Special education in the least restrictive environment: Mainstreaming or maindumping?

The New Zealand Draft Review of Special Education (Department of Education, 1987a) has provided a focal point for debate about the “mainstreaming” of students with special teaching needs. Such debate has not really taken place in New Zealand. Rather, mainstreaming has been adopted as policy on the grounds of social justice and equity. Little attention has been directed towards important psychological and educational outcomes of mainstreaming. This paper discusses such issues, and suggests that the psychological and educational benefits of mainstreaming are by no means unequivocal. Further, various instructional and organisational changes are seen as necessary for the “educational normalisation” of students with special needs. The placement of students with special needs into regular classrooms without changing the regular education system, and without providing professional support services is seen as “maindumping”. It is suggested that maindumping ought to be avoided by carefully developing specific educational and social goals for mainstreaming, and then ensuring that instructional and organisational changes are made in the mainstream to facilitate the educational normalisation of students with special needs.