Discourses of Learning Difficulty and the Conditions of School Development

This paper identifies and illustrates a common assumption found in a significant body of recent educational research concerned with restructuring schools to create more inclusive forms of provision; I call this assumption the 'consensus thesis'. Drawing on the findings of a detailed study of two English secondary schools where initiatives were under way to develop provision for students with difficulties in learning, I question whether the consensus thesis is capable of accounting for the processes which were found to be at work in these schools. The paper concludes by outlining an alternative theoretical framework which offers a more nuanced insight into the complex dynamics of the school development process.