A special issue of the "British Journal of Sociology of Education" has been devoted to an examination of Disability and Inclusive Education. The authors of the papers in this issue have all made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in these fields of study. Overall, they have provided a comprehensive, valuable…

This article constitutes a short personal tribute to Len Barton in honour of his work and our collegial relationship going back over 30 years. It covers how Len saw his intellectual project of providing critical sociological and political perspectives on special education, disability and inclusion, and his own radical political perspectives. Len's…

Many factors contribute to the oppression and discrimination of disabled people and to their exclusion from key decisions affecting the quality of their lives. In the last two decades in particular there has been an increasing interest in many societies over the role of research in relation to the empowerment and thus inclusion of disabled people.…

Len Barton has pioneered the sociological study of education in the areas of disability studies and inclusive education. This paper addresses an argument developed by Len Barton that social exclusion, of which disablism is one element, (1) has many compounding forms of differing exclusions, (2) is not a natural but a socially constructed process,…

Drawing on research from a longitudinal case study of a large urban secondary school, this article examines senior leadership of and in a school struggling to be inclusive. The analysis focuses on the effect of senior leadership on: the ways in which inclusion is conceptualized and practised in this school, in particular by teachers; student…

In the process of discussing the significant contributions that Len Barton has made to the sociology of education and to disability studies, I argue that a good deal of critical analyses of power and inequality in education are impoverished by some of their essentialist and reductive tendencies. I use an example taken from disability rights to…

This paper raises issues relating to disability and citizenship, especially those concerned with difference, discrimination, power, and the politics of identity. It adopts a social model of disability that is critical of individualized, homogenized, deficit views of people with disabilities and urges an equal opportunities approach in which the…

This article explores the meaning of inclusion within the context of socio-economic factors, political forces, and management of education in England and Wales. The impact of the "New Right" and the marketing of education are discussed, along with the influence of New Labour, teachers, and advocacy groups. (Contains references.) (CR)

This monograph on international disability issues offers three main papers giving English, Australian, and New Zealand viewpoints. The first paper is by Len Barton from England and is titled "Disability and the Necessity for a Socio-Political Perspective." Barton attacks the medical model of disability and argues that people with…

This brief essay celebrates the work of Len Barton. Drawing from a range of his texts, interviews and presentations, the essay attempts to demonstrate the importance of Barton's work in establishing foundations for the related fields of disability studies in education and inclusive education by revealing the politics of special educational needs…

This book focuses on the notion of "transition to adulthood" for students with special educational needs, exploring it in terms of class, race, gender, and disability differences and relating it to social, economic, and political influences. Chapter 1 sets the stage, arguing that the special needs area has largely developed in British…

The Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) is different from most educational research institutes because its work delves into the valuing processes of the individual teacher and because it attempts to search for alternative forms of inquiry and recording. CARE works mainly in curriculum evaluation and school innovation. (JN)

The antecedents of the methods and concerns of the Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) are found in the social observation tradition. A naturalistic method of research concentrates on the accurate reflection of events by an unobtrusive team. (JN)

The authors trace and critique various thrusts operative in British educational sociology since its beginnings in the 1950s: structural functionalism, school-level analysis, the interactionalist "New Directions" approach, and the Neo-Marxist perspective. They also comment on the place of educational sociology in teacher training. (SJL)

Two university academic administrators discuss tensions between their values and constraints under which they work, suggesting that universities develop a clear understanding of higher education's social purposes in a changing world (commitment to establishing a culture of collegiality that welcomes difference and awareness of the "bigger picture"…