Professionals Under Pressure: the administration of special education in a changing context

This paper explores the role of professionals employed in the special education section of local education authorities (LEAs). Its examination of the political, cultural and financial contexts in which decision‐making occurs is illustrated by data collected in interviews with LEA personnel in five local authorities. The first section of the paper examines the nature and effects of professional control in special education. Depoliticisation, individualisation and a concentration on technical solutions are seen as the main outcomes of professional control. The second section of the paper analyses the discourses which underpin professional notions of special education. The paper argues that it is the nature of these discourses which renders special education vulnerable to incursions by recent public sector reforms; namely managerialism and the concomitant shift towards rule‐based decision‐making. It concludes that the dominant discourses in special education are ill‐equipped to penetrate beyond procedural issues and consider more fundamental questions about the future nature of education for all children.