Response to Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling,“Diversity in Teacher Education and Special Education: The Issues That Divide”

As a special educator whose research is in teacher education, I did not recognize the field of special education described in Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Curt Dudley-Marling’s article titled “Diversity in Teacher Education and Special Education: The Issues that Divide,” published in the latest issue of Journal of Teacher Education. They wrote that the field of special education “pathologizes individual students, their families, their language and cultures, and the communities from which they come.” They used divisive language such as “deficit thinking,” “medical model,” and “hostility” to describe the views and reactions of the field. This tradition was contrasted with the sociocultural theory of learning, which they argued dominates general education discourse. In their words, this theory “begins with presumption of competence and of the widespread distribution of human capacity . . . [and builds] on the language, culture, and background knowledge and experience all students bring with them to school to support their learning.” They used phrases such as “social justice,” “learning affordances,” and “promoting cultural well-being.” To which of these two traditions would you prefer to belong?

In their discussion, Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling devote twice as much space to problems as to solutions. Polarizing our fields does not serve well and places the greater education community farther from the goals we are all trying to achieve. I hope readers will agree that instead of assigning blame or perpetuating stereotypes, we all need to accept responsibility for any schism and encourage more work devoted to bridging this divide. If we in higher education are genuinely dedicated to transforming education through consensus-building and collaboration, we need to serve as models for our K-12 colleagues and challenge ourselves to be first to walk down that path. Below, I present an alternative perspective to the issues presented by the authors, and broaden the discussion regarding how we can continue to move forward as one diverse, yet united body of teacher educators.

Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling outline three major issues that they believe divide our diversity communities, and conclude by outlining three areas “where at least some” general and special educators may be able to agree. First, they cite different disciplinary influences in the two fields. They assert that special educators, influenced by fields such as behavioral psychology and medicine, study the diagnosis and remediation of deficits. As such, they claim that many special educators “are adamant that experimental and quasi-experimental methods are the only way to achieve objective knowledge.” General educators, influenced by social justice models, study the context of learning, moving away from traditional experimental and quasi-experimental methods. Certainly, our fields did have different origins, but I would argue that at this point, both of our fields are equally diverse in terms of their approaches to research and ways of thinking. For example, only 8.5% of dissertations in special education published between 1997 and 2012 used an experimental or quasi-experimental design (Walker & Haley-Mize, 2012). In fact, the largest categories of methodologies were “descriptive” (26.5%), “mixed methods” (19.5%), and “qualitative” (18.9%). This does not look like a field with a single-minded focus on one methodology.

Second, Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling argue that a concentration on the “dis” in “disability” guides the special education community to “ameliorate students’ deficiencies” through research and practice, whereas teacher educators working from a social constructivist model “begin with the presumption of competence” and build on students’ diverse backgrounds to support learning. To test whether the authors are correct that “the medical model with its disease orientation reinforces deficit thinking that permeates special education discourse,” I consulted the latest two issues of our flagship journals, Exceptional Children and The Journal of Special Education. One could argue that because of their status, they reflect dominant thinking in the field. If Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling are correct, research articles in special education will clearly focus on diagnosis/identification of disabilities or specific skill deficits, and pinpoint treatment through direction instruction.

Certainly, special education has a strong tradition of intervention research that is reflected in these four issues. However, out of the 21 articles included, more than one quarter support the argument that these two fields may not be as dichotomous as Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling suggest. First, a special feature article by Donna Ford at Vanderbilt University, published in summer 2012 in Exceptional Children examines the past, present, and future of “culturally different students in special education.” It discusses issues of overrepresentation, test bias, and “systematic problems of inequity,” stating that a large body of research conducted by colleagues within the field “speaks directly to [the importance of] being culturally responsive in these vital areas: philosophy, learning environment, curriculum, instruction, and assessment” (Ford, 2012, p. 403). Another article included in these volumes examines disproportionate representation in Australia, and a third concerns issues related to ethnic differences in students labeled with autism. A fourth article reports on communication skill building in an inclusive preschool, and two others critique statewide testing systems. Although authors are all special educators writing for a special education audience, each appears to agree with Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling that “learning cannot be reduced to set of autonomous skills stripped from the sociocultural context in which they are used.”

The third issue that authors present is “curriculum content and access.” They recognize that it is special educators who have been at the forefront of the inclusion movements and efforts to implement Universal Design for Learning (UDL). However, they claim that general educators have gone beyond access to press for fundamental transformation by challenging traditional ways of schooling that have marginalized various groups. Because of special educators’ long-standing history of advocacy for students, parents, and families, I cannot imagine how our field could be viewed as championing the status quo in this area, or how Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling could claim that a commitment to social justice is unique to the field of general/teacher education. In fact, special education has a deep, comprehensive history of scholarship in the area of disproportionality, an issue that is central to the work of many special educators. The latest Handbook of Special Education explains that “disproportionate representation . . . is only a symptom of deeper sociopolitical, cultural and educational structures” (Anastasiou, Gardner, & Michail, 2011, p. 754). More broadly, the most recent volume in the series “Advances in Special Education” argues that special educators must be “equipped to address strident calls for advocacy and social justice for many groups of children with disabilities” (Drame, 2010, p. 182). I believe these statements show evidence of Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling’s “careful examination of systematic and structure issues” affecting schooling, yet from a special education perspective. In addition, a relatively new yet burgeoning strand in scholarship in special education promotes alternative models of schooling, “blurring the boundaries” between general and special education (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Stecker, 2010). These special educators are champions for radical change in the traditional structures of schooling, including special education labeling and service delivery.

Furthermore, Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling state that the emergence of the field of disability studies “can be taken as additional evidence of the inability of the field of special education to reconcile different views.” Disability studies, like African American studies, women’s studies, and queer studies, can be taken as evidence of the inability of many of our traditional academic disciplines, including education, sociology, and psychology, to incorporate radical critiques of society.

The authors then identify three areas in which they believe our two communities might find common ground: moving toward similar research methods, using collaborative inquiry, and defending university-based teacher education. I assert that we must think more broadly about our commonalities. Following the line of thinking Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling ascribe to general educators, I believe we must begin with a presumption of an ability to collaborate and call upon our diverse backgrounds and strengths to set specific action agendas surrounding issues affecting education. In fact, nearly every major current issue in education, and in teacher education, affects us all and must involve both of our communities if our voices are to be heard. For example, teacher evaluation/teacher quality, school choice, high-stakes testing, alternative routes to licensure, school violence, and grade retention all involve issues of equity and inclusion. All affect how we educate school personnel and how we determine our teaching, research, and advocacy agendas.

Consider one of the most serious, enduring problems in education—the achievement gap. As teacher educators, we all struggle to find solutions to the achievement gap, whether referring to students with disabilities or any other marginalized group in our society—not by blaming our students but by transforming our educational systems to be inclusive of all. It is clear that in the past 30+ years, neither general or special education has been able to solve the issue of poor school performance and outcomes among our youth with disabilities. Special education was born to meet the needs of students who were not being served well in general education. Today we have achieved more integration than ever, with 57% of our students with disabilities in general education settings for more than 80% of their school day. These students are general education students first. However, for years, a large proportion of general education teachers have reported being unprepared to meet the needs of these students (Blanton, Pugach, & Florian, 2011). Particularly as an increasing number of students who struggle are not being labeled, this issue is a responsibility that each of us—general and special educators alike—need to share, and share immediately. The more our community is fractured by an “us versus them” mentality, the more we lose to policy makers and private entities willing and able to study the issues and move ahead with or without our input.

A recent illustration of what we can accomplish together can be seen in a joint policy brief prepared by American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), titled “Preparing General Education Teachers to Improve Outcomes for Students With Disabilities” (Blanton et al., 2011). The brief presents the following vision for the future of teacher education:

These democratic principles would resonate with most teacher educators, regardless of their preferred research methods or content area. In fact, they align well with the “general education” principles that Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling espouse—in short, viewing all students as capable learners, and acting to transform our educational system into one that embraces historically marginalized groups. I see no trace of a “disease orientation” or “deficit thinking.” We could start much of our work together in teacher education by simply considering these five principles and determining positive steps we could take toward achieving our vision for more unified teacher preparation.

My colleagues and I consider ourselves to be both teacher educators and special educators. Perhaps this is why the authors’ statements regarding the “seeming intractability” of the rift between these two fields seem to make little sense. We collaborate with our general education colleagues daily in an effort to achieve seamless preparation for all general and special education preservice and inservice teachers, with the ultimate goal of creating change agents in our schools. In fact, Cochran-Smith’s own edited book concludes that collaboration around research in teacher education and special education is “essential”: “This work can be enriched immeasurably if it is conducted in joint fashion, in teams comprised of teacher educators from special and general teacher education, across content areas and multicultural education” (Pugach, 2005, p. 578). It is well past time for special and general educators alike to put aside antiquated stereotypes and recognize both of our disciplines as fluid and complex. We are all working together to transform education into a field in which no labels are needed, one in which everyone’s strengths can be harnessed toward the creation of a more just society.