inequalities within its own policies and practices. Normalization as the discourse effecting this relay, does not maintain the previously dominant social order but seeks to instigate a new social order and a new form of differentiation in accordance with the 1980's power and control relations. Normalization is a mechanism of social control which is more strictly defining and regulating normality and the individual. The stronger regulation and definition of the concepts of normality and the individual is excluding an increasing number of social, cultural, political and economic interests which were once considered legitimate. Normalisation and individualisation are tightening the power and control relations over an increasing range of groups by re-positioning them into the increasingly narrower social, cultural, political and economic order of the rational Man. Normalization has been presented as a State discourse used to regulate special education and the human services in the 1980's. It is to be remembered that this relationship occurs on an international level. In addition, the problem of the 1980's new social order and its restructuring of numerous economic and cultural sectors of society is occurring at an international level. The 1980's are often termed the technological or information age. It is an era where business, politics and even cultures (e.g., American television) transcend national boundaries. The outcome has been corporate capitalism for production and bureaucratic corporatism for symbolic control. Corporatism is an international social order in the 1980's. It is associated with corporate capitalism, but also with a new culture of the rational Man. The developmentally whole individual with a range of quantifiable characteristics, such as nationality, replaces collective categories based on national, cultural, political, economic and social interests which could conflict with the interests of international capitalism. Whether corporate capitalism or bureaucratic corporatism, the 1980's social order is directed by possessive individualism. This hegemony is instigating a new regime of stricter regulation, even self-regulation, at the individual level through the creation of an individual consciousness. Power and control once operated at the level of well defined collective categories with physical barriers in some cases, such as the 'mentally retarded' and institutions. However, the 1960's/70's saw some groups define their own terms and conditions and so challenge the status quo. In the 1980's such collectives are illegitimate, deviant or abnormal. They are a threat to the health and development of the community, society and the human race. The attempt is to politically neutralise such groups by separating and incorporating them as individuals into the corporatist order. However, these people are not given equal status and power in the new social order. They are placed into positions of subserviency, intervention, mechanisms and processes with very strict criteria of the normal which must be acquired if they are to enter the market relationship and so exchange their 'valued skills' for status, power, knowledge, rights and a legitimate voice. An increasing centralisation of power and control is occurring. Power and control are being moved further into the upper echelons of the corporatist order and more pervading control over the individual is arising to ensure their adherence to the new social order of the 1980's. It holds the potential for and danger of totalitarianism. End Notes BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbott, A.A. Durkheim's theory of education: a case for mainstreaming. Peabody Journal of Education. July: 1981, 235- 241. Andrews, R.J.; Berry, P.B.; Elkins, J.; Burge, J.A. A Survey of Special Education in Australia.- Provisions, needs and priorities in the education of children with handicaps and learning difficulties. 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