'They would be bullied in ordinary schools' - exploring public discourses on inclusionary schooling

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‘They would be bullied in ordinary schools’ – exploring public discourses on inclusionary schooling

Kerstin Göransson & Karin Bengtsson

To cite this article: Kerstin Göransson & Karin Bengtsson (2021): ‘They would be bullied in ordinary schools’ – exploring public discourses on inclusionary schooling, Disability & Society, DOI:

10.1080/09687599.2021.1921700

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‘They would be bullied in ordinary schools’ – exploring public discourses on inclusionary schooling

Kerstin Göransson and Karin Bengtsson

Department of educational studies, Karlstad University, Karlstad, sweden

ABSTRACT

Though research on inclusive education makes up a considerable part of the special education research field, very few studies have explored how beliefs and ideas about inclusion and exclusion emerge in general media discourses of education and schooling. Using positioning theory as a theoretical framework, this paper explores public discourses on inclusionary/exclusionary schooling by analysing newspaper articles about a segregated type of school in Sweden for pupils with intellectual disability. Seventy-nine articles meeting the criteria for inclusion and published between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2018 were identified in the two national daily newspapers of Sweden. Four general storylines and associated positions were identified. The four storylines, together and in different ways, construct a rationale for a segregated school system based on notions such as equality, equity, justice, and democracy. We argue that this rationale is embedded within a discourse that we propose calling a discourse of ‘segrequality’.

Points of interest

• Education plays an important role in the development of an inclusive society and inclusive education is a goal supported by many countries and their school systems.

Even so, the percentage of pupils educated in segregated settings have increased in many countries in Europe.

• This article explores how Swedish news media portrays education for pupils with intellectual disability.

• The research found a dominant rationale where segregated educational settings are seen as essential. Four main narratives were identified. All of them, in different ways, argue for the importance of segregated education in order to give every child an education based on notions such as equality, equity, justice, and democracy.

• Researchers of inclusion are suggested to take a more active part in a public discussion of education as well as in policy-making on both national and local levels.

this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 16 April 2020 Accepted 21 April 2021 KEYWORDS

Inclusion;

special education;

media discourse;

positioning theory;

intellectual disability

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Introduction

Inclusive education is a goal supported by many countries and their school systems. Even so, studies show that this goal seems to be hard to achieve (e.g. Arnesen, Mietola, and Lahelma 2007; Ferguson 2008; Nilsen 2010). The OECD’s (2018) latest report on education even states that equality in education has decreased in many countries on a general level. Sweden has gone from having one of the most equitable and inclusive education systems (OECD 2011) to ranking merely average in this respect. Statistics from the European Commission (2005) and the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (EASNIE 2018) show that the percentage of pupils with an official special educational needs (SEN) decision who are educated in separate educational settings increased in several European countries between March 2002 and the 2014–2015 school year. According to the latest statistical report from EASNIE (2018), an average of 1.62 per cent of pupils with an official SEN decision were educated in separate educational settings (special classes or special schools) during the 2014–2015 school year.

Exclusion seems, as Slee (2011) puts it to be ‘a general, though not always acknowledged, social condition’ (15).

We agree with Barton (1997), who maintains that:

Inclusive education is part of a human rights approach to social relations and conditions. The intentions and values involved are an integral part of a vision of the whole society of which education is a part. Therefore the role education plays in the development of an inclusive society is a very serious issue’ (234).

A starting point in this paper is that mass media is in a position to sustain or create discourses that will either facilitate or prevent institutional change such as, for example, the reinforcement of existing educational systems or the abolition of segregated educational settings, respectively. It does so by generating or sustaining ‘socially-shared beliefs, ideas and values’ (Coyne and Leeson 2009, 1).

Several studies explore media representations of different ‘disability’ labels.

To summarise the results, the research indicates that newspaper representations of people with disabilities have many similarities, regardless of country or culture. Media fosters the creation of socially shared beliefs about disability that position disability and persons with disabilities and their families as occupying marginalised positions, where they are attributed very little agency or role as actors.

Results show, for example, that individuals with autism are seldom attributed a voice of their own: In newspapers in the United Kingdom, they are infantilized (e.g. referring to a 26-year-old man as a boy), referred to as victims, and idealised as having extraordinary abilities and qualities (Huws and Jones 2011). Australian newspapers portray them as dangerous and

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uncontrollable or unloved and poorly treated (Jones and Harwood 2009). A study of the New Zealand media’s portrayal of Down syndrome reveals that the quality of life of persons with Down syndrome is constructed as somewhat lacking (Wardell et al. 2014). In Taiwanese newspapers, according to a study by Chen et al. (2012), persons with intellectual disability are repre- sented as pessimistic, dejected and in need of assistance. In studies con- ducted in China (ye and Zeldes 2019) and in Romania (Ciot and Van Hove 2010), people with disabilities are described as either fighters (heroes, super- crips) or victims in need of help and support. They are seldom portrayed as ‘ordinary’ people with disabilities.

Two other studies more directly examine media discourses on inclusive education, but neither examines general media discourses. One of the studies examines Icelandic media pieces written by teachers (Gunnþórsdóttir and Jóhannesson 2014), and the other looks at the Russian specialist press for teachers (Oreshkina and Lester 2013). In both studies two broad discursive themes or patterns were found: one more pro-inclusion and the other more critical of inclusion, or pro-segregation. Oreshkina and Lester (2013) also identify several different discursive resources that are used to construct children with disabilities in the two discursive patterns. In the pattern they call ‘preserving a special approach’, children with disabilities are constructed as different – for example, by ‘emphasizing the “special” characteristics of children with disabilities, especially those children with multiple and severe disabilities’, or by ‘noticing students’ “positive” exceptionalities’ (695). Regular school is described as an educational context where children with disabilities would feel uncomfortable. In contrast, in the more pro-inclusion discourse children with disabilities were described as agents in their own lives, making choices about their futures and ‘capable of attending regular school…as long as social and cultural barriers were removed’ (696).

Given that mass media is in a position to create, sustain or reinforce discourses on education, we find it somewhat surprising that so few studies have explored how beliefs and ideas about inclusion and exclusion emerge in general media discourses of education and schooling, especially since the issue of inclusive education makes up a considerable part of the special education research field (cf. Florian 2019). The goal of this paper is to better understand public discourses in news media about a form of segregated schooling in Sweden in relation to ideas of inclusion and segregation.

The Swedish context – a segregated type of school with a long history

As one of only a few countries, Sweden has a special type of school for children classified as having an intellectual disability (ID): school for pupils with ID (SPID). The Swedish term for such schools, ‘särskola’, literally means

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‘separate or segregated school’. The Swedish Education Act stipulates that children and adults who are not expected to meet the knowledge objectives of the comprehensive or upper-secondary school because of an ID must receive their schooling in a compulsory or upper-secondary school for pupils with ID (Public Law 800 2010). An education in SPID automatically negates one’s right to education beyond the upper-secondary level. Research shows that an education in SPID seldom leads to a job on the open labour market (Arvidsson, Widén, and Tideman 2015).

The Education Act stipulates that a decision about education in SPID must be preceded by medical, psychological, pedagogical and social investigations (Public Law 800 2010). The investigations and decisions about placement in SPID occur at the municipality level. During the 2018–2019 school year, 1.2 per cent (n = 17,132) of pupils aged 7 to 19 attended SPID (OSS 2019). The share of pupils considered unable to achieve the knowledge objectives of the regular school because of an ID does vary greatly between municipalities, however.

Analysing the historical development of SPID is beyond the scope of this paper. However, as a background for understanding current news media discourses, we will provide a short resumé of national education policy for children and adults labelled has having an ID. Historically, the development can be described as a certain degree of approximation of SPID to the regular school system on an organisational level.

Segregated education for persons with ID can be traced back to the 1850s, when it was based on private initiative, often with a philanthropic and Christian base. Previously optional, the education of some children with ID – the formerly so-called ‘educable mentally retarded’ – became regulated by law and mandatory in 1954 (Public Law 483 1954). In the late 1960s the right to education also for children with more severe ID was regulated by law, albeit a special law. A few years after that, in 1973, SPID received its first national curricula with course syllabi and timetables (Lsä73 1973). In 1985 the education of pupils with ID was incorporated into the new Education Act (Public Law 1100 1985), the same law that regulated regular compulsory schooling. The responsibility for the education of pupils with ID was transferred from the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs to the Ministry of Education, the same as that for regular education.

In 1989 the government set up a ‘SPID commission of inquiry’ with the directive to investigate a transfer of responsibility for SPID from the county council to the municipalities – the same as for regular school. In the terms of reference of the commission, it was explicitly stated that the inquiry was motivated by an ambition to ‘guarantee equality in certain aspects’ within the education system and ‘to facilitate a further development of the integration of pupils with ID’ (Terms of Reference 20 1989). This led to a gradual transfer of responsibility, or authority, during the 1990s. In 2001 a new ‘SPID

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commission’ was set up to, inter alia, investigate the abolition of SPID (Terms of Reference 100 2001). The terms of reference were changed two years later, however, to not include an investigation of the abolition of SPID (Terms of Reference 32 2003). It is beyond this study to analyse circumstances for this change. Suffice here is to say that there was no political shift in government, but a shift in ministers for education.

Since then there have been no major changes regarding the regulation of SPID on the national policy level. Passage of a new Education Act in 2010 established new national curricula with course syllabi and timetables for the different parts of the education system, including SPID. In addition, the Act prohibited placement in SPID on the grounds of autism in the absence of ID. An audit of SPID by the Swedish National Audit Office in 2018–2019 concluded, however, that ‘the needs of these schools are not sufficiently met in central government initiatives to control, support and follow up compulsory types of schools’ (RiR 2019:13 2019, 2).

Theoretical framework

To better understand public discourses in news media about SPID, we turned to positioning theory (Harré and van Langenhove 1999; Harré, Moghaddam, et al. 2003; Harré et al. 2009). In positioning theory, the creation and management of meaning in discursive practices are captured and analysed using three basic, interrelated constructs, or ‘building blocks of meaning’ (Slocum and van Langenhove 2003, 221): Storylines, briefly described as ‘a loose cluster of narrative conventions according to which a social episode unfolds and positions arise’ (Moghaddam, Harré, and Lee 2008, 294); positions, ‘a cluster of rights and duties that limit the repertoire of possible social acts available to a person or person-like entity (such as a corporation) as so positioned’ 294); and acts, ‘the social meaning of actions’ (293). This is pre- sented as a triad – the ‘position/act-action/storyline triad’, the ‘positioning triangle’, or the ‘positioning triad’ – in order to emphasise the mutuality and interrelatedness of the three ‘building blocks of meaning’. Slocum and van Langenhove (2003) describe this dynamic as follows:

Storylines are constituted by patterns of acts that are recognised as such by the member of a culture. Simultaneously, the storylines provide the context within which an action is interpreted as an act, or given meaning.… It is through acts (which have social force), within the context of storylines, that players are positioned. At the same time, the positions of actors influence how an action is interpreted as an act. (227–228)

For example, within the context of a ‘pro-inclusion’ storyline, the action of criticising heterogenic grouping of pupils will be interpreted as an act of betrayal. Within the context of a ‘sceptic-inclusion’ storyline, the same action

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will be interpreted as an act of support. Simultaneously, storylines are created or maintained through the positions and acts of participating persons (or

‘person-like entities’). For example, the interpretation and social force of the action of criticising heterogenic grouping of pupils will differ according to whether it is delivered by a professor in special needs education or a pupil in regular school with no experience of disability or need of special support.

In terms of positioning theory this is explained by the fact that their respec- tive positions are understood with reference ‘to the roles people occupy within a given moral order or to certain institutional aspects of social life’

(Van Langenhove and Harré 1999, 21).

Positioning theory has been criticised for conceptual fuzziness, particu- larly around the constructs storylines and positions, which have been used very differently in different studies (Herbel-Eisenmann et al. 2015). For example, in positioning theory ‘several storylines may be unfolding simultaneously’ (Harré, Slocum, et al. 2003, 129). Further, one storyline may be embedded in another, more comprehensive storyline(s). Contrary to Herbel-Eisenmann et al. (2015), we do not consider this a weakness of the theory. We argue that ‘texts’ can always be read on different levels and be open to alternative interpretations. As Humes and Bryce (2003) put it, ‘the search for clarity and simplicity of meaning is seen as illusory because there will always be other perspectives from which to interpret the material under review’ (180). Arguably, this makes it important for the researchers to be clear that there are several different storylines, for example, to be found in ‘texts’ and to be as clear as possible concerning their interpretation of the material.

To guide us identifying storylines we took inspiration from James’s (2014) work on positioning theory and public relations, where she uses positioning theory to design public relations strategies, that is, to change public discourses. Hence, we formulated two antithetical, hypothetical narrative frames related to the aim of the study: (a) segregated school contexts like SPID are wrong and should not exist within a school system; and (b) segregated school contexts like SPID are right and should exist within or parallel to the regular school system. That is, we positioned a segregated school system as a rational or an irrational education system and looked for storylines sup- portive of one or the other of the two positions. Further elaboration of how we have used positioning theory in this study appears in the analysis section.

Aim and research question

The purpose of this study is to better understand the nature of public discourses about a form of segregated schooling in Sweden, the SPID. The two research questions are as follows:

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1. What dominant storylines and associated positions can be identified in Swedish news media of SPID in relation to the two hypothetical narrative frames that follow?

• Segregated school contexts like SPID are wrong and should not exist within a school system.

• Segregated school contexts like SPID are right and should exist within or parallel to the regular school system.

2. What underlying discourse(s) can be traced in the identified storylines?

We will deal with the second research question in the discussion.

Method Data collection

The two largest daily morning newspapers in Sweden (Dagens Nyheter [DN]

and Svenska Dagbladet [SvD]) were chosen to exemplify Swedish news media.

Both papers have a nationwide circulation and were founded in the late 19^th century (DN was founded in 1864 and SvD in 1884). All articles men- tioning SPID in these two newspapers published between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2018 were identified (N = 112) through a search in the database Bibsam. We truncated the Swedish word for SPID (särskol*). The beginning time boundary was chosen based on the passage of the new Swedish Education Act in 2010, which was followed in 2011 by new national curricula for the SPID. After a first cursory read through, 23 articles were excluded because SPID was only mentioned very peripherally, ten were excluded because they were not editorial texts (eight were letters to the editor and two were obituaries). This gave us a total of 79 articles.

Analysis

All articles were read and reread by the first two authors, and the main part of the analyses was carried out jointly by the two authors. As a first step we marked the sections in the articles that related to SPID. The text excerpts were copied and transferred to a table in which we tentatively divided the excerpts into sections related mainly to storylines and sections related mainly to the positionings. This also meant identifying dominant roles in the articles, such as officials on the municipality level, parents and the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (SI). The excerpts were each given a reference identification that made it possible to trace the excerpts back to their original context (i.e. the article they occurred in).

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Next began a process with the aim of identifying storylines and associated positions. A further goal was to identify as few as possible underlying storylines common to several articles. However, we soon discovered that identifying storylines was a challenging task. The mutuality and interrelatedness of the three ‘building blocks of meaning’ that characterise positioning theory have consequences for the procedure of the analysis. In our case, this meant that an iterative process of identifying, comparing, deconstructing, and reidentifying storylines and associated positions were required. To guide us in this process, we used the two hypothetical, antithetical narrative frames to construct two opposite versions, one that positioned the segregated school system as a rational education system and the other that positioned a segregated school system as an irrational education system. This way of thinking in terms of antithetical, or opposite, narratives helped us identify teleological elements and implicit storylines that otherwise tended to be overshadowed by the main idea of the articles, as often presented in the headlines or introductions of the articles (cf. Rodney, Rouleau, and Sinclair 2016). It also helped us better understand how storylines were constructed through the positioning of actors in the articles and, vice versa, how actors appearing in the articles were constructed through their positioning in the storylines.

All positions were understood in reference to the roles the people or insti- tutions occupied within a given moral order within the context of the storyline.

In positioning theory this is referred to as moral positioning. For example, in reference to their role as ‘pupils wrongly placed in SPID’, the twins Rasmus and Robin are positioned as having certain rights and duties (articles 32, 34).

In another storyline their moral position might have been ‘twins’, for example.

This is sometimes combined with indirect or presumptive positioning (Harré, Moghaddam, et al. 2003): ‘the use of attributions of mental (stupid), charac- terological (unreliable), or moral (puritanical) traits to position someone, favour- ably or unfavourably’ (6). For example, the position of ‘pupils wrongly placed in SPID’ involves attribution of the trait ‘very relieved by getting away from SPID’.

Following this procedure, we finally identified four basic storylines and associated positions. As mentioned above, we acknowledge that ‘texts’ are always open to alternative interpretations. Our aim is to give a clear and persuasive account of our reading and our interpretations.

Findings

At least one of the four main storylines, was present in more than 90 per cent of the articles (72 articles). None of these storylines position SPID or a segregated school system as an irrational education system. The four storylines, together and in different ways, strengthen the position of SPID, or

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a segregated school system, as a rational education system; that is, they favour the narrative frame segregated school contexts like SPID are right and should exist within or parallel to the regular school system. Most articles had only one dominant storyline in relation to the two narrative frames; but in some articles, more than one of the four storylines line could be distinguished. The four main storylines are as follows:

1. There are flaws in the system at the municipal level, but SPID and the organisation of the school system and the national steering of the education system work properly.

2. Some children have educational needs that are best met in special classes or special educational contexts.

3. Pupils in SPID are very special and have so many qualities that enrichen life on an existential level.

4. The weak link is not the organisation of the education system but the labour market.

Storylines and associated positions

There are flaws in the system at the municipal level, but SPID and the organisation of the school system and the national steering of the education system work properly

Distinguishable in 40 of the articles, this is the most frequently occurring storyline. It centres around the assignment of pupils to SPID and, to some extent, the quality of teaching in SPID. One fact referred to in articles in this storyline is that quality audits of SPID by the Swedish Schools Inspectorate have shown deficits in the investigations preceding decisions about placement in SPID that municipalities are ordered to do according to the Education Act (Public Law 800 2010) as well as deficits in the municipalities’ management of SPID and the quality of teaching in SPID.

In some other storyline, this could be interpreted as supporting the dismantling of SPID, as the inequality and social injustice of a segregated school system are highlighted. However, teleological elements in this storyline include the following points: there are in fact pupils who rightfully belong in SPID, ‘every child has a right to good education irrespective of what type of school they attend’ (article 38), and the latter is a ‘democratic right’ (article 9). Another teleological element in the storyline is reference to the fact that the national audit system of the education system enforces the rules and regulations in order to ensure the legal certainty, equity and equality of the (segregated) education system.

The structure of storyline one is similar to that of a trial, except that there is no position for a defence in the storyline. The storyline is created around

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five main positions and three minor positions. The dominant position is occupied by government agencies, mainly SI, which acts simultaneously as prosecutor and judge, possessing the right to audit SPID and impose penalties on municipalities and schools. On trial – that is, the defendant – is the municipalities, which are accused of threatening the legal certainty of the education system as well as every child’s right to an equal, high quality education. The municipalities are positioned, mainly by SI, as incompetent in their management of SPID and thus subject to penalties. The position given to the municipalities, or any other actor than SI, for that matter, does not include the right to contest these accusations or the basis for these accusations; that is, they are not accorded the right to defend themselves.

Instead, the prosecution calls in its own witnesses to strengthen its argu- ments. In this process SPID is positioned as a ‘splendid type of school for pupils who are not able to benefit from education in regular school on account of ID’ but also as ‘not the right type of school for every child’. Pupils who do not belong in SPID are positioned as having ‘restricted possibilities for personal growth’ in SPID. Pupils who are supposed to belong in SPID are attributed traits like needing a ‘lot of support’, having communication deficits and needing augmentative and alternative communication, and being sometimes ‘very worried and restless and having difficulties sitting still’. This gives them a position very different from that of pupils in regular schools. Parents of pupils wrongly placed in SPID have a minor position in this storyline. They are positioned as ‘expressing major disillusionment’ with the ‘experts in the municipality’. Parents of pupils in SPID are pushed in the background in this storyline. They are, however, attributed the right to demand high quality education in SPID. Political parties are attributed the right to demand actions from the government and the duty to draw attention to when the education system has failed some pupils in terms of breaking laws and regulations.

Some children have educational needs that are best met in special classes or special educational contexts

This storyline can be distinguished in 20 articles. It is embedded within a discourse concerning the increasingly frequent practice of identifying educational needs through the use of diagnoses. At the heart of this storyline is the question of how education meets diversity among children, particularly those children who, for one reason or other, do not fit into the regular education system. Of course, this is also a central question in the inclusion discourse. Teleological elements of this storyline, however, are that school difficulties are seen as arising from factors inherent to the individual, such as congenital issues, low intellectual ability, or different kinds of neuropsy- chiatric disorders (cf. e.g. Ainscow 1998; Clark, Dyson, and Millward 1998;

Haug 1998) and, further, that mainly segregated educational arrangements are proposed as solutions, whereas placement in regular classes is described

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as leading to marginalisation, as reflected in the excerpts ‘I was really bullied…often scared and sad and the loneliest girl in the school’ (article 102),

‘[being] barred from opportunities to learn’ (article 98), and ‘[situations]

making it impossible to attend school’ (article 29).

The storyline is created around eight positions. It is built like an argument for the need for more specialised (and segregated) classes. SPID is positioned as a good example by being attributed traits such as having ‘specialised, adapted support’ and being ‘adapted to the potential of the pupils’, with

‘super-competent pedagogues and small classes’. The right to express favour- able opinions about SPID is afforded specialists and researchers within the medical field, parents of pupils in SPID and government agencies. SPID as a good example of a type of schooling that defines children’s educational needs on the basis of diagnoses is further strengthened through descriptions of groups of pupils in need of special support (not provided in regular school) in relation to their not being entitled to education in SPID. One such descrip- tion is that ‘children who are too well equipped for SPID but have no chance of reaching the goals of the regular school end up in a kind of no man’s land’. The argument for the need for more specialised (and segregated) classes is further strengthened through positioning parents of pupils in need of special support not provided in regular school as worried about the educa- tion of their children.

As in storyline one, pupils who are supposed to belong in SPID are attributed traits that give them a position very different from that of pupils in regular school. This position is further strengthened by attributing traits to parents of pupils in SPID that give their parenthood special significance, as seen in the excerpts ‘warrior mother’, ‘long[ing] desperately to just be a mommy’, and

‘it is a constant fight’. Political parties are contributed rights to declare opinions about what is wrong with the organisation of the education system and to demand actions from the government in terms of more specialised solutions.

Pupils in SPID are very special and have so many qualities that enrichen life on an existential level

This storyline can be distinguished in eight articles. The focus of this storyline is not argumentation about needed changes in practices having to do with the way the education system, on different levels, meets diversity among children. Rather, the focus is on conveying an understanding of the existential nature of living with or meeting pupils in SPID. In this storyline, rights are acquired to the extent that one has personal experience of living with or meeting children with profound and multiple learning disabilities in educa- tional contexts (i.e. SPID). Parents and siblings occupy dominant positions and some actors outside the school sector like musicians and culture workers occupy quite prominent positions. In relation to our two narrative frames, its main teleological element position pupils in SPID as ‘different’ but as also

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having the capacity to give something very special. Some excerpts reflecting this element mention that one ‘grows as a human thanks to having a different sibling’ that one ‘gets a greater understanding of people who are not like others’ and that one develops ‘sensitivity’ and ‘responsiveness’ as a professional musician in contact with pupils in SPID.

The position of pupils in SPID is created by attributing to them traits of an idealised and generalised nature, as in the excerpts ‘can be the most charming guy there is’, ‘the most wonderful daughter in the world’, ‘magic joy’, ‘can smile with his eyes’, ‘a role model, because she is a fighter and never complains’, ‘there is no group of people who can be so considerate and nice to be with and funny’, and ‘[they] benefit from music’. It is worth noting that storyline three focuses on a minority of pupils in SPID, and they come to represent pupils in SPID in general in the public discourse. Note, in addition, that they are never positioned as learners in any traditional sense, like pupils wrongly placed in SPID in storyline one who are positioned as learners.

The weak link is the labour market, not the organisation of the education system

This storyline can be distinguished in 13 articles. It is embedded within a discourse about the importance of employment in adult life in order to fight social exclusion and promote participation. Statistics show that the number of young adults granted early retirement has increased. One of the largest groups are young adults who received their schooling in SPID. Research shows further that 78 per cent of adults with ID are outside the regular labour market, ‘despite the fact that they both want to and can contribute to the labour market’ (article 68). In some other storyline, this could be interpreted as supporting the dismantling of SPID in that it highlights the inequality and social injustice of a segregated school system (compare with storyline one).

However, in this storyline SPID is positioned as a type of school that is ‘a good alternative for many….[but] pupils are not prepared for the labour market’ and as a type of school that ‘needs to be considerably better at preparing adolescents for adult life in which work is a natural ingredient’.

At the same time, SPID is positioned as struggling uphill, as exemplified by the excerpt ‘finding training positions for the pupils is a real challenge’. Pupils in SPID are positioned as able and willing to work, as in the excerpts ‘most of them can work’ and ‘motivated and wanting to work’, and as people in need of support, as apparent in ‘their self-esteem is boosted when they get positive responses from their employers’. The labour market, on the other hand, is positioned as ‘prejudiced and lacking in knowledge’ and as ‘[needing]

to be more openminded’. Minor positions in this storyline are occupied by political parties and actors outside the school sector like the Swedish Association

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of Local Authorities and Regions who both are positioned as actors who

‘wants to link more companies to secondary high school in SPID’ and who

‘demands that vigorous efforts are made to secure participation on the labour market for young people with ID’.

Teleological elements in this storyline in relation to our two narrative frames are that SPID needs support to develop contacts with the labour market in order to promote inclusion and equity in adult life for persons with ID and that measures need to be taken vis-a-vis the labour market in terms of, for example, ‘more recruitment companies and more employment officers who help employers see the potential in people of merit who don’t conform to the letter to the job ads’ lists of demands’.

Discussion

This paper set out to explore public discourses on inclusionary/exclusionary schooling by analysing newspaper articles about a segregated type of school in Sweden for pupils with ID, using positioning theory as a theoretical framework. Referring to Coyne and Leeson (2009) work on media as a mechanism of institutional change, our analysis shows, on a general level, that the newspaper articles sustain the belief that segregated settings are viable and even normal in an ‘inclusive’ education system.

Before discussing the findings of this study, it is important to mention some of its limitations. As mentioned above, we acknowledge that ‘texts’

are always open to alternative interpretations. It is therefore, important to not only try to be as clear as possible concerning the interpretation of the material, but also to be clear about the position of those involved in the interpretation. In this study interpretations were made by two researchers in special education, with only professional relations to people with disability.

Another limitation concerns the fact that the study is based on texts published in two daily morning newspapers. Even if they are the two largest morning newspapers and have a nationwide distribution, they only constitute a part of Swedish news media. Taking into consideration these limitations, the study may contribute to a better understanding of the nature of public discourses about a form of segregated schooling in Sweden.

Findings show that storylines are created within which certain actors such as, parents, pupils, municipalities and government agencies are given certain moral and indirect positions with particular rights and duties – such as the right to define school difficulties as individual or medical problems or the right to express favourable opinions about education in SPID – within the framework of these storylines, any positions with rights and duties to criticise exclusionary schooling are excluded. The storylines together construct a rationale for a segregated school system based on notions such as equality, equity, justice, and democracy.

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We argue that this rationale is embedded within a discourse we propose calling a discourse of ‘segrequality’, which we will further elaborate in our discussion. We will first discuss two main features that, we will argue, characterise the segrequality discourse. We will then proceed to discuss how these features operate within the context of the identified storylines. Finally, we will discuss how the results can be seen as challenges for the academic field of special needs education.

One main feature of the segrequality discourse leans heavily on an indi- vidual model of disability as opposed to a social model of disability (e.g.

Oliver 1983). The individual model is a perspective that is referred to in the context of special needs education as the ‘psycho-medical paradigm’ (Clark, Dyson, and Millward 1998), the ‘deficiency perspective’ (Ainscow 1998) or the ‘compensatory perspective’ (Haug 1998), which is characterised by inter- preting school difficulties as individual problems, locating the causes of the difficulties within the child. Prominent in the segrequality discourse are two assumptions with roots in this perspective (i.e. that perspective that is called different things by three sets of authors above): first, that it is not possible for some pupils to be educated in ‘regular’ school/classes due to the type and severity of their disability (in this study, ID); second, that in order to meet the needs of these ‘special children’, it is important that the education system have an effective system to identify them and that it allocate resources to make it possible for them to be educated outside the ‘regular classroom’, with specially adapted pedagogical approaches (cf. Armstrong, Armstrong, and Spandagou 2011). Another main feature of segrequality is that the discourse incorporates values more commonly associated with rhetoric related to inclusion, such as education as a democratic right, the importance of the equity and equality of the education system, and the right of every child to a good education.

The storylines exemplify how the logic of this reasoning is accomplished by processes of decoupling and decontextualising as well as by what Dunne (2009, 49) refers to as ‘processes of othering’. The process of decoupling is particularly evident in storyline one. Inclusive rhetoric is decoupled from the organisation of the education system and transferred to the system of identification and assessment of students in need of special support or with ID, making it seem quite viable for a segregated education system to provide equal, equitable, and high quality education for all pupils. A variation of this is found in storyline four, where equity and inclusion are decoupled from the organisation of the education system and instead coupled to the adult life, beyond school, of pupils in SPID.

The process of decontextualising is quite apparent in storyline two. For example, when placement in regular classes is described as leading to marginalisation like being scared, sad and lonely. The social and emotional well-being of pupils with ID are recast as psychological conditions, related

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to disability – that is, to an individual trait – which requires a special pedagogical approach that can only be met outside the ‘regular’ classroom. This process of decontextualization can be compared to what Dunne (2009) identifies as a ‘self discourse’ in her analysis of discourses of inclusion: she argues that ‘self and/or needs-based discourses that circulate around inclusion are seemingly altruistic but may be seen in other ways’ by focussing on an

‘emotional form of individualism that is detrimental to the collective’ (53).

The process of othering is perhaps most obvious in storyline three, though it is traceable in all storylines. For example, considering pupils in SPID to have very few duties and rights positions them as having very little agency or role as actors. In storyline three pupils in SPID are positioned as very different from the majority of pupils. They are attributed extraordinary abilities and qualities of an idealised and generalised nature, but they are also attributed very special needs. This otherness of people with ID makes a segregated school system seem not only logical but even rationale. The participants of the discourse can feel that they are speaking of every child’s right to a good education, the importance of equity and equality of education, all the while using this otherness to justify exclusion.

To conclude, the results of this study corroborate the notion of Gunnþórsdóttir and Jóhannesson (2014) that the issues of inclusive education and inclusion as an ideology seem to have been relegated to the academic field of special education, with very little impact on public discourses on education for pupils in need of special support. We maintain that, if inclusive education is to become a central force in educational policy reforms and in educational practice, the research field of inclusive education needs to take a critical look at itself (cf. Armstrong, Armstrong, and Spandagou 2011;

Göransson and Nilholm 2014) and that, in order to bridge the gap between research and practice, it needs to ‘accept some responsibility to inform political processes’ (Humes and Bryce 2003, 186). That, say Humes and Bryce (2003) ‘will involve moving away from the academic sidelines into the public arena’ (186). We hope that our exploration of public discourses on inclusion may indicate some sort of starting point, such as encouraging researchers of inclusion to take a more active part in a public discussion of education as well as in policy-making on both national and local levels. Inclusive education is a too serious issue to be consigned to the silent halls of academia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by Sävstaholm Foundation.

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ORCID

Kerstin Göransson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1905-5154 Karin Bengtsson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8550-7462

Data availability statement

A list of the articles included in the analysis and tables of complete analysis of positions in the four storylines are available from the first author.

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