Upper secondary students’ experiences of special needs support: Narratives of alienation and belonging

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Abstract

What does the provision of special educational needs actually mean to those concerned and how can their narratives be understood within perspectives of power and identity? This article reports an interview-study with upper secondary school students who have special needs. The empirical material is analyzed with a narrative approach and discussed within perspectives related to power and identity. The meanings and conceptualizations of special educational needs are complex and multifaceted. Grasping it from the participants themselves, with their unique experiences of special educational support, is thus a necessary condition. The results show that support demands much more than placement or special educational training. Teaching and learning must be provided with regards to relational aspects such as thrust and security, and accessible to everyone in a variety of local contexts. By exploring students’ accounts of special needs support, this study develops knowledge about special needs and support as intertwined in systems of power. Their experiences of inclusion and exclusion build identities of winners and losers. All in all, the results give insights to the importance of an understanding of treating each student with special needs as an individual subject/person (someone) and not as categorizing him/her as an object/ disability (something). A framework of relational, as well as existential pedagogy that creates spaces for senses of belonging, becoming and being, is central with regards to students’ special educational needs.