Integration versus segregation: the early struggle

✍ Scribed by Ian C. Copeland

• Book ID: 104470558
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 148 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1354-4187
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1468-3156.2001.00082.x

✦ Synopsis

Summary

This paper is concerned with the first educational provision for pupils in the UK who were considered dull, backward and defective towards the end of the nineteenth century. In 1870 and 1880, two Royal Commissions were established to examine the conditions prevalent in elementary education. Subsequently, the recommendations of a Royal Commission in 1889 and an Education Department Committee in 1899 concerning the education of blind, deaf and ‘exceptional’ children were ambiguous, and the foundations of these proposals were flawed. During this period, only seven out of the hundreds of school boards in the UK established classes for these pupils. All seven sets of classes were different in their own ways, but two provided a sharp contrast: one displayed the quintessential features of integrated provision, and the other those of separate, segregated education. For personal and ideological reasons, the model of segregated provision prevailed and dominated the future system.