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The global trend in educational participation has brought with it a cross-national consequence: the expansion of students with "special needs" (SEN) placed in special education and the growth of "low achieving" students diverted to vocational tracks. This book explores the global expansion of special and vocational education as a highly variable event, not only across nations of considerable economic, political and cultural difference, but between nations with evident similarities as well. A distinguishing focus of the book is the view of policies of special and vocational education as much more than legislative enactments; they are theologies that often share more in common with the sacred.
List of contents
PART I: Theoretical Considerations 1. Unintended Convergence: Introduction, Thesis, Central Concept and Comparative Forms 2. Mass Education and Global Culture: Revolution or Swerve? 3. Pathways to Vocational and Special Education PART II: Case Studies 4. Bureaucratic Benevolence: Disability Inclusion and Special Education in China 5. Parental vs. Professional Authority: Communal Benevolence and Special Education Practices in Mexico 6. The Legacy of Punitive Benevolence, The Long Shadow of Vagrancy - The Case of England PART III: Conclusions 7. Some Conclusions 8. "Looping Effects" and Convergence 9. A Theoretical Summary 10. Restorative Juvenile Justice as Paternalistic Benevolence
About the author
John Richardson is Professor Emeritus in the sociology department at Western Washington University, USA.
Jinting Wu is Assistant Professor of Educational Culture, Policy and Society at the State University of New York at Buffalo, USA.
Douglas Judge is a PhD candidate in the department of Special Education at the University of Washington and Assistant Principal at the Interagency Academy site within King County juvenile detention center in Washington, USA.
Summary
The global trend in educational participation has brought with it a cross-national consequence: the expansion of students with "special needs" (SEN) placed in special education and the growth of "low achieving" students diverted to vocational tracks. This book explores the global expansion of special and vocational education as a highly variable event, not only across nations of considerable economic, political and cultural difference, but between nations with evident similarities as well. The Global Convergence of Vocational and Special Education analyzes how the concept of secular benevolence underscores the divergent and convergent trajectories that vocational and special education have taken across the globe. The authors embrace national differences as the means to observe two dicta of comparative research: similar origins can result in very different outcomes, and similar outcomes can be the result of very different origins.
