A major concept in special education is "people first language." It connotes that the person's name should precede the disability. For example, it is unacceptable to say "an autistic child." It is more acceptable to say "a child with autism." However, some authors in the field question the need for using a label at…

John Dewey defines democracy as a form of associated living "in which the interests of a group are shared by all its members, and the fullness and freedom with which it interacts with other groups." Few would argue that people with disabilities have been among the most excluded, the least able to share in the fullness and freedom of "associated…

Researchers have studied the effects of disability labels on students from several angles, including labels as a basis of stigma and lower teacher expectations and the mitigating effects that labels can sometimes have--especially for students with dyslexia and high-functioning autism. Other research has looked at the behavior of disabled students,…

This qualitative case study, grounded in disability studies in education, explores the literacy development of an adolescent student, described by school officials as learning disabled and a non-reader. The researcher highlights how this student learned to connect to books based on an apprenticeship model. Additionally, the acknowledgement of the…

This article questions the dichotomous labeling and conceptualization of remedial and nonremedial students, particularly the added distinctions emphasized between four-year and two-year colleges, and it calls for a focus on the common challenges among all underprepared college students. The content of this article has attempted to broaden the…

This article presents a qualitative study of Israeli Jewish youth who self-identify as "religious-lite"--intended to uncover the reasons youth choose to define themselves using a non-institutionalized, somewhat dissonant identity label. Eighteen participants aged 22-29 were administered in-depth interviews regarding their deliberations…

Currently, there is a paucity of literature on stigmatization of adults with Asperger's Disorder (AD). Therefore, this study examined whether young adults hold stigmatizing views towards individuals with AD and if that stigmatization is elicited by behaviors or labels. College students (N = 195) read one of six vignettes. A modified Social…

Botswana's reading culture has captured the attention of reading experts in the country for more than two decades. The survey reported in this article involved 121 junior students (aged 12 to 15 years) from two private and two government-aided secondary schools. The results indicate that a majority of the students read during school holidays; that…

From an ethnographic case study of a state-funded residential school for the Deaf, the authors employed Critical Discourse Analysis to identify competing discourses in the talk of educators. These discourses are embedded in the historical oppression and labeling of deaf people as disabled and the development of Deaf culture as a counter-discourse.…

The purpose of this qualitative survey study was to explore the student performance expectations, classroom management and instructional practices, and related professional experiences and specialized training of Career Technical Education (CTE) instructors at a Regional Occupational Center in Southern California in order to learn more about how…

Three experiments (total N = 140) tested the hypothesis that 5-year-old children's membership in randomly assigned "minimal" groups would be sufficient to induce intergroup bias. Children were randomly assigned to groups and engaged in tasks involving judgments of unfamiliar in-group or out-group children. Despite an absence of information…

Jeremy Waldron, a professor of social and political theory at University of Oxford and also a professor of law at New York University, contends that laws against hate speech deserve further consideration, even if he doubts they "will ever pass constitutional muster in America." He contends that "The Harm in Hate Speech," as his…

The processes around the identification of special educational needs (SEN) should mean that those pupils who need most help receive it. However, there are concerns that this process is not working and there is an over-identification of pupils with SEN. Previous international research has shown that summer-born children are more likely to be…

Currently, somewhere in a rural American school sits an elementary-aged student who has been labeled by a teacher and his/her peers as the "Little Professor" according to the Asperger's Syndrome Coalition of the United States. The onset of Asperger's Syndrome is recognized and occurs later than what is typical of autism. A significant…

Background: An important element in the experiences of people with autism is the key role played by therapeutic interventions. This paper examines the role of therapeutic intervention and the construction of individuals with autism in the therapeutic relationship. Method: The contributions to four online asynchronous discussion lists were analysed…